A/N: Many of you were likely expecting a brilliant excuse on Danny's part, but considering that this is Danny's excuse, it won't be. And when it doesn't quite add up, doesn't make sense, his parents will either ignore it or try to weasel it out of him later, assuming they notice in the first place. Lies can only get him so far. Onto the story now, and thanks to everyone who has been taking the time to review.

Danny checked the lab about ten minutes later. Jazz was gone, so he went up to her room. Sure enough, she was perched on the edge of her bed, waiting for him. "What are you going to say?" Jazz asked quietly.

"I still don't know," Danny admitted. "Please tell me you have some ideas."

Jazz closed her eyes and sighed. "Turn your cell phone off," she said, "and then you can pretend the battery went dead, so you'll have an excuse for not answering."

"Then what?" Danny asked, though he was quick to oblige. It wasn't something he would've thought of, so he was grateful that Jazz was here for this.

Jazz opened her eyes. "Maybe say you were out looking for Phantom? Amity Park's big enough that, if you'd kept moving, they might have missed you."

"So just…come back? Pretend nothing was wrong?"

"Danny, if you just turn up, Mom's never going to let go of the idea that you and Phantom are connected. Your best chance is to undermine it. You said you admitted to being friends. If you work with that, you might not do so much damage."

"You don't think I can just claim to have been attacked by a ghost?"

Jazz's eyebrows rose. "For, what, twenty hours straight? Dad was scanning for ghostly activity the entire time he was searching, Danny. And you don't look beat up enough for them to believe a ghost kidnapped you and you just now managed to escape." She shrugged. "But you can try. They might just be happy enough to have you home to overlook things like that."

"Mom's still going to question me about Phantom, isn't she?"

"You made your bed," Jazz reminded him. "You have to lie in it. I can't exactly get you out of this."

Danny groaned. His sister was right, even if he didn't want to admit it. "Fine. I'll be back soon." At least it was Saturday. His parents were less likely to kill him than if it had been a school night.

"Oh, hold on a sec, Danny," Jazz said, reaching up to the Fenton Phone on her ear. "Okay, I'll send Danny right down to let you in." She removed the Fenton Phone and looked up at Danny. "Sam and Tucker are back. You'll have to open the portal and get them back outside. I had to close it before Mom and Dad came down to the lab."

Danny nodded, but he was still a bit worried. "You'll come down and help smooth things over, right?"

"I'll do my best," Jazz said, "but it'll only be worse the longer you put it off."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Danny muttered. But he nipped down to the lab, invisible and intangible, to get Sam and Tucker out of the Ghost Zone and to cover up the Spectre Speeder before his parents realized anything was going on. When he dropped Sam and Tucker off around the corner and changed back to human form, Sam asked him if he wanted them to come, hoping it might temper his parents' distress.

Danny really wished they could, but he knew they had to get home, too. "You guys haven't had any sleep," he said.

"Neither have you," Tucker pointed out.

"And it's not exactly the first time we've had to pull an all-nighter," Sam added. "Are you sure, Danny?"

"Yeah," Danny said. "I shouldn't drag you two into this if I can help it. It's bad enough that I'm going to be grounded until I'm thirty; you don't need to be, too."

"Well, good luck, man," Tucker said. "You'll need it."

"Don't remind me." Danny glanced in the direction of his house and sighed. "Give Jazz a call later, and she can fill you in. I probably won't be allowed out of my parents' sight all weekend, and they definitely won't let me talk to you guys."

Knowing he couldn't put off facing his parents much longer, Danny bid his friends goodbye and dragged his feet back to his house. He was starting to wish he'd gotten one of them to punch him or something so he could fall back on the just-escaped-from-an-evil-kidnapping-ghost story, but at the same time, he knew Jazz was right. His mom wouldn't let this thing with Phantom drop.

Why had he ever opened his mouth?

"Mom?" Danny called as he went in. "Dad?"

"Danny!" He'd hardly made it two feet before his parents were squeezing the life out of him. "Are you all right, honey? Where were you? What happened? We were so worried!"

"Did a ghost get you, Danny-boy?" Jack asked.

"Um…." What had Jazz said? Try to undermine what he'd said before, as Phantom. Or was it work with what he'd said so his parents didn't try to slaughter him when they next saw him in his ghost form, or at least not any more than they usually did?

Right. He should've asked Jazz for examples.

"Here, sweetie, sit down; you must be tired," Maddie said, ushering him to the living room couch. "I'll get you something to eat. You're probably famished, too."

"I'm sorry," Danny said. "I didn't mean to be gone all night." And all day. Thank God his mother hadn't kept him in the thermos for a week or something. He'd never have found a good excuse for that.

