The chapter lenghths are all wonky because I don't care enough to match them up.

"Wow dude, your later than usual." Tucker commented as I hastily took my seat, already having received a detention from Lancer. Soon to be a double when he found out I didn't do my homework.

"Um...Dad woke me up late." I couldn't look him in the eye, instead focusing on the textbook in front of me.

My whole body was sore and achy from sleeping on the steps outside, but it was nothing compared to usual ghost fights, so I easily ignored it. Dad actually did wake me up late, gruffly and groggily telling me to get a move on or I'd be late for school. When I noticed I was already ten minutes late, I ran upstairs and shoved my homework in my backpack, rushing out the door and forgetting about breakfast. My stomach suddenly rumbled loudly.

"Did you get breakfast?" Sam asked, snickering a bit at my whining stomach.

"And deal with the town grump? No thanks." I scowled, remembering I'd been too busy ghost fighting last night to get dinner as well.

Lancer yelled for us to get out our homework and I winced, sitting still as usual. He got closer to my desk and I heard his exasperated sigh when he marked a zero next to my name yet again.

"Make that an hour detention after school, Mr. Fenton."

"Yes Mr. Lancer." I dropped my head to my desk, feeling small at the disappointment in his voice.

Sam raised an eye brow at me once Lancer was gone.

"I thought you got home at ten? Did your Dad ground you from homework too?" she joked.

"No." I answered finitely and was spared the rest of her questions as Lancer took the stage started babbling about English stuff.

I caught Sam's frown, and I knew she'd pursue the subject again at lunch. I put my head in my propped up arm moodily, looking away from her stares. I tried to focus on the lesson, hoping I could get my grade up before report card came out in a week and a half. I had a bad feeling Dad would do more than yell when he found out I had a D in three classes.

After more time than I care to count, the English lecture ended and Lancer assigned two more chapters in the book I hadn't even opened yet. Rubbing my sore neck absentmindedly, I leaned back in my chair and took advantage of the two minutes I had till the bell rang. The book cracked when I opened it, it's pure white pages full of small print. I'd barely gotten into the first paragraph when the bell rang and I had to shove all the books in my bag and trudge down to History with Sam and Tucker.

"You okay dude? You seem a little upset." Tucker asked, falling into step next to me.

I had an instant internal struggle. I wanted to tell them about last night, but I was nervous as to how they'd react. Honestly, I was really upset with what Dad had done last night. Maybe I wouldn't be so depressed if I told them, after all they are my friends, so even if they do freak out it wouldn't be anything bad.

"Actually guys-"

"Hey Fentina!"

Great. Dash.

I stopped in the hallway, turning around to glare angrily at him, feeling my blue mood turn red.

"Leave me alone, Dash." I demanded, my voice coming out colder than I had anticipated.

"Looks like Fenton grew a back bone! Gonna try and stand up to me?" he grinned down smugly at me, getting in my face and acting like he was actually a threat. It would be so easy to just-

"Danny." Sam said quietly, placing her hand over my clenched fist.

I grit my teeth, mentally taking a deep breathe and dropping my glare, instead glowering at the floor. It wouldn't be a good thing to throw Dash through the second story window.

"That's what I thought." he stood up straight again, crossing his arms and grinning self righteously.

With effort, I controlled my temper. Even when Dash grabbed my books and hurled them down the hall I managed to hold back. He left, laughing loudly with his stupid friends as he turned the corner.

"See ya' later Fentoad!" he guffawed.

I glared angrily at the corner he disappeared around for a moment more, then feeling myself deflate I bent down to pick up the strewn papers. Sam's hand rested on mine as I grabbed a math sheet and Tucker held out my science book. I smiled wanly at them.

"Thanks guys." I said quietly.

We finished picking the books up, the bell ringing loudly above us. We were late anyways, so we strolled down the hall to class.

"What were you saying before Danny?" Sam asked.

"I'll tell you at lunch." I promised, pushing open the classroom door and receiving the teachers irritated glare, something I often got.

The classes pasted slowly, my spot by the window tempting my concentration often. Finally, after one more class, the bell rang for lunch. In not time at all we were situated around our usual table, the cafeteria doors shut tight against the howling wind, little splatters of rain dotting the windows around the large room.

