Tucker and Danny had a longstanding tradition of blowing off everything in favor of impromptu road-trips when they were stressed out, and the first week of December after they turned twenty-one was no exception.

"Danny," Tuck said, breathing heavily on the phone as he paced around his room, "I need a road-trip, like…now."

"Tuck? It's like five in the morning, is everything okay?"

"Yes…no…maybe…rahh, just be ready when I come over in ten minutes."

Hanging up, Tucker packed his bags and threw them in the trunk of his car, the technology he'd been working on for the past few months rattling around in the back as he took off for Fenton Works. "C'mon, Fenton," he muttered as he pulled up to the familiar multi-story building for the millionth time, "get your ghostly butt in gear."

"I heard that, Foley," a voice beside him said as a weight settled in the back of his car, "and you better have a darn good reason for pulling me out of the bed before the sun." Sliding into the passenger seat, Danny Fenton ruffled his hair and yawned as the two of them pulled off into the early morning.

Now, as he leaned back beside his oldest friend going sixty down a dirt road, Tucker finally breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking back on the few years, he found himself smiling at the ways they'd grown. They weren't just the geeky guys from Capser High anymore; they were the young men of Amity Park, old enough to vote but young enough not to care.

Tucker had grown out of his awkward phase and now the rest of his body had finally caught up to his arms in proportion. Still wearing his now iconic red beret (not the same one he had at fourteen of course, bad combinations of wear-and-tear and lab explosions had actually cost him a few of them), he'd grown out his hair and now sported braids underneath. He wasn't scrawny anymore, but he wasn't as bulky as Danny had become. In fact, even though Tucker was now a solid six feet, Danny still had him beat by about four inches in the height department. Pile onto that all the mass he'd built and the grey sides he got from constant ghost fighting, and he looked more like his dad than he cared for anyone to admit.

"Okay, so right now I'm guessing you're wondering why I yanked you out of bed at this unholy hour, right?"

"Oh no, Tuck," Danny said, dropping a cd into the stereo to help him wake up, "I'm totally content with just hopping into a car at early-as-hell and for a road-trip going who-knows-where."

"Great, so long as you're good then."

Narrowing his eyes as he pressed play, Danny gave a small smile as he reclined his seat even more. "I hate you, Foley."

"No you don't."

"…alright, you got me."

Laughing as the music started, Tuck and Danny drove in silence for about half an hour. Once they were officially out of the city and Danny was sufficiently awake, they stopped at a twenty four hour gas station to get coffee for Tucker and a slushee and donuts for him.

"Sure you didn't wanna get some coffee," Tuck asked as the two of them leaned against the car, "y'know, like responsible adults are wont to do?"

"Well y'know," Danny said, slurping down his rainbow-colored frozen treat, "since us blowing off our jobs and schoolwork today and just taking off was already screaming 'responsible adults' in this scenario, I figured 'why overdo it'."

"Someone's feeling extra snarky this morning, isn't he?" Tucker said, taking another sip from his steaming cup.

"What can I say, it's like I have a superpower for it."

Standing in silence as the music thumped in the background, the two friends finished their drinks as they watched cows in the neighboring field grazing in the early morning sun.

"So," Danny began as he finished off the last of his morning slushee, "what's up, Tuck? Because I seriously doubt that you woke me up this early just to watch cows in a field."

"Alright, so you remember the last ghost you fought?"

"Yeah, Skulker, who for some reason is still trying to hunt me…less frequently though so that's something."

"Exactly." Tucker said, sliding into the car out of the cold December wind, "Danny, it's been seven years and you're still beating up the same old ghosts as before. So what does that say, really?"

"Uhh, that I'll always have job security?"

"Nah man," he said, chuckling as they continued on their journey, "it says that you can do better… or actually, we can do better."

Raising his eyebrow in skepticism, Danny looked over tuck and tried to read his face. "We?"

"Yeah…alright, so hear me out, I've been thinking; aside from Skulker and Box Lunch-"

"Eww still."

"Noted, now of all the ghosts you've dealt with in the last few months, how many of them actually had an actual plan or some motive besides being all floaty and stuff?"

"Y'know, now that I think about it, none that I can think of."

"Alright, now, how many of them have you just crammed inside the thermos as soon as you could?"

Staring forward as he thought back on the last few months between classes and actual work, Danny recounted his experiences and found that he'd done that to "…roughly all of them."

Pulling up to a red light, Tucker tapped his forehead and gave Danny a thumbs up. "Bingo."

