Aaagh, screwed up something with the chapter the first time that i didn't notice DX

Reposting it fixed now...


The rainfall showed no signs of possibly lightening up. If anything, it seemed to fall harder, pounding the windowpanes and clouding it with icy droplets.

Jazz eyed the wall clock nervously, and 1:37AM jumped back at her. Her parents had been gone for a little over an hour, and Danny was meant to be back around three hours ago.

She tried to focus on the book she was reading, but none of the information registered, leaving her to stare absently at pages of Times New Roman font. She couldn't help but believe something awful happened, something that would prevent Danny from coming home in some way, and might possibly be subduing her parents as well.

She fought the urge to venture into the dark, stormy night to seek out her parents and missing brother, forcing herself to obey her parent's command and to stay in case Danny had returned home.

Be okay, little brother...


The Fentonworks at last loomed in front of them, a beacon of safety in the stormy darkness of the night. Wasting no time, Maddie headed for the door and threw it open, a grumble of thunder sounding as she did so.

She saw Jazz perk up from where she was reading on the couch, staring at them with shock and inquisition. Jack bundled in after her, bearing a bloodied and unconscious Danny in his arms. Jazz's eyes fell on her brother, and she practically threw the book she bore down and rushed toward him, "Danny!" she cried, staring at the wound-ridden teen with panic.

Her parents passed her, laying the injured boy on the couch where Jazz had been sitting moments ago. Maddie pulled up his shirt, revealing the ugly gash that marred his torso. She saw Jazz cover her mouth in anguish, and Jack had already left the room to find medicinal supplies.

"M-Mom, what happened?!" Jazz cried, kneeling next to her mother beside the couch, "Who did this?!"

Maddie looked at her daughter with a moment of hesitation. She was unaware of the extent of Jazz's knowledge on the situation, and believed the girl must be assuming some thug on the streets had gotten him. She didn't want to come out then and there and tell her daughter that her little brother was...was half-ghost...Not yet...

The ghost hunter shook her head, quietly moving to pull the stained shirt off of her son while shifting him as minimally as possible, "He...he was...he was like that when we found him...we don't know what happened..." It was technically the truth, as they had indeed found Phanto-...their son...injured in such a way. The memory of it was clear, and yet somehow foggy, as if the cruel fascination she had felt upon discovering the injured ghost was an entirely separate event from the moment she had held her wounded son, sobbing into the night.

Jazz shook her head, either in denial or sorrow of the limp boy that lay motionless beside them. Tears were shining in the sixteen-year-old's eyes but didn't fall, and Maddie was surprised to detect almost a look of...of expectancy that replaced her shock...almost as if she had been expecting something like this to happen.

Jazz looked like she was about to say something, before Jack appeared with a box of supplies. Jazz moved out of the way and silently watched as her parents began tending to her injured brother.


...

2:42AM

Jazz was rather glad that it was at least a non-school night. With the dwindling hours of sleep she was going to get, if she was going to sleep at all, it was a little relieving to know there wouldn't be a school day to struggle tiredly through.

The redhead had been sitting on the floor behind her parents, unable to see her scrawny brother laying on the couch from behind her parent's bodies. They had finished sanitizing and binding the wound a while ago, but hadn't moved from his side for a moment. They hadn't spoken, leaving them in silence for quite some time.

Shaking her head, Jazz wondered how Danny would get himself out of this one. The struggle to hide his ghost powers had resulted in many close calls, unexplainable scrapes and bruises, frequent tardies and absences, but this seemed like the worst of them all. She wasn't sure how he could have possibly survived as long as he did as a human with that slash, but Jazz hadn't seen what her parents had seen, and was unable to deduce anything from the situation.

Her parents seemed...off...tonight...besides the fact that they had just brought home their son who had been bleeding out somewhere. They looked troubled, burdened, alongside the worry and concern and fear for Danny. Jazz very much wished she could have been there, as the looks her parents were trading with each other occasionally was unnerving.

She jumped when she heard her voice called softly, and the teenager silently crawled toward them on the floor to kneel next to them.

She caught sight of Danny, who was now cocooned in several layers of blankets and sheets, several pillows holding up his head. He was still serenely asleep, unmoving except for an occasional twitch or tic in his sleep. She bit her lip in sympathy, before turning back toward her mother, "Is he going to be okay, Mom?"

Maddie sighed tiredly, running a hand through her red hair absently, "I...I believe so, Jazz..." she whispered, giving Danny's sleeping form a long, forlorn look.

"What happened out there?" Jazz asked, and Maddie paused,

"We...found him in an alley and he was already hurt..." she told her, but Jazz frowned,

"No, Mom. What happened? You and Dad look like it was...I don't know...something more than that." she pressed.

Maddie shook her head, "We had just found our child bleeding to death in some alley! You'd think..." she trailed off, and Jazz kept steadily staring at her. She sighed silently, casting her father a look from over her head, "J-Jasmine...we need to tell you something..."