"So, whats up?"

I told them about Dad locking me out and making me sleep on the steps because I was late, their faces growing more and more horrified with each passing moment.

"He what!"

"Jeez, Sam, not so loud." I hushed, looking nervously around.

"Okay, Dude, that's bad sign. Parents don't lock their kids out of the house cause their five minutes past curfew." Tucker crossed his arms, looking concerned.

"What happened to 'it'll blow over'?" I asked, smirking sardonically at him.

Sam but in before he could reply.

"This is serious Danny! That could be filled under abuse."

I stared at her, unable to help it when I burst out laughing. Her worried face turned into a frown at my reaction, but I couldn't stop myself.

"My dad? Abusive?" I chuckled, "Come on Sam, he just locked me out of the house. It's not like he punched me or anything." I shook my head, a grin still on my face.

Sam still looked unconvinced.

"You better watch out Danny. Abuse doesn't happen overnight. There are signs, and from what your telling us your Dad's heading down that path right now." Her expression softened, concern in her eyes.

"Guys. He's not gonna hurt me. Come on." I smiled, but it didn't reach my eyes.

He wouldn't hurt me, right?

...Na', no way.

I sipped on my milk, looking up at the sky, confident that Sam was wrong. They shared a glance, but I ignored it, poking the slightly wilted salad on my tray. I was just about to break the weird silence when someone beat me to it. Blue mist escaped from my mouth and I groaned, rolling my eyes and standing up.

"I'll be back in a second guys." I mumbled, scanning the cloudy skies as I dashed into the empty cafeteria kitchen.

No sooner than after I hid myself did a giant green scorpion appear, it's sharpened pincher's busting through the wall. People immediately started screaming and I had to duck under a garbage can to make sure no one would see me. I wasted no time in splitting the rings of white, feeling the rush of cold as Phantom took my once human appearance.

Smirking at the coming rush of battle, I sunk into the ground, flying up under the scorpions stomach with a punch that sent it sailing into the air outside.

"Danny Phantom!" I heard Dash scream in wonder, elation in his voice.

I really hated him.

The scorpion came back down, crashing into the earth. It made a weird hissing noise and it's stinger rose up, only it wasn't actually a stinger, it was a snake.

The snake hissed again, the scorpions pincher's clapping angrily.

"Whoa!" I ducked to avoid a lethal looking bite from the snake.

"I've heard having two heads is better than one, but in your case I think there's an exception." I taunted, making the glowing ghost's red eyes flash.

One of the pincher's ran into the wall, missing me my a foot but almost crush a gaggle of screaming girls before I blasted the falling rubble out of the way.

"Thanks Danny Phantom!" They gushed in unison, making my ears cringe.

"Uh, you guys might wanna get out of here. Now."

The scorpion helped make my point when it plucked me out of the air with it's pincher's, the edges slicing my skin. He girls shrieked and ran away quickly, I cringed as the pincher's tightened, threating to slice me in half. With a rush of power I gather ecto energy behind my eyes and unleashed it right into the monsters face.

The thing dropped me instantly, roaring in pain from it's blinded eyes. The snake reared up, hissing menacingly with poison dripping from its wide mouth.

"Danny!" Tucker yelled, throwing the thermos at me. I caught it smoothly, glowering at the monster.

"Time to go back to your tank, ugly." I yelled, pressing the green button and letting loose the long stream of blue.

In seconds, the scorpion-snake was sucked up. I screwed the lid on tightly as I flew back into the kitchen and changed back into Fenton, rattling the thermos for good measure.

"Danny, are you alright?" Sam and Tucker ran over to me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Has class started yet?"

"Dude, your bleeding." Tucker pointed at my arms, looking a little sick.

I looked down at them and saw blood gushed out of the horizontal cuts across the top half of my arms. It stung, but it wasn't too bad.

"It's no big deal. I'll need some napkins to wipe some of this blood up though." I frowned, seeing the long red streaks falling down my arms.

"No big deal? You know you can't heal quickly when your in your human form. We gotta go to the nurse and get that bandaged up." Sam gently pushed me forward, leading me out of the destroyed cafeteria. Tucker mentioned something about an unfinished lunch and promptly disappeared.

