Danny could barely walk straight. The ground swirled and his head spun.

"Are you ok?" Jazz asked as Danny stumbled through the front door. Danny tried to answer but the confusing pain in his head just hurt so much he couldn't manage to from all of his words correctly. All Jazz heard was a mumble, and somewhere in it the words sounded like "fine... bad fight..." Jazz had to catch Danny as he managed to trip over the tile that marked the start of the kitchen.

"You aren't fine, Danny." She wrapped an arm around him and led him towards the stairs. Danny knew there was no way he could manage the steps, and shrugged out of his sister's caring embrace. Besides, he knew where he needed -wanted- to be.

"Leave me alone." He grumbled and walked back into the kitchen. This time he managed to step over the beginning of the tile and made his way towards the basement door.

"Mom and Dad aren't home." Jazz reminded with a hint of concern.

"I was counting on that."

He held the railing in a death grip as the world seemed to pitch downwards. Even though everything sounded like it was underwater, Jazz's soft steps behind him could be heard. "She just won't give up. All I want is some peace." Danny thought as he made it onto flat ground. Spontaneous green glows lined the walls beside him, but the only thing Danny was focused on was the swirling vortex at the other end. But Jazz was persistent.

"Where are you going? You're in no shape to go into the Ghost Zone." His condition was actually the reason why Danny was going where he was.

"I need peace and quiet. Why don't you understand that?" Danny snapped. Jazz looked like she had just swallowed a lemon.

"Fine." She exasperated. "Do what you want. I just wanted to help." She turned her back and stomped back up to the stairs. But even in her anger, she looked back at Danny before ascending.

In the back of his mind, Danny knew he shouldn't've done that, but he continued on his way. The sounds of the youngest Fenton's steps stopped right before he tumbled into the glowing, swirling, ever-changing mass of green and black swirls that made up the link between Earth and the Ghost Zone. Danny took a deep breath and summoned all of the energy he could to form the familiar white rings that he loved so much. The cool feeling the light brought spread over him. The cold was welcoming, like walking in front of a fireplace after a snowball fight. Now in Danny Fenton's place stood Danny Phantom, the ghostly hero of Amity Park.

This other Danny took an unnecessary breath and stepped forward into the portal. The feeling of vertigo was washed away as he opened his eyes. After all, here there was no gravity to have to keep balance to, and he need not worry about the ground swirling beneath him, as here it would do so no matter what. Danny let out his breath. A blue mist came out along with it. Normally that mist, labeled Danny's "Ghost Sense" would cause Danny's, albeit already low, heart rate to increase, but here in the GZ, he would be more worried if it didn't go off. Danny propelled himself forward effortlessly through the thick "air?" Although the prospect of just drifting through empty space was appealing, Danny had somewhere he wanted to go that drew his attention even more.

And so Danny drifted past door upon door until he reached one that had a faint, small snowflake encircled by what seemed to be a hoolahoop, on the door itself and a small, engraved DF on the handle. Danny pulled on it and the chill that met him at the threshold was amazing. Danny floated in and shut the door behind him. He let go of his flight and drifted down until he settled upon what seemed to be a snowbank, but in reality was a white, fluffy blanket atop a king size bed. Danny Phantom reverted to Fenton and settled himself upon the bed. His head still spun, but the comfort of being in his own space led his eyes to droop. Danny knew it wasn't good to sleep after you've hit your head, but he couldn't help it. He was in his own safe-space, his lair.

Danny had restful dreams. And while he did, he let his body heal. All of his pain melted away and he eventually drifted further, and further, until he was rudely awoken.

"Danny?... Wake up!" The feminine voice ordered. When he didn't respond the voice's owner started shaking his shoulder. "Get up you-you teenager!" That was an insult if Danny'd ever heard one.

"What do you want?" He grumbled and looked over his shoulder. He also found it odd that he'd rolled over in his sleep. he didn't think he did that. It was odd to think that people did tons of things that they'd never notice, or wouldn't notice until it was pointed out. He then found that the owner of the voice was indeed a girl, and had a very familiar face.

"Danielle?! What are you doing here?" He sprung into a sitting position and pulled his blanket up to his neck, before realizing he was still wearing his normal, albeit unusually dirty, clothes, not his "pajamas."

"Where is "here?" Danielle air-quoted.

"What do you mean?"

In his half-asleep, fifteen-year-old daze Danny forgot that he hadn't known what a lair was until a little while ago. He rubbed his eyes and finally looked around. Everything was a mess. Gone were the lazily-drifting snowflakes, and now the entire expanse of the world seemed to be a desert in a blizzard of neon cotton balls. Danny panicked at the sudden color and everything around his bed, which was oddly exactly the same as he'd left it, froze.

"What did you do?" Danielle asked. She seemed panicked.

"Calm down. I'll explain." Danny urged her. And so he did. Danielle sat down next to him on the bed and listened with rapt attention. Danny allowed himself a moment to rub his dully-aching head before he lent out a much-needed explanation.

"So you came through the door, yes?" Danny asked. The gender-bent clone nodded. "This is my, or it seems, our, lair. I don't know how exactly it is "ours," but a lair is a place where someone, namely a ghost, can have a place where they can change everything and anything they want. It's like a video game but the world is created as you go along."

"Huh. Cool." Dani replied.

"But that doesn't explain why you're in a bed looking like you just woke up from a hangover." She snickered.

"Hah. That'd probably be better than a headache I have right now. But I don't know what that feels like and neither should you." Danny glared at the girl who was, if Danny was going by the age Dani looked, not how long she'd been alive, only about thirteen. And under the legal drinking age of every country, he could think of except Germany. He was pretty sure they were very 'lax about alcohol.

"Overprotective much? It's just a joke. But still, why do you look so bad?" Dani pushed for more details on what she most likely hoped was some drama. Living alone and traveling the world was probably pretty boring.

"I just had a bad fight. Came here to recover." Danielle looked a bit disappointed at Danny's response. She'd probably been hoping more something more "world-in-peril-y."

"Oh. Well. I gotta go, but do you mind if I stop in here every once in a while?" Danielle sputtered out. She looked over her shoulder at the door that floated in the air for a moment before looking back to Danny for his answer.

"It's your space too. Just try not to change the snowflakes into neon cotton balls again." The world suddenly turned white and the sand seemed to melt away, replaced by piles of snow.

"Cousin's honor." Danielle winked and flew up to meet the door, her black glove contrasting against the silver metal.

Danny collapsed back into the softness of his bed. Explanations were hard when you had a splitting headache. But something nagged at him. How had Dani appeared so suddenly, and why did she disappear so fast? He shrugged it off -OW his shoulder still hurt- and closed his eyes again. Some mysteries could only be dealt with until one was in proper health. Danny barely remembered to create an alarm set to go off ten minutes before his curfew before nodding off again.

As Danny drifted peacefully off into the world of dreams, a much more malicious entity lies just outside of the silver, newly-marked door. The human-figured entity wore a flowing black cloak that covered almost all of his back except a pair of black, glossy wings that were currently folded in wait. Amidst the black a small, embroidered X was nestled into the fabric of the entity's red striped top-hat. This was going to be fun.