Jack Fenton's Son

by what-happened-2-nice

A/N: I don't own Danny Phantom. Long oneshot Reveal fic. Jack ain't as dumb as everyone think he are!

The wellspring of Fenton Weaponry ideas seemed ever-flowing. So why was he sitting here at the workbench, staring at the Gabber (version 8.7) as he had been doing for the last hour, with no clue what to do next? He sighed, pushing the broken device off to the side. Why did that keep happening, anyway? The whole situation was so unheard of that he had to spend another hour looking through the lab to find his Fenton Ecto-Identalizer, to identify and analyze any ectoplasmic traces inside him and be sure some sneaky ghost hadn't affected him when he wasn't looking. But no, that wasn't it. There was no sign of overshadowing or of excess ectoplasmic residue from last week's Franken-weenie attack. Man, those little guys were tasty. Mean, but delicious.

He looked back at the abandoned tools on his bench, but shook his head. There would be no concentrating on delicate solder connections until he figured out why he couldn't make his brain work. Okay, clear it out. He stretched, back popping, arms stiff overhead, and then slumped forward. He laid his hands flat against the tabletop, rolling his head right then left. And he stared down at the work surface between his gloves, vaguely focusing on a blob of ectoplasm that had missed the last cleaning.

Distracted, Jack started examining the stained bench, and thought about telling Danny to come down here and tidy up again. (Maybe he should invent a Fenton Ghost Goo-Be-Gone Cleaner for quick cleanup.) No, no, he had to concentrate and figure out why he wasn't able to concentrate. But… maybe that was it. Danny. His gut had tightened at the thought of his son, and not in a familiar, lacking fudge kind of way. So what was it about Danny was bothering him? Something wrong with Danny? Something wrong for Danny? Nothing like firsthand experience to know that being a Fenton was rarely easy. So… he decided to go with his gut, since it had seldom led him wrong before. Right now it was telling him to be overprotective, more so than usual. It was telling him that he needed to see Danny right away… and have a sandwich. So he compromised and made them both a sandwich.

The brief delay in the kitchen had his undefined anxiety trebling, so Jack burst into his son's room full speed, though he greeted him at normal volume (just short of ear-bleedingly loud). He blinked as he immediately noticed two things in his hyper-aware Jack Fenton Protection Mode. (Maybe he should invent a Fenton Moodisphere Sensor based on the empathic-sensing abilities of a feeding ghost so that he could immediately tell when someone in the family was troubled.) The first thing Jack noticed was that Danny seemed incredibly jumpy. Upon Jack's abrupt entrance, his son had rolled away from him, out of the chair where he'd been doing his homework and into a perfectly balanced fight stance. Odd, he didn't remember Maddie saying anything about giving Danny any more fight training. She'd had both kids go through basic hand-to-hand and general fitness when they were little, but that was years ago. Maybe it was like riding a bike and you never really forgot it. He could come back to that later. (Fenton Fight Simulation Room. Like Quasar Quest, the Next Generation! That would be awesome.) The second thing Jack noticed was that he was surprised that Danny was actually doing his homework. When had he become so resigned to Danny's lackluster grades that seeing him work to improve them would truly surprise him? (Fenton Schedule Planner, with ghost stickers.)

Danny shook off his surprise and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck, so Jack decided to play it like he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. He handed Danny the extra sandwich and asked him to come down and help out in the lab when he was done with his homework. Determined to solve this puzzle, he paid particular attention to Danny's expressions throughout their brief conversation. The boy would never be a poker player. Relief…why? It could be because he'd pretended not to notice the jumpiness. Gratitude, food was always welcome when you're a growing teenage boy… or a Fenton male. Relief again that his homework might actually get finished. Annoyance combined with… nervousness? when asked to help in the lab. Well, he could sympathize with that. The weapons did tend to malfunction around Danny, and it was a rare kid who actually enjoyed spending their free time doing chores, let alone doing them with their folks. Finally, resignation hastily covered with a crooked smile. He responded with a smile of his own. Danny really did try to please, even when he didn't particularly want to do something. He was definitely more considerate of Jack's feelings since the Wisconsin Ghost tried to steal the Portal. Jack knew that Danny didn't want to hurt his feelings and was making the effort. Jack clapped him firmly on the back, leaving Danny scrambling to save his sandwich from tumbling to the floor as he stumbled. Oops. (Fenton Know-your-own-strength Meter? Might be worthwhile.)