The nurse was frazzled from the attack, giving my arms a once over and quickly wrapping it up in thick gauze. The white edge of the bandage was just visible under the sleeves of my shirt.

"Good heavens Danny, you always seem to get hurt when we have these ghost attacks. Don't you pay attention during the ghost drills?" she lightly reprimanded me in a motherly way. I suddenly missed my own mother.

"Yeah." I replied.

She sighed in a relenting way and let Sam and I out the door.

We trekked over to math, talking about random things along the way. We weren't late because getting injured is a valid excuse. By now the teachers have come to expect it.

The rest of the day passed just as slowly as the first half. Math made my brain hurt, as usual, and I accidentally put a hole through Tucker's notebook during lab activities in chemistry. When the bell finally rang, signaling freedom, I ran to my locker and grabbed my homework. Sam and Tucker met me outside and we started the pleasant walk home, despite the slight drizzle from the dark skies.

"And then my Grandma tried to slide down the steps even though she was supposed to be in her wheel chair. The look on my parents face was hilarious!" Sam cracked up, along with me and Tucker. Sam's Grandma was such a nut.

"That's almost as bad as the time my Mom tripped over Dad's shoe and sent the meatloaf sailing into his face." Tucker clutched his stomach and I envisioned his parents doing that easily.

"I can't wait till my Mom gets back." I sighed wistfully, "Granted, the fact that all of Vlad's schemes are on hold for the next five months is nice, but the house is so lonely. It'd be better if Jazz was here at least." I stuffed my hands in my pockets.

"How is Jazz?" Sam asked curiously. I smiled, thinking of my sister.

"She's great, loves college. Princeton's like a dream come true for her. No weird ghost hunting families to embarrass her anymore. Mom and Dad were so proud of her when she got accepted, especially my Dad."

For some reason, I suddenly remembered Dad's comment about Jazz being better than me, and I felt a sad little twinge in my stomach. I harshly pushed it away, it wasn't that big of a deal.

"So what are we gonna do this weekend?" Tucker asked lazily.

"It's only Monday." Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Good things come from planning ahead, Sam."

"Not for Vlad they don't." I snickered.

Sam and Tucker laughed.

Unfortunately, I lived closest to the school, so I didn't get to hear about the plans for the weekend. My lonely house loomed over us as we approached and my good mood descended into something akin to dread as we got closer. I really didn't wanna go home.

Sam and Tucker picked up on this, my growing silence giving it away.

"Hey Danny, you wanna come hang at my place?" Tucker asked.

"I'd love to, but if I don't get my chores done Dad will get mad." I sighed, all of us stopping when we got to the cold steps.

"I guess I'll see you all tomorrow." I half smiled, shrugging helplessly and starting up the steps.

"Yeah, see ya'" they replied in a subdued voice, looking back at me regretfully as they walked on home.

Sighing, I turned back to the door and it let me in, this time unlocked. The house was deadeningly silent except for the small clanking sounds coming from within the lab and several of my Dad's loud, angry curses.

I creaked up the stairs, not really wanting Dad to know I was home yet. He was much to busy in the lab to pay attention to me though, and I easily reached my room. My backpack thumped to the floor and I kicked it over to my desk, staring at it for a moment before going to the bathroom.

When my stomach rumbled again, I sneaked back downstairs, hearing my Dad slam something heavy again and wincing. The kitchen was dirty and I knew with a heavy heart that I needed to clean it or else Dad would be even more angry. But I really had a lot of homework to do...

Sighing, I put food on hold and got started on the dishes, annoyed at my Dad's ability to dirty every dish. You'd think, with only two people in the house and one of said two people being gone all the time, the dishes wouldn't pile up. Yet every time I come home theres a pile of dishes in the sink, waiting for me in all it's filthy splendor.

Gagging slightly, I scrapped a plate of mystery meat into the garbage can, trying not to inhale the smell of decayed animal. I ran water over the plate and put it in the dishwasher, hearing my Dad's stomping footsteps as he came up from the lab.

"This is impossible!" he yelled to the air. "If Maddie was here it'd be easy!"

He trudged into the kitchen and felling into one of the table chairs, glaring out the window before noticing me.

"When'd you get here?" he asked rudely, the permanent scowl on his face.

"About ten minutes ago."

