While Danny was putting himself and the zombie in quarantine, Dani was talking with Jazz.

"I just feel like it's my fault." Dani frowned into her glass of water.

"I'm sure you did everything you could." Jazz tried, she still didn't know the whole story so it was difficult to help.

"I didn't. I went up to it even though Danny told me to stay in the air. I freaked out and blasted it. I stopped paying attention to the fight and Danny had to save me and now..."

She didn't continue and Jazz didn't push her to. She pulled the younger girl into a hug and let her cry.

Danny watched through the glowing green walls as Vlad rushed from table to table, occasionally making duplicates so he could do more at once.

"What are you doing?"

Vlad looked at him and Danny was surprised to see the sadness in his eyes. "I'm trying to figure out a cure. If I can make one that works for a human, I can tweak it to help you."

Danny watched him. "If you find a cure for humans, I want you to give the formula to the humans before you start trying to cure me."

Vlad looked like he wanted to argue, but the serious look on Danny's face quieted him. "All right, little badger."

Danny smiled and Vlad went back to his work.

Three silent hours later, Valerie came into the lab. Danny looked up and watched her look around awkwardly.

She walked up to Vlad, interrupting his work. "Can I talk to Danny for a bit? On my own."

Vlad looked between the teens and nodded. "I suppose now would be as good a time as any to get something to eat, I just got some new ice cream that I've been dying to try."

Danny held in a chuckle and Valerie looked like she wanted to be invisible. Vlad left and it was just the two of them and the zombie.

"You know he'll be mad when he sees it." Danny chuckled.

"Yeah, but it was Dani's idea and I only had two bites." Val defended.

Danny's chuckle turned into a full laugh. "I don't think I've ever heard anything more childish come from your mouth."

She pouted for a second before dropping to sit on the other side of the green wall from Danny. "Probably. But making you laugh isn't the reason I came down here."

"Too bad. I could use a good laugh." Danny slid down to the floor so he was sitting next to her.

"I think we all could right now." She stared at her shoes and sighed. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't feel like I'm a zombie yet, if that's what you meant. We don't know how the Zombie virus effects halfas. It could take a lot longer than normal and we just don't know. Other than that though, I'm about as good as I can be."

Valerie smiled a bit, but it didn't last long. She sighed and looked at Danny. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He was honestly confused, there was no way she thought him getting bit was her fault, is there?

"Breaking up with you. I never told you, but I was considering giving up ghost hunting to be with you."

Danny wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, even hug her, but the most he could do is put a hand on the wall. "I knew. I was trying to stop Technus from getting control of that satellite and I overheard you talking to your dad."

Valerie stared at him in shock before it slowly shifted to sadness. "You knew. How do you not hate me? You knew I was the Red Huntress from the beginning, you knew I picked my hatred for you over my love, I would hate me. I kinda do."

"As a ghost, I know a few things about obsessions. I wouldn't have given up my obsession for you, and I couldn't expect you to give up yours." Danny said with a reassuring smile.

"I'm not a ghost."

"No, but humans can have obsessions too. They can even be stronger than a ghost's. A human's obsession is built over time through emotional attachment. A ghost's obsession is born with them through the last emotions they had in life.

"An obsession like a human has can take over their whole mind and push them past their limits. A ghost's obsession is built into their limit."

She looked into his eyes. "What does that say about halfas?"

Danny looked thoughtful for a moment before smiling. "We don't really know, Vlad thinks it means we can change obsessions like humans and we just get stronger with our emotions."

"What's your obsession?"

Danny flinched at this. Among ghosts, an obsession is not something you just ask about, it's extremely personal. "You can't just ask about that. It's like asking a human about their deepest hopes and dreams."

"Sorry. I just wanted to know, I mean you know mine, so I figured I should know yours."

Danny sighed. She didn't know it, or maybe she did, but she was saying exactly what she had to. "You're right, it's only fair. My obsession is protection. Specifically protecting the people and things that mean the most to me."

Valerie thought about this for a minute. "You said a ghostly obsession is made with strong emotions at the time of death, but you're not dead."

"Not entirely, but I am technically half dead. Half of my DNA is ectoplasmic. I died, but at the same time, dying kept me alive."

She looked at him in confusion. "How does that work?"

Danny leaned against the wall. "It was the beginning of sophomore year. My parents were testing their ghost portal. It didn't work so they left to try going over their notes for the billionth time.

"Sam and Tucker were there with me to watch the portal." He hesitated here, but not long enough to catch Valerie's attention. "We decided I should go in and look around, I tripped over some wires and I pressed the final on switch.

"The portal activated while I was in it. The ectoplasmic radiation, coupled with the massive amount of electricity, killed me and kept me alive at the same time."

She watched him with horror. Valerie knew it had to be something bad, all the books she read said the same thing, ghosts only come from violent or traumatic deaths. But she never expected it to be this bad. "How did your parents never find out? They live with you! They couldn't have been too far away when the portal went off! Didn't they hear it?"

Danny stared into space. "I don't know, maybe it wasn't as loud outside as it was in. I just took it as a blessing, considering how they reacted when I told them." He winced at this, he didn't like thinking about that.

"That doesn't make it any better."

"It kinda did. I had time to learn my powers and get stronger and more independent. If my parents had kicked me out right after the accident I might not have survived.

"Sam would have wanted me to move in with her, but her parents hate me and my whole family, so that wouldn't have worked. Tucker would try too, but his family can't really afford to take care of me.