He retreated back to the lab to think about what he'd observed just now and the things he'd seen, but not noticed about his son in the weeks, (months?) leading up to this.

Danny was a good kid, helpful, generally agreeable. So why did he have mood swings and bouts of temper? It could be just a tough time with adolescence. He was pulling away from them, but didn't every kid at some point?

Danny was smart, though not as bright or as driven as his sister. Why was he having such a hard time with his schoolwork? He was always being given detention for skipping. Why couldn't Danny concentrate?

Danny was clumsy. He was always coming home with scrapes and bruises. He regularly tripped, slipped, and missed steps coming down the stairs. He'd been getting better lately, but… Again, that could just be the adolescence thing. But then, how did he explain that picture perfect tumble and fighting stance? He'd have to ask Maddie about it.

Danny was missing sleep, if the bags under his eyes and the reports of snoozing through classes were any indication. What was keeping him from sleeping at night? Not studying, that was for certain.

Danny was shy. He only had two close friends, but they repaid his loyalty with a fierce protectiveness that rivaled Jack's. Even Jazz had amped up her usual big sister routine, volunteering help and excuses where she might not have before. High school could be worse than a pool full of rabid piranha, but did that explain it all?

Danny was clueless. Jack could only shake his head and smile. That was probably a good thing. Even he could see that spooky girl was head over heels for his son. So the longer it took Danny to see that, the less time Jack would have to spend worrying about being a Grandfather too soon. Come to think of it, he should probably draft up another totally awkward father son chat about the birds and the bees.

Danny was… it came to him in a burst of illumination that usually heralded one of his inventions. (Hmm, Fenton Full Specter-um Illuminator?) Danny was hiding something.

Here he had to stop. He wasn't going to be one of those media-brainwashed idiots who sneak around spying on their own kids and trying to catch them in the act. Jack Fenton was nobody's idiot but his own. (Besides, if either Maddie or Jazz found out he'd never hear the end of it. (Fenton Spook Sneakers?)) Look at the facts. Thoughtful, but withdrawn. Smart, but failing academically. Clumsy, but strangely coordinated. Clueless, but…well, there really was no but there. Too smart to be involved in crime or drugs. Danny had some of the indicators, but Jack had heard him spout off on how stupid some of those lost children were being about their lives. No, neither of those couldn't be what he was hiding. Danny was moody, but never seemed the type to consider suicide. Jazz would have said something even if he and Maddie had missed the signs. Danny was too into those school girls (and Sam, even if he couldn't see it himself) to be gay-in-denial, though they'd love him all the same. Danny might be having trouble with bullies, and he was definitely too stubborn to seek outside help about it if that was the problem. Was that why his friends were overprotective? Danny was nervous about his parents' inventions and about the lab in general, but why...

Danny's sudden arrival in the lab startled him out of his thoughts, and he had to scramble for an explanation as to why he'd been staring at the wall. Jack noticed a shadow of bruise just above the neckline of the Danny's favorite ringer tee shirt. Had that been there before? They settled into a comfortable routine of work, Danny taking some of the delicate wiring that Jack had planned on asking Maddie to do later. Jack's thoughts continued to circle endlessly. What could it be?

He turned abruptly to his son, intending to question Danny directly about what was troubling him. Danny looked up at the sudden movement. And Jack saw it.

Ghost.

