The sky breathed a husky blue that contrasted the fluffy muted signatures of the clouds; the more majestic of the crop of buildings the town offered boasted against the powerful skyline. The unfamiliar terms of normalcy had settled like a dusk on inhabitants, who had, after a good deal of experience, come to terms with what such a sense of peace brought- something bigger to shatter it. Normal was thrown around loosely, long uprooted from the origins of its meaning in a town where a daily occurrence or an uneventful evening consisted of avoiding your dead mother-in-law or accidentally hooking up with a Plague victim. 'Normal", it seemed, actually contested its definition with its opposite; normal meant an uncomfortable ease where the games of tag played between the wind and tree branches at night brought about a sense of routine and reassurance that the world, or any scheming alternate universes, were about to play upon the silence to make a bomb sound louder. And indeed, this irregular treat tasted like poison.

"Aren't you bored?"

I flicked my eyes from his paddle-ball to Sam, who let her eyebrow cock as an indication of her utter lack of amusement.

'Nope." Tucker answered for me as his face fixed intensely on a new PDA application. He was working on for 'the betterment of all mankind'….which usually entailed a mechanism that scoped through the door of the girls locker room since I couldn't be persuaded into doing it for him.

Sam rolled her eyes and snatched the game from my hands, which methodically repeated the motions it had been forced to perform for the last hour. I noticed, boredly, the absence of my amusement, I shifted my head lazily to look at her, before letting an unintelligible slur mumble out.

Tucker sat up, his set mouth betraying his failure. "That's not even a real game, dude."

I ignored him and dropped my eyes, relaxation allowing the arm I propped my head on to become intangible and resulted in a round of making out with the floor.

"We haven't seen a ghost in two days!" I said as I clumsily dusted off my pants before falling back on the bed. "I'm not one to complain about an easier workload but.."

"It's weird." Sam finished plainly, moulding a strand of hair aimlessly in her fingers.

"Yea. This is never a good sign." I watched Sam and then Tucker, and continued as I wasn't granted with any kind of response.

"I wouldn't mind it if we had something else to do."

"What about that book report due Monday?"

I rolled his eyes. "I mean something important."

Sam snorted. "You fight ghosts without breaking a sweat, your entire family consists totally of geniuses, even you, and yet you don't have the dicsapline to put any effort into school."

I smirked, focusing on Sam folding her arms in frustration. "In my defense, ghosts don't sweat."

"Speak for yourself. Have you smelled that suit?" Tucker, who had turned his full attention back to his PDA, didn't even take his eyes off his task to insult me.

"Danny? Are you up there?"

"Yeah, mom! What's up?"

There was a pause before she spoke again. "Can you come down here for a minute?"

Sam and I turned to look at each other.

My parents, much as they cared, weren't the sit down and talk type, Jazz had taken up that position. The only time I was ever called into conversation was to either have mom show me a new ghost weapon (which she always figured was defective after it reacted to me), or another Talk, capitalized but not capitalized on.

"What about Sam and Tucker?"

Another pause. "I think they should go home sweetie."

Now I was breaking into a cold sweat, and I heard my heart threaten to speed up. Sam and Tucker practically lived here, and they had never been sent home by my parents, not even when we were kids hellbent on destroying equipment. This was not gonna be fun, and definitely not something I was going to want to face alone.

I looked up when I felt a clasp on my shoulder to see Sam. She smiled wordlessly with concern and dragged Tucker out of the room, face still glued to his perverted endeavors. I waited on my bed, listening to their footsteps retreat down the stairs and the almost inaudible click of the door. Homework seemed like a good idea now, or at least a better alternative than facing my mom.

"Danny?" Concern laced with impatience; my favourite tone of voice.

I sighed. "Coming."

…

I crept down the stairs, silencing each step by absorbing it in the carpet.

"Jack, do we really need to do this? There's no way Danny wouldn't tell us about something like this…"

I froze in midstep. Did they know? A gulped surpressed itself in my throat.

"Maddy, its not like we're talking about him-"

Creak

My parents looked up, and I silently cursed the age of the house, or at least my inability to keep quiet. Mom smiled warmly and gestured me to come down, dad shifted nervously and scratched his neck, a trait I found id picked up but rarely seen him use. Great. If the king of humiliation was nervous, I was going to pee myself. I sat down on the chair adjascent to my mom.

"You guys wanted to talk to me?"

Mom exchanged a glance with dad, who cupped her hand.

"Danny, honey, you know we'd love you no matter what, right?"

I gulped. "Y-yeah. "

Mom continued. "And you know we love you even if you did something horrible?"

Oh God, they did know. There was no backing out of this now, not this time. No gauntlet to alter reality, no lies or distractions. It was now or never.

"Mom, I was going to tell you before, but it jus-"

"Shh, we know. The absences, the serecy, we figured it out." Mom said.

Dad held up his hand. "That's need to explain, Danny. We just want you to know we will support you being a father."

"It's just I thought it would be harder, me being a gh- wait, WHAT?"

Giving away the biggest secret id ever had I was prepared for, but this, this was pulling the rug out from under my feet.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

Mom cleared her throat. "It's okay honey, we know. We know Sam is pregnant."

My face flushed a deep red, and I burired it in the safety of my hands. Wanting to turn invisible was one thing, having the ability to actually to it and refrain was even worse.

"Mom, Dad, Sam is not- we never- were not even-"

I took deep breaths, the blush still apparent, I tried to speak evenly.

"Sam is not having a baby. Especially not mine."

My mom furrowed her brow in confusion. "So Sam ISNT preganant?"

"NO!"

My dad rubbed his chin in his hand thoughtfully. "What were you saying about a ghost?"

"I- uh.."

"OPEN UP THIS DOOR! IT'S THE FEDS!"

Great, another awesome day with the guys in white.