"It's better the way it happened. I had a few years to get control and learn to care for myself. Another thing is Jazz. She figured out my secret on her own. She's been helping me ever since, even when I didn't know she knew.

"My parents kicking me out when they did was a good thing. Jazz had her own place and I was able to get there on my own."

Valerie hadn't thought about any of that. She couldn't imagine her own dad kicking her out for any reason, but both Danny's parents had agreed that he should be gone. If he hadn't had Jazz, she didn't even want to think about that.

Danny was watching her. She saw the concern in his eyes, it broke her heart. "How are you such a good person? I would hate your parents, I would resent all of Amity Park. How were you able to get up every day and protect the people who wanted you dead?"

He looked at the ceiling and shrugged. "It's just who I am. Someone needed to protect them and I was the only one who could."

"They called you public enemy number one! For a long time, so did I." Valerie could feel the tears start building in her eyes, blurring her vision.

Danny gave her a calming smile. "I know. I tried to give it up once or twice, that only proved to me how much I needed to be there. Every time I quit almost ended the world."

Valerie sighed. "That is way too much responsibility for a kid. I would have cracked."

Danny's face took on that same cold expression as earlier when he was talking about a true monster. "I did."

"You did? When?" Valerie was confused. If Danny had snapped, surely someone would have seen it.

The mask slid over his face again. His cold hatred was covered by his usual childish optimism. "It's nothing. I got better."

Valerie wanted to know what was going on in his head, but something told her now was not the time to press. "Ok."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Danny took the time to recollect himself. He was so focused on his inner turmoil that he didn't hear Valerie talk.

It took three tries to get his attention. "Danny!"

"Huh?" He looked at her with confusion. She rolled her eyes.

"I asked you a question."

"Sorry, I was lost in thought, what was your question?" He asked, sheepishly.

"Why didn't you try to stop me from breaking up with you?"

"I did, you wouldn't hear me."

She looked at her shoes again. "I'm sorry."

Danny offered her a smile. "It's not your fault. We wouldn't have lasted all that long to begin with."

"Why do you say that?"

"Neither of us knew this at the time, but a ghost was pushing our relationship to keep us distracted from his plan. Without that push, we wouldn't have gotten far."

Valerie looked conflicted at this information. "You mean one of the best relationships I've had was being manipulated by a ghost?"

Danny looked at her. "It was really one of the best?" She shot him a glare. "Sorry."

"Yeah, it was. But I don't want it if it was fake."

Danny nodded. "I know how that feels."

Their eyes met, there was quiet for a split second before they both started laughing.

When they were able to breathe again, Danny smiled at her. "I like this. We make better friends than a couple."

"Yeah, we really do."

They were sitting there smiling like idiots when Vlad stormed in. "Out. I need to get to work."

Valerie raised her hands in surrender and looked back at Danny. "I'll see you later."

He nodded and watched her leave. When she was gone, Danny turned to look at Vlad. "Why are you so grumpy?"

"Someone ate half of my new ice cream. That was expensive and imported!" Vlad didn't turn around, but Danny could practically see the pouty scowl on his face.

"Did you figure out who?" Danny forced the laugh back down his throat.

"Danielle. She says she ate it herself, but I doubt it." He angrily scribbled something in a notebook.

Vlad grabbed something from another table, Danny couldn't see it from where he was. Vlad walked to the cell with the zombie.

He made two duplicates. One opened the cell door, the other ran in to restrain the zombie. Vlad walked into the cell and opened the case he was holding.

He pulled out a needle and Danny could see several empty vials still in the case.

Vlad jammed the needle in the zombie's arm. He hooked a vial to the end of the cord and it filled with what Danny could only assume was blood, but it was a greenish brown color.

Vlad repeated this, filling several more vials, before he left the cell, letting his duplicates fade.

Danny watched him put the vials into a small fridge. "What was that?"

"I was collecting samples to test antidotes on. If one of my attempts proves fatal, I don't want to lose my only test subject."

Danny nodded in understanding. Vlad closed the fridge and disposed of the needle he used on the zombie. Danny watched him pull another case from one of the various drawers. This time he walked to Danny.

"What are you going to do?" He asked nervously.

"I want to keep a record of how fast you change. I'll compare it to the blood sample I took from you when you first moved in, then compare it to the ones I took from the zombie."

Danny nodded and held out his arm for Vlad to take a sample.

When he was done, Danny watched him bring the sample to the part of his lab that was set up for medical stuff.

It was quiet while Vlad ran tests. Danny eventually fell asleep.

Two days since Danny was bitten, and Vlad made a discovery.

"How does that work? It can't be." He ran from one computer to another, checking all of his data.

He looked at Danny and frowned. "Tell me how you feel."

"Fine I guess, why?"

Vlad put four different screens up on his computer wall. They showed the blood samples. Three were a distinct mix of red and green, one a little more muddy than the others, and the last looked like swamp mud.

"These three are your blood. The one I took when you first moved in, the one I took when you were first bitten, and the one I took a few hours ago." He gestured to the three red and green ones.

"And this last one is our friend here." He pointed to the brown one.

Danny looked at his blood samples. "So I'm guessing the one that's more brown is the one from today."

"That is where you are wrong. The muddy one is from when you were first bitten, this is the one from today." He pointed to the one that looked almost completely like his normal blood.

Danny stared blankly at the screen. "So that means-"

"It means you are getting better. For whatever reason you are immune to this virus."