His heart stopped in his chest and he saw black for a moment. A blackness lit only with ghostly green eyes. He stood and grabbed Danny's shoulders, determined that no spook was going to make a meat puppet out of his boy. (Fenton Wraith Wringer and Fenton Ecto-treated Scalpels and Petri Dishes and Fenton Molecular Render and Fenton Mop for cleaning up afterwards.) But then, in the shadow of his looming form, that eerie glow disappeared. The eyes that looked up at Jack, though startled and very confused, were the same clear blue color that he'd cherished since Danny was born. He looked closer. Just Danny. So what…? Oh, the Portal was open. Its eerily paranormal light must have reflected in Danny's eyes until Jack obscured it with his own shadow. Looking closer he saw that the bruise he'd seen earlier must have been his imagination as well. There was no mark there now. He laughed and hugged his son tightly, reveling in the solid warmth of his boy, the warmth that no ghost could imitate. He laughed again as Danny squirmed and demanded to know what was going on and why Jack was being so affectionate all of a sudden.

Full of relief he explained he'd been about to ask Danny what was wrong, and how he'd briefly thought he'd seen a ghost in Danny's eyes. Silly, right? Jack felt his heart stop for the second time in as many minutes when he saw a flash of fear cross Danny's face behind the expected show of amusement.

No. No, no, no. He'd always thought Jazz was the ghost, not Danny, not his boy. Jack was so overwhelmed at that moment that he barely heard Danny's stilted denials of anything wrong, that he was just tired and stressed from school, but he could handle it, really. Jack turned away, nodding vaguely, to close the Portal and to hide his raising panic. He told himself not to jump to conclusions. He would not attack first, and ask questions later. He would be the scientist he always claimed to be and approach this rationally. Besides, keeping Danny safe was his first priority. Attacking his son in an attempt to drive out the spook that had overshadowed him might cause it to panic. Jack couldn't let that monster hurt Danny more than it already had. Smooth and stealthy was the only way. Jack fisted his hands in determination. He could do this.

And more than that, the fear he saw in Danny might just be a fear of ghosts or even a fear of having his father over react like he had with Jazz. Jack shuddered. No, he didn't want to spend one more minute in the Fenton Stockades than he had to. So he'd just have to avoid giving Maddie a reason to stuff him in there.

As casually as he could, Jack watched Danny finish his wiring and asked him to move on to cleaning the bench. Then he collected the Fenton Ecto-Identalizer, the Gabber, and an armload of other random junk and moved to the other side of the lab to observe and plan. He disabled the audio on the Ecto-Identalizer, calibrated it against himself and the readings he'd made earlier, and turned just enough to bring Danny into scanning range. He continued to fiddle and poke with his micro-driver to disguise what he was doing. Danny continued to scrub and generally straighten the other side of the lab, not exhibiting any out of the ordinary behaviors. Power on- check, calibrated- check, scanning- check, and now the results rolled onto the display screen. Subject: Human. Jack cut loose with an enormous sigh of relief, until the results kept scrolling to read Ectoplasmic Power Rating: Class 7.2. Energy levels: Stable. Inactive. Identity: Error. He dropped the Identalizer and watched it clatter across the floor to Danny's feet while the screwdriver rolled under the table. Danny cracked a joke about being clumsy that Jack didn't hear. Nothing about those readings made sense! Jack looked up at Danny as he returned the now broken meter. Jack muttered something about the darned thing being glitchy, to which Danny replied that a little extra fixing wouldn't matter then. When Jack couldn't reach the escaped screwdriver, Danny offered to scramble after it while Jack lifted the table.

If Danny was a ghost, the analyzer should have read Ghost. If he'd been overshadowed, the analyzer should have read Overshadowed Human, followed by the power class of the inhabiting ghost. If Danny had simply been contaminated with a bit of ectoplasm, like from a mutant turkey or earlier overshadowing, it would have read Human with a Power Rating of 'Trace' followed by a prompt to analyze decay rates of residual ectoplasm yes/no. No healthy human could have a stable energy level, let alone one that was higher than CLASS 7! Furthermore, Stable energies (due to a conscious ghost influence inside a human subject) were never simply Inactive. They had to be Active in order for the ghost to accomplish the act of overshadowing! And finally, Error wasn't even an option for Identity. Known specters were programmed into the database after their first detection, and the Identalizer would list the dates of all previous encounters. Unknown specters were named as such, and would proceed to record the ghost's vitals. They had never programmed in any other result. An ectoplasmic signature was either known or unknown. Period. Jack moved the hand massaging the back of his neck to probe his scalp. Nope, no unexplained lumps or bumps. Darn, head trauma would have made this so much easier to explain away. He returned to his repairs while Danny finished up the lab. The readings had to be wrong. They had to be.