"Okay, so maybe I could do better about not shoving ghosts directly into the Ghost Zone just so they can show up again in a few weeks, but you were saying something about a 'we.' We who? Sam's too busy trying for her degree in biological engineering, Valerie's helping me but she's got police commitments and they come first, you're off being a professional nerd, Jazz is just getting her psychologist business up and running, and Dani has a habit off taking off for days without letting us know where she's going. I mean sure, mom and dad are still inventing, but come on, they can't stay at this forever."

"So do you see where I'm going with this?" Tucker said, making an incredibly sharp turn at an intersection.

"No, but I see we're going about ten miles over the speed limit, you wanna slow down there, Speed Racer?"

"Whoops," he said, breaking to the legal speed, "guess I got a little excited."

Glancing at Tucker as the song began to change again, Danny noticed that he was wearing a lazy grin, the kind he wore when he was either planning something terribly devious… or insanely brilliant.

"You're planning something dumb, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"Tucker…."

"Alright, so you remember the Guys In White, right?"

"The neat freaks who wanted to dissect me, of course."

"Well, okay look don't be mad, but they've been looking at some of the tech I've been building lately-and- they may have offered me a job working for them."

There was a brief silence in the car as the temperature began creeping down, an aura of barely suppressed anger infecting the atmosphere. "Did you say yes?"

"…sort of."

"Sort of?!" Danny shouted as his eyes flashed ghostly green and the electronics in the car began to flicker, "You sort of agreed to help the freaks who spent three years hunting me?! Is that what this road-trip is?! A trap? What, are you turning me in as a part of you initiation or something? What next? Gonna go back and then gift wrap Dani for them too?"

"Crossing a line, dude." Tucker said as his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"Oh, you're right, Tuck, I am overrating to the news of my best friend working for a group of pencil pushing, soulless, corporate ghost hunting-"

"Danny," Tucker snapped, slamming on brakes in the middle of the nowhere, "dude, see this is why I called road-trip just now, because ever since you went off to college you're so closed off that you think I'm taking you into a trap. Really bro? We've been friends nearly all our lives. And do you honestly think this is how I'd kidnap you; a moving vehicle that you could just faze out of at any moment? C'mon man, give me a little credit."

Folding his hands across his chest, Danny stopped arguing and tried to calm down from the news he'd just received. "Okay, maybe I was, perhaps, a tiny bit out of line with the accusations, but come on man, even 'sort of' working for the G.I.W is… sketch… at best."

"Duh, which is why we worked out a system."

"Again with the 'we' man, what, do you get paid every time you're vague?"

"No, you star-butted moron," Tucker joked, referencing the glow-in-the -dark boxers he'd gotten Danny a few years ago as a prank, "when you wouldn't pick up, I called your mom and dad for advice on how to handle the situation: when they tell me to make something, I make it good enough to work but crappy enough so that it doesn't work well when they need it."

"Wow…" Danny said, putting the pieces together, "that's actually a solid plan."

"Shocking, isn't it?"

"Little bit, yeah."

"It gets better though." "Tuck said, his small grin evolving into full-fledged smile, "I'm starting my own thing with the money they're paying me for the inventions and I want you to help me out once I get started."

"What, seriously? Dude… that sounds awesome!" Danny said, excitedly rubbing his hands together. "Oh man, with you and my parents working together on ghost stuff we'll be unstoppable!"

"No," Tucker said as the open space of the country slowly began fading into a more urban setting, "you're still thinking small, man, you gotta go bigger. Think about it like this: wouldn't it be a lot easier on all of us if we could figure out why the ghosts keep showing up and how to make them stay gone? Danny, I'm not just starting a ghost hunting business, I'm starting an entire organization for people like us."

"People like us?"

"The ghost hunters tired of coming back to the same thing, the victims of random hauntings trying to find out what's happening, people who end up dealing with weird crap on a daily basis and can't get away from it… attacking the last seven years of our lives in a more functional way."

"Woah," Danny said, brushing his hands across the stubble that had begun to form on his chin, "you're really serious about this aren't you? Have you told any of the others about this?"

"Yeah man, I mean, Dani, Jazz and Sam think it's a good idea and even Valerie, Star, and Kwan all said that if I can make it work then they'd be down to help me, you're the only one who we couldn't get a hold of long enough to talk about it with."

"Oh," Danny whispered, the hurt in his voice showing at the news that he was one of the last to know what was going on in Tucker's life, "guess I really have been out of the loop lately, huh?"

Realizing that he'd unintentionally hurt his friend's feelings, Tucker felt a pang of guilt overtake him. "Dude, come on, you know it's not like that. You're busy at school, we know that. And this just happened about a week ago, so everyone decided it'd be best to hear this from me. I mean, seriously, how would this have sounded coming from anyone other than me? Even coming from Sam or Jazz it would have been messed up to hear."