Maddie, not quite out of the living room, paused. "What do you mean, Danny?"

Oh, crud. That's what Jazz had meant about watching his words. "I, uh…."

"Wasn't a ghost behind this?" Jack asked, frowning as well.

Great. Now his parents really were going to kill him. "Um, it's, uh, not exactly what you think it is…."

Maddie turned back and sat down beside him. "Is there something you want to tell us, sweetie?"

Danny opened his mouth, hesitated, closed it, and shook his head.

"Well, try to get some rest," Maddie said, ruffling his hair. "We'll talk about this later."

At ten o'clock, Maddie peeked into Danny's room. He'd moved upstairs after nothing more than a glass of water, claiming he was tired, and they'd let him go. Jazz, who had surfaced when their joyful cries had woken her, had gone back to bed as well, but she'd emerged after only two hours, admitting that, as tired as she was, she just couldn't seem to get a decent sleep.

Maddie knew that feeling, but she suspected what kept her awake was quite different than whatever disturbed Jazz's dreams. A walk wouldn't clear her head, she was nearly certain, or she might have been tempted to accompany Jazz. She was still mulling over what Phantom had said, what Danny had been about to say, and what had happened and what it could mean.

Jack's snoring, and the daylight that had found its way into the room despite the curtains, hadn't helped matters, either.

Danny looked at her with bleary eyes when she sat down on the edge of his bed. "Mom?"

"I need to know where you were, honey," she said.

Danny yawned and blinked at her. "Now?"

"You can go back to sleep after, and I won't even wake you up for lunch if you don't want me to."

Danny yawned again and scrambled to sit up in bed. "No, it's fine, I guess."

Maddie waited, and when he didn't say anything, she repeated her question. "Where were you last night?"

"Looking for a friend," Danny mumbled, not meeting her eyes. "I was going to call, but, um, my cell phone died, and I was sure I'd find him soon, so I didn't come back, and then I just sort of, um, lost track of the time."

"But why would you leave in the middle of class?" Maddie prompted. "Before lunch? Surely you weren't looking the entire time." She'd ask who exactly he was looking for once she got that response, though she had a sinking feeling that she already knew the answer.

What hold did Phantom have over Danny that would make him leave without even a word to Sam and Tucker?

"It was…. Well, I was…worried. I thought…. He was supposed to meet me, that's all, and he never misses a meeting."

A meeting? Her son met with Danny Phantom? Regularly, or at least often enough that Danny had come to depend on him showing up? "Danny," Maddie said, reaching for his hand, "who were you meeting?"

Danny flinched. "You're not going to like it," he said quietly.

"I just want to know the truth," Maddie said. The exact punishment could be figured out once they realized where they'd gone wrong. What would possess Danny to meet with a ghost? Especially one who had proven himself to be as destructive as Phantom?

"Promise you won't tell Dad?"

"Oh, honey, I can't do that," Maddie said, though the fact that Danny had asked confirmed her suspicion.

He was friends. With a ghost. And not just any ghost, but Danny Phantom.

But it had to be more than that, didn't it? Friendship alone didn't account for the connection she was now terribly certain Danny shared with the ghost kid. It could, possibly, account for Phantom picking up a few of Danny's mannerisms, but it certainly didn't explain why Danny was tainted with Phantom's ecto-signature. And she couldn't think of any other reason that the Booo-merang would lock onto both Danny and Phantom.

"It's just, well, he won't…take it very well."

"I'll let you tell him yourself, then, all right? Is that better?"

"Not really," Danny muttered. He sighed and hugged his knees. "Mom, not all ghosts are evil."

"Danny—"

"No, really," Danny interrupted. "I know you think they are, but they're not. And, well, er…."

"Danny Phantom isn't?" Maddie supplied. She expected Danny's jaw to drop, for him to question how she had made this leap, but instead, he simply nodded mutely. Phantom must have found Danny and told him about their encounter. Well, she supposed she should be happy that Danny was telling her anything, but the fact that Phantom had managed to get so close to Danny….

"He's my friend," Danny admitted. "And I know what you're thinking, but it's not like that. He didn't overshadow me or anything."

Maddie stared at her son in shock. Possession hadn't actually crossed her mind, but it did fit. They hadn't done nearly enough research themselves, of course, given the ethics of finding suitable test subjects, but they did suspect that repeated and prolonged overshadowing could leave a noticeable effect. A mark, a taint, a bit of contamination…. A connection.

"Uh, Mom?" Danny looked at her uncertainly. "You did hear me say didn't, right?"

"He's using you," Maddie realized. "Phantom is—"

"My friend," Danny cut in. "Mom, listen to me, okay? I was out