Each time, they read the same.

Finally he gutted the Ecto-Identalizer entirely, turning it into a broad scan reader rather than a point and shoot. That way he could keep it on him at all times to record the readings of all the ectoplasmic entities around him, rather than just those he pointed it at. When they heard Maddie upstairs rummaging around in the kitchen, Jack suggested that they call it quits for the day. The smell of fresh baked cookies sealed the deal and sent them both hurrying upstairs. Danny didn't notice the rough finished device in his father's hand, wires exposed and circuitry carelessly clamped together until he could find a properly sized casing to house it in. Jack continued to tinker with it through dinner. Human, Class7.2, Stable, Inactive, Error. He spliced in a coded transmitter with one hand as he ate his drumstick with the other. People can't have ghost powers. He reassured his wife that nothing was wrong when she expressed concern over his unusual silence. He just had to get this… It was impossible. He decided on an inconspicuous shoebox to temporarily house the device. Why did he feel so guilty for trying to protect his son? But those readings…

He watched his son shiver and gasp, shooting a glance over towards his sister. He listened to Danny ask to be excused, and heard Jazz quickly change the topic of conversation to draw their attention away from his quick exit. He read the screen. Human, Class 7.2, Stable, 4% Active, Error. And that couldn't be right either, it should have been all or nothing. He had to know. He took advantage of his son's absence to creep into Danny's room undetected. Taking advantage, creeping spy. He turned on the transmitter for the device. He could name it later. He secured it in an empty shoe box. He was helping his son. And he slid it under the bed. It felt wrong.

Then Jack retreated to the living room with a printout of the Weapons Locker inventory. He attempted to distract himself with categorizing and subcategorizing: Weapon, Transportation, Meter/Reader, Translation, Capture, Extraction, Dissection… He rated them: harmful to humans, scale 1 to 10. He looked up at the clock and waited for his son to come home. He looked at the list again as his son limped in through the door, never allowing his left side into their line of sight before he retreated up to his room, followed closely by a suddenly 'exhausted' Jazz. She knew. Jack rated them: harmful to ghosts, scale 1 to 10.

He took a brief detour down to the lab, entering his password into the computer to access his private files. He set the tracking program to accept signal from transmitter 29188, timestamp record, and cross-reference to existing ghost files. And he resolved not to look until morning, heading upstairs to join Maddie and get ready for bed. It was going to be a long night. Maybe he was a media brainwashed idiot after all, spying on his own son.

Jack lay sleepless through the spinning night, gazing unseeing at the ceiling above. His son. What the hell was going on with his son? How long had Danny been carrying this secret, whatever it meant? Mood swings and bouts of temper. Trouble concentrating and skipping out on his responsibilities. Clumsy, and injured on a regular basis. Unrested. Withdrawn. And all of it revolved around this secret. A secret Jazz knew and was supporting. A secret his friends undoubtedly knew, and fiercely protected. How long?

How long had he been a negligent father? Missing something like this? Jack Fenton, missing anything ghost related? Human with ghostly energies stored passively inside. Human with ghostly power partially activated. A hidden something and he only clued into it because of an eerie green reflection from the Ghost Portal and a flash of fear. Jack's entire night passed haunted by those familiar eyes, green eyes, an impossible secret, and the Portal.

Jack stumbled downstairs to the kitchen come morning to see a Danny that looked as bad as he felt himself. Although he no longer limped or favored his side, dark bags lay heavily beneath Danny's eyes and he actually ate two slices of hated toast without noticing. (They really could use Fenton Sleepytime Brain Wave Monitors.) When Maddie expressed concern over their state, two hands rose simultaneously to rub at the back of two necks and two mumbled excuses of just couldn't sleep spilled forward. Jack found it within himself to crack a grin at the concurrent quirks. Danny was busy yawning. Familiar green eyes, ghost power, and the Portal echoed through his head, quite outside of his control as he watched Danny leave for school. He struggled to manage a fair imitation of his usual gusto when he announced that he was going down to the lab.