Letting out a deep sigh, Danny straitened in his seat. Tucker was right. Now that everyone was either working or off at universities, it was hard for any of them to really stay in touch, ghost powers or not. Add into that the fact that his mutual breakup with Sam last year had caused him to be more aloof than usual over the last few months and he could see why he was a little bit out of touch. "Alright," he said, ruffling his hair the way he did when he was frustrated at someone else's logic being right, "so, you do this, this... Winchester… business of yours, cool. I take it everyone else is helping too and now I'm invited?"

"Winchester business?" Tucker asked, shaking his head as a smile danced on his lips. "Danny you giant freaking nerd, but for the most part, yeah. Jazz says she can help with the psychology of it, Sam and Valerie are both volunteering on the forensic side of things, Kwan'll be helping me in the lab and Star said she'll try to help out on the business side of things."

"Oh yeah," Danny said, recalling one of the last times they were all together, "she got her business degree early, didn't she?"

"Yeah, hard to believe after all the hell she gave us in high school how well it all worked out, isn't it?"

"True. How's her girlfriend doing anyway- Julia- I think her name was?"

"Yeah, and last I heard, they're doing pretty great." Tucker answered, grabbing a donut and a soda from the back seat. "You guys can catch up in a few weeks though, assuming you actually remember the Christmas party."

"Ugh, the Christmas party!" Danny yelled, smacking himself on the forehead in frustration. "I totally forgot to get presents for everyone!"

"Don't sweat it, man." Tucker said, patting his gigantic friend on the head as if he were a sad puppy, "You can shop when we get there."

Laughing, Danny swatted his hand away. "Alright, alright, and get where? Where exactly are we going?"

"Nah, no destinations man," Tuck explained as he wagged his sugar-coated finger at Danny, "you know that, road trip rules."

Slowly rekindling their stressed friendship with a few more hours on the road, the two of them began to feel fourteen again as the country-side zoomed past then. No responsibilities, no girlfriends with them, just two dudes relaxing with some embarrassing stories, beef jerky, and a whole heap of fast food and embarrassing pop music thrown into the mix.

"Alright then," Danny said after a while, slyly looking over to the driver's seat where Tucker was jamming out to 'The Show Goes On', "since you brought it up, does this mean, per road trip rules of course, that I can now ask you incredibly embarrassing details about your current relationship?"

Pausing mid-headbang, Tucker was silent for a moment before turning on Danny and whispering, "You wouldn't dare…"

"Wouldn't I, Tuck?" He began, turning down the volume of the music and clearing his throat with a devilish grin, "Wouldn't I?"

"Danny, don't you dare-"

"So what exactly are your intentions with Dani anyway? You guys have been going out for about a year now, exactly how serious are things? You know you're now under triple holiday stress now, right? I mean, you've got Christmas, New Year's Eve and an anniversary all wrapped into one. super. week."

For a moment there was just the faint hum of music as the two of them became completely silent, Tucker's eyes wide on the road. Then, the two of them burst out laughing, a flurry of chip particles and assorted crumbs rattling around them as they continued on their journey.

"Hahahaha, oh man, I missed this," Danny said, his eyes beginning to water at the side, "you just can't get this level of awkward with strangers at college."

"Oh yeah," Tucker responded, pausing to breath between his laughs, "it's good to have you back man."

"So that mean you gonna answer my questions?"

"Hahahahell no, we're here though if that makes you feel better."

"Aw," Danny said as he stepped out of the car and looked around, "you're no fun."

"Dude, please," Tucker replied, "I just gave you an awesome story about scamming government jerks, offered you a job with all of your friends and family, and if you look to your right you'll see that I've just brought you to the best burger place from Amity Park to New York. I'm Tons-o-fun Tuck, man!"

"New York? Is that where we are?" Danny asked as he stretched his incredibly long limbs. "Dude, you realize that this means we have to hit up Midtown Comics while we're here? I mean, it'd be a crime not to!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Tucker said, handing Danny a pair of black sunglasses as he lead them towards the smell of grilling meats, "hold onto to your orange and black there, buddy, this road-trip had a couple of purposes; I'm supposed to be meeting some guy named Arthur Spudinski at Midtown in a few hours anyway. So, until then, let's just enjoy some good old fashion American deliciousness, shall we?"

"Wow," Danny said, slinging his arm around Tuck and rubbing his head, "when did Tucker Foley get so cool?"

"I'm not," Tuck responded, struggling under the mass of full grown Fenton, "college just turned you so lame that in comparison, I look awesome."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he laughed "just shut up and buy me a burger, Techno-geek."