"Hm." he grunted, looking back to the window, thinking.

I continued on with the dishes, his crappy mood bringing me down. He's always like this when I get home. He spends all day in the lab, trying to invent things and stuff, but he can't really do it cause he doesn't have Mom here to correct all his mistakes. So, he gets mad, and finally gives up by the time I get home. Isn't his timing just perfect.

"Danny, how do I bond diluted ectoplasm to a microscopic dot of Hg?" He suddenly asked out of nowhere in a sharp voice.

I stopped and turned to look at him, I blank look on my face.

"Um...I don't know." What the heck is Hg?

"Of course you don't." He muttered, looking back out the window.

I couldn't move for a moment, the desperate need to say something smart to impress him clawing at me. In the end I had nothing and turned back to the dishes with a hurt expression on my face. The twinge in my stomach stretched wider, the feeling of shame spreading.

I finished the dishes in silence, washing the rest by hand and scrubbing out the sink. Dad never moved from his spot, glaring out the window. I wiped off the counters hastily, planning on retreating back to my room as soon as possible.

"Don't forget the living room." Dad mumbled, pulling himself from his chair and clomping over to the fridge.

Sighing, I changed direction and picked up a pillow from the floor. The phone rang as I was folding a blanket and I heard my Dad call, "Danny, get that!" I dropped the blanket and grabbed the cordless.

"Hello?"

"Danny? This is Mr. Lancer." he said in a flat voice and I froze.

Crap, my detentions!

"Uh..."

"May I please speak with your father?" he asked in that same flat tone, my heart beginning to pump harder.

"Mr. Lancer, I am so sorry! I forgot and-"

"Danny, your father." he cut me off, making me bite my lip.

"Right. Hold on."

I forced my stiff limbs into the kitchen, feeling my dread increase as I approached him.

"Um...Dad?"

"What?" he asked sharply.

"It's...um...the phones for you." I held out the cordless, inching away as soon as he took it from me.

I could hear his side of the conversation as I tried to tip toe to my room.

"Mr. Lancer?" he was surprised.

"No, why?" he took on a warning tone.

"He WHAT!"

"Of course Mr. Lancer. Yes, he will. Don't worry about that, I'll take care of the problem." this did not sound good.

My foot was on the first step when I heard him yell, "DANNY!"

I cringed, slowly stepping back down into the dead zone and turning around as my Dad came out of the kitchen, an irate look cemented into his face. He stomped up to me, throwing the cordless across the room where it hit the wall. I winced at the sound, feeling myself shrink as he towered over me.

"You had two detentions today!" He roared.

He thrust his arm out and I instinctively took a step back, feeling the rush of adrenaline from ghost fights, horribly misplaced. He grabbed my upper arm in an iron grip, ignoring my yelp as he crushed my cut from the scorpion. He dragged me into the kitchen roughly, throwing me into a kitchen chair and standing over me, his fist digging into the table.

"Just because your mother isn't home that doesn't mean you get to slack off more than usual!" He slammed his fist into the table. I glanced fearfully to the fist and back to his furious glare, my arm still throbbing even though he had released me.

"I'm tired of you constantly embarrassing me! You don't follow our rules, you have horrible grades, you don't do your homework, and apparently your always late to class! What is wrong with you Daniel! Your mother and I have tired everything to get you on the right track but you just throw it back in our face! Jazz never did this! She was always setting a good example!"

He glared down at me, my head bowed as I focused on the tiled floor. My breathing was shallow. I felt shame and hurt welling like a festering sore inside me at his words. My throat was uncomfortably tight. I was an embarrassment?

"You want me to treat you like a baby? Well you've got it. I'm going to make sure you get to school on time. From now on I'm driving you to school. Your serving your detentions tomorrow and I'll pick you up afterwards. Don't make me wait." he stood up straight, still glowering down at me, "Now get out of my sight."

Trembling, I ran from the room, cold horror pouring from my chest. I barely turned the corner upstairs when I transformed into Phantom, leaping into the air and flying through the roof as fast as I could.

The cloudy skies had darkened into a thunderstorm, rain falling in buckets. Lightening flashed, but I didn't care. I flew off into the distance at 120 mph, putting as much distance from myself and Fenton Works as I could.