Jack tipped out a random box of junk across his workspace so he would look busy when Maddie joined him to work on their weapons. But then he decided he couldn't wait any longer. Jack accessed the files. Last night, before he snuck the monitor into Danny's room, it had registered a 4% activation of the energies within him. He still felt horrible about the sneaking. He pulled up the first entry, time stamped just before Danny's curfew, just after he slipped inside the house hiding injuries.

Human, Class7.2, Stable, 19% Active, Error.

The power activation level fell steadily over the next couple of hours until it registered a sudden spike near midnight. That spike, an exact 4% over the reading moments earlier, was followed by full activation. The power levels surged rapidly to 100% and a reading of Active.

Error, Class 7.2, Stable, Active, Cross-reference now? Y/N

The error message mocked him from its new location, causing Jack to frown heavily. There should be no errors. Known or Unknown, Human or Ghost, the error had to be an error. Stupid meter. Jack punched angrily at the N key, reading through the rest of the entries. The full activation was followed by an out of range notification, meaning Danny had left the house. Strange, Jack had been awake all night and hadn't heard a thing. Shouldn't a boy as clumsy as Danny have tripped or dropped something, at least once? He returned 45 minutes later, reversed the activation level of his energies back down to about 17%. This time there was a second energy signature with him. Subject: Ghost, Ectoplasmic Power Rating: Class 4.9, Energy levels: Stable. Neutralized. Identity: Unknown, recording. A second ghost? And neutralized meant it had been trapped in one of their containment devices. Which one? The signals went out of range, Danny returned to his room alone, and hopefully went to bed.

Subject: Ghost, Ectoplasmic Power Rating: Class 5.7, Energy levels: Stable. Neutralized. Identity: Unknown, recording.

Subject: Ghost, Ectoplasmic Power Rating: Class 2.1, Energy levels: Stable. Neutralized. Identity: Known, Ghost147.

Unfortunately the pattern repeated itself twice more during the night, once at around 2:30a and again just before dawn. Each time he had that spike, powered up to 100%, moved out of range, and came back again accompanied by a neutralized ghost. What was he doing with them? And which ones…? They hadn't had a chance to aim the Fenton Ecto-Identalizer at too many specters. Most of them were low level, unfocused manifestations, ghost animals or formless blobs. The 4.9 and the 5.7 were worrisome, even if Danny had managed to capture them somehow. How had he done that? The final signature was too familiar. Ghost 147 was that chubby blue one with the box fixation. Just thinking of him brought a chuckle out of Jack, no threat there. Danny'd even managed to come back within 15 minutes on that one. But three ghosts? No wonder the boy had looked so wiped out this morning. An accompanying smile crossed Maddie's face where she was subtly keeping an eye on him from across the lab. She relaxed and turned back to her work; Jack was fine.

Jack pulled up the Portal logs for the previous night. Sure enough, the doors had remained sealed, but three deposits had been made in the missing minutes after each of Danny's returns to the house. And by morning, that low percentage of activation had fallen to zero again. Jack thought. What was going on with the energies that would cause a partial activation with slow decay? The spike preceded full activation. What caused it? Danny apparently went out and neutralized the other ghosts, brought them home, and dumped them back into the Ghost Zone. Was the spike indicative of a ecto-sympathetic sixth sense? A ghost sense? (Fenton Ghost Radar with Surround Sound. He wondered what Danny's range was?) Wait, what was he thinking? He had to figure this out and then figure out how to fix it! He closed down the log with a glare towards the Portal. It all came back to that. Everything came back to the Portal. Jack was about to head over to his workbench when he remembered that he'd never checked Danny's cross reference into the main system logs. That meant they'd never been close enough to aim the Fenton Ecto-Identalizer at him, but there might be a matching ectosignature in their files somewhere. Sure enough there was a match. He opened the file.

Phantom, a.k.a. Inviso-Bill.

Jack's last thought as he passed out was that it couldn't be a good thing to feel your heart stop in your chest this many times in less than 24 hours.