Jazz nodded silently, watching as her mom silently tried to sort out what words to use. She had a feeling deep down, she knew what her mom was about to tell her. And if that was what she was really going to say, she wondered if she should play along or admit her knowledge as well.

And it came:

"Jazz...what we found in the alley...it was that ghost boy, Phantom..."

Jazz blinked, now for sure knowing where this was headed. She had almost wished it really hadn't been what she was thinking of, and yet...

"He was injured...and...we..." she paused, and Jazz saw her mother struggling with the words, as if she was trying not to admit something, "we tried to get him to tell us if he knew where Danny was and..."

"Danny turned back into a human?"

Maddie blinked, staring at her daughter. Jazz adverted her gaze, shifting a bit nervously. She knew next would come a barrage of questions, confusion, guilt maybe...Jazz hoped she would have the strength to deal with it, to try and bring her parents into understanding.

"How did you...Jazz, do you know something about this?" Her mother's voice hardened, almost urgently, and she moved a few paces back somewhat awkwardly. She gave a small nod, looking at the bemused and agitated parents expressions anxiously.

"Well why didn't you ever tell us!" Jack questioned her, "Our own son, a ghost!"

"Half-ghost..." Jazz corrected them nervously, before pausing to harden her own voice. They know now, and I can't be nervous telling them...this...she sighed, this was going to happen sooner or later.

"Jasmine, what happened to him?" her father prompted again, and Jazz looked up to meet their gaze,

"A lab accident. He told me about it awhile back..." she tried not to be unnerved by her parents growing horrified expressions as she implied they had somehow helped cause this, "When the Ghost Portal started working all of a sudden that one day, it was because Danny went inside and turned it on. But it blasted him before he could get out and..." she trailed off, looking meaningfully at her brother as an end to her sentence.

Her parents sat in silence for a strangely long few minutes, before her mother's miserable voice sounded, "The portal...we..." she murmured, "But why didn't he tell us...?"

Jazz shrugged, keeping a steadiness in her voice and her gaze, "I guess with two parents who can talk about nothing but hunting ghosts, dissecting ghosts, destroying ghosts..." the comment had come off a bit more cruel than she intended, but kept going, "I guess it's not that hard to guess why he's been hiding it from you all this time."

Her parents were shocked into silence again, and Jazz noticed the thermos that they had brought in and left forgotten on the floor by the couch. She leaned forward to pick it up, gazing at it in a similar manner as Maddie had done earlier that night. She placed it down between the three of them, "That probably has ghosts in it, we'll need to empty it into the Ghost Portal sometime soon." she commented, looking back up at her parents steadily.

Maddie and Jack exchanged glances, "So...he really had been catching ghosts...?" Jack said flatly, and Jazz nodded. She saw him look back toward Danny, a look of guilt and sorrow etched on his expression, and even the faintest look of pride.

"Is that what he's been doing all this time?" Maddie prompted her, "He's been hunting ghosts too?"

Jazz nodded, "All he's been trying to do was keep Amity Park safe from the ghosts that escape the Ghost Zone, all this time." she told them seriously, "Even when most of the town hated him and he was constantly being hunted-" she saw her parents flinch at that, "He still did it."

Maddie nodded slowly, "Th-that would explain..." she trailed off, giving the sleeping boy another long and pained look before she leaned forward and held him in her arms again. Jazz heard the soft sounds of crying, and Jack moved to put an arm around his wife's shoulder.

Jazz sighed, backing up a little more to give them some space.

There.

The secret was out.

She felt a bit guilty at how she had been a bit harsh with her words, and had probably sent her parents into emotional turmoil for the next few hours...or longer. She had sort of wished that if the secret had to come out one day, it wouldn't have been like this. She remembered what her mother had said when she had given her rendition of finding her brother as a ghost in the alley, and frowned. She knew that conflict probably went on, it wasn't as simple as just 'asking him if they knew where Danny was.' She knew there had probably been some threats issued, guns poised, but hopefully not fired, yelling and interrogation...she understood why they were in such shambles now, besides the fact that they were now aware that the 'ghost-punk' they had been holding at gunpoint and targeting for all this time, was in fact, their son.

She felt bad. She felt they rightfully deserved to feel remorse for their actions and their lack of understanding that had kept the secret buried, but she still felt bad.

Perhaps, if they had known from the beginning, things wouldn't be so damaged as they were now.

And then there was still the matter of Danny handling the matter and the revelation himself when he woke up, no doubt he would be troubled by the whole thing as well.

Jazz sighed, rising to her feet quietly as she decided to leave her parents be for awhile. Would things be better in the morning? She could only hope.


AN: Ack, I meant to make this the last chapter but it's going a bit too long and not quite resolved yet...

So maybe I'll wrap this up with an epilogue.

Till then~

-RG