He woke to see Maddie hovering over him, and agreed a quick trip to the E.R. wouldn't be a bad idea. Maddie left a quick note for the kids in case they were gone longer than expected and rushed him over to the hospital. Though Jack knew the cause of his black out, he simply listed the symptoms he'd felt at the time: hadn't been able to sleep, lightheaded, darkening vision, a sudden inability to breathe. The doctors could assume whatever they wanted. No one was going near his boy until he figured this out. He compliantly sat through a battery of heart tests, blood panels, and various other undignified proddings, his mind falling into a numb stupor. What should he do? The white coats returned with gibbering words of slightly elevated blood pressure and moderately concerning cholesterol counts, the need for a diet and other nonsense. They'd found nothing, obviously. Jack barely listened; Maddie would keep track of it all. What should he do? They told him to go home and take it easy for a while. He meekly agreed to an appointment the day after next in order to undergo more thorough testing. They probably wouldn't find anything then, either, but since he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a non-emergency related checkup, (concussions, burns, or breaks, Jack was a regular at Amity Hospital) he thought it couldn't hurt. What should he do?

They returned to the house just as the kids were getting home from school, but Jack couldn't look them in the eyes. He retreated to the lab, leaning over the workstation, head in hands trying desperately to find something to take his mind off of his discovery. He moved his hands across the cluttered surface, picking up parts at random and sticking them together. He snapped out of his stupor when the whatever it was he held in his hands shocked a yelp out of him. Maddie was at his side instantly. Was he okay, what happened? Just a shock. What was he building, what was it supposed to do? No clue. He hadn't had any ideas for inventions for the last couple of days. Jack looked directly into Maddie's eyes and told her as much as he was able to explain. He just didn't know what to do. Of course, she thought he was speaking about his health worries or his inability to invent. He decided to leave it at that as she banned him from the lab for the rest of the day. The one thing he did know was that he couldn't tell her. Danny was her favorite, always had been. If he wasn't ready for this, she'd be even worse. He'd just have to figure this out himself, collect all the data, and solidify a theory before he went to her. Then they could figure out how to fix it together. He accepted an armload of old-blueprints in the hope of new inspiration as she shooed him upstairs.

Jack sat at the desk in his rarely used office just off the living room. Nope, boring, not interested, he flipped through the various schematics. Finally he came across the blueprints for the Portal. It had started yesterday with the Portal. Everything started at the Portal, he realized. The ghosts, Danny's odd behavior, and that damned unwelcome discovery that everything he knew was wrong. He scanned the prints until Danny left the house roughly an hour later. Jack knew the exit was preceded by a 4% spike, and used the opportunity to remove the gutted Identalizer from under Danny's bed. He would splice it into the house systems for more power and a broader range. He didn't know what to do, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to be doing this. Jack completed the wiring and returned to the blueprints. And he saw it. They told him that Danny had been outside the Portal when it powered up. All three of them had assured him that it had just been a little shock. Both he and Maddie had been so excited that the thing was finally working they didn't question either the story or the delayed activation of the Portal itself. The ON button was on the inside.

Jack came to a complete halt. He sat there unmoving, unthinking for four hours, vaguely aware of his concerned family checking in on him from time to time. Maddie came in hourly. Jazz stopped in twice, trying to get him to talk it out. Danny came in once and shuffled uncomfortably as he suggested a fishing trip or something the coming weekend. And, Jack realized, Danny came in again, unseen and silent with an attending chill to the air and a feeling of being watched. Just before eleven, Jack stirred. He dug through the closet until he found their old camcorder. He replaced the lens with one of the optics from his jumpsuit's hood, wired the whole mess together, and hid it in his room, facing his spot on the bed just before Maddie came in. Jack accepted the sleeping pill she handed him, knocking it back dry without a word. He didn't want to think anymore tonight. He'd done this to his boy.

In the morning he saw his children off to school again and retreated to the lab to review the logs for a second time. Danny had another interrupted night, but hopefully he'd gotten a few hours of sleep since there had only been one neutralized ghost deposited back into the Ghost Zone. (Fenton Sleep Aid.) Jack cued up the video recording and scanned forward to the part of the tape that corresponded to Danny's return last night. The image was a little blurred from being filtered through the ecto-detecting eyepiece from the suit, but there it was. Sure enough, Danny dumped the latest unidentified spook, came back upstairs, and slipped invisibly into their room to look over Jack as he slept. The hazy features of Danny's invisible face were worried. He stood over the bed for a couple of minutes before seeming to think of something upsetting. His worried frown became an angered, determined one and Jack watched the recorded form flicker as Danny passed a hand intangibly through his own sleeping form. Human, Class 7.2, Stable, 50% Active, Error. Hmm, invisibility, intangibility, ghost sense, and whatever it was that fell off slowly through the night. Residual charge? More powers equated to more activation. He watched the image of himself shiver a bit and shift while Danny lost his anger to confusion and a worry even stronger than before. Why intangibility? The answer came quickly to Jack. Danny was looking for something inside his father. He was checking to see if Jack was overshadowed and he did it using his own powers.

The invisible Danny wrapped his arms tightly around himself and retreated to his own room. Danny had access to actual ghost powers while he was human… while he was human, Jack thought. Danny was worried. Danny was a good kid, helpful, generally agreeable. Danny was smart, though not as bright or as driven as his sister. Danny was clumsy. Danny was missing sleep. Danny was shy. Danny was clueless. Jack revived enough to smile at the thought. Danny was worried about his father, and it showed more than any worry about this secret hiding he'd been doing for so long now. (Fenton Ecto-Signature Signal Scrambler.)

Jack found a sudden resolution. He didn't know what to do, but he knew what he needed. He needed more information. Danny was showing and had been showing a full range of human emotions all along. He knew Danny was a decent kid, his gut had just told him that Danny was human, and now all he needed was the proof to back that all up. He needed explanations for all of the things Phantom had been accused of doing. (Fenton / Phantom, ha! That's great! Fenton Alter Ego Name Generator.) A quick question to Maddie about coming up with some kind of digital image analyzer won him an embarrassed look. What? She opened up a hidden compartment in the wall to show him a whole bunch of inventions he'd never seen before. Wow! This was awesome! He stunned his wife with a hearty kiss and a proclamation about being the luckiest guy in the world. Relieved that he wasn't upset about her inventing items behind his back, she handed over the Maddie M.I.A.A. ( Media Image Apparition Analyzer). Jack took his prize upstairs while she cheerfully got to work on her own inventions. He laughed when he was out of hearing range. Where had she come up with such a silly name for a simple image analysis invention?

Jack spent the rest of the day going over their extensive catalog of Public-enemy Number One related photos and video. (That would have to be changed as soon as possible. Fenton Public Image Enhancer?) Most of the images involved Phantom in combat with other ghosts. His boy was ghost fighting. Jack winced when he finally saw some of the hits Danny was taking out there. (Fenton First Aid and Triage Station, fully equipped down in the lab.) That slowly declining activation level through the night had to be healing powers. (So awesome! Fenton Biometric Scanner.) Not even Jack could have missed the extensive scarring Danny should have had without some kind of healing factor. There was some kind of ghost hazing the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle back when they thought Danny was crazy. Its form was unclear, but it was there. The Mayor had been overshadowed and was holding onto Danny, not the other way around. Everything had been possessed by some kind of ghost energy on Halloween. Danny had surrendered himself to his own father during the million dollar bounty thing. What was he thinking with that? He could have been… but he hadn't. They'd worked together, very well, to save their family from the Wisconsin Ghost. Jack smacked his face as he thought of all of Phantom's verbal stumbles. We're both idiots, he thought. Something weird had been going on with that circus guy's staff, when Danny had been acting out and Phantom had been stealing. The kids had tried to tell him that the Ringleader had been controlling the ghosts and forcing them to commit those crimes. Controlling his son! (Fenton Anti-Mind Control Sweatband.) All those kids from Danny's High School probably did have ghost powers that time they were quarantined. He didn't see how they would be stable, though. Phantom …Danny, had saved them from the hypnotic pirate ship. Danny had taken the incredibly dangerous Fenton Ecto-Skeleton and saved the whole town from that ghost king. No wonder he was so tired afterwards. Good old Vladdie for finding him and bringing him safely home. He couldn't explain two Dannys when the RV and house had been possessed by that electric ghost, but he added it to the list of questions to ask later. Danny'd saved the day there too. Danny hated his parents' annual Christmas debate, but not enough to ruin the holiday for everyone. And he'd cheered up towards the end there… just before everything was set right. There was so much to review that Jack went to bed exhausted, not even needing the prescribed sleep aid to fall into deep, dreamless sleep.

Jack spent the morning before his appointment going over equations for Portal power levels and stable ghost energies at each Class level. Oh, how he hated math. He'd have to have Maddie check his figures once he managed to think of how to break this to her. He filed all of his findings with the Portal logs, Identalizer readings, and other information in a triple secured folder in his private files labeled simply, D.J.F.. And Jack thought. When he was sneaking around, spying on his son, he'd felt awful. When he was feeling protective of Danny, when he was looking for ways to help him the ideas for new inventions came to him left and right. He should trust the gut, since it had seldom led him wrong before. But what should he do? He realized… Danny was the most versatile and powerful ghost fighting weapon he'd ever created, intentional or not. And he had no idea what to do about it.

When Danny came home from school, he found Jack sitting in a brown study on the living room couch, blueprints and much scribbled over inventory list littered the table before him. Jack was wondering why Danny's last Identalizer reading early this morning had shown a 'Energy levels: Unstable' status with a negative decay rate. Double negative made positive, didn't it? Power growth. Was he getting a new power or just getting stronger? Danny sat tentatively next to his father, rummaging through his backpack until he found a box. He presented it to Jack with a little mumble about diets and sugar substitute, just in case the doctors said he was diabetic or something. Jack turned slowly to Danny, finding him holding a box of freshly made fudge. Danny looked up at him. And Jack saw it.

His son, who was making an effort to help, even if he could only do so with a dietetic imitation of his father's favorite confection.

Jack's heart swelled in his chest and he smiled broadly. Fudge wouldn't fix everything, but it was certainly a good start. He leaned over and grabbed Danny's shoulders in a bone creaking hug, determined that no one whatsoever was going to take advantage of his boy. He knew what to do. Jack glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Maddie wasn't watching from the kitchen and shared a large chunk of the fudge with Danny, before hiding the box. Sugar-free didn't mean healthy, it just meant healthier, and the doctors had spouted some garbage about dieting. He held a finger across his smiling lips as they finished the treat. Shh. He knew what to do.

Nothing had changed from a few days ago to this moment except him knowing. He didn't have to do anything, but there was plenty he would do, or his name wasn't Jack Fenton! He would keep Danny's secret as long as he could, though Maddie would have to be told soon. Jack looked at the blueprints. He would invent things to help Danny, so he didn't lose sleep and come home injured every day. Jack looked at his copy of the Weapons Locker inventory. And he would start by modifying or re-vamping all of their existing inventions so they would be able to identify Danny. So they wouldn't hurt him. Jack wouldn't hurt Danny more than he already had. By dinner Jack was back to his usual buoyant self, announcing his plans to re-tool everything before going on an invention spree the likes of which Fenton Works had never seen before. Maddie was relieved and proud, enthusiastic to begin. Jazz and Danny were relieved and slightly worried. Jack laughed, they'd figure it out soon enough. Everything was going to be okay. He'd make sure of it. He couldn't wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

A/N: Got the idea from Bluegoo's 17th challenge topic, Weapons, and the idea just above that Danny was the most successful weapon the Fentons had ever created. Then it just wouldn't stop writing itself! I was determined not to post a 7,000+ word oneshot in my Minutiae collection, so I split it between chapter 37 there and this fic. B.T.W. it's unbelievably hard to come up with all of these invention titles. Props to Hartman and company for keeping that up for three seasons. I'm exhausted. Also, notice how Jack just stops listening whenever he's thinking of something he finds more interesting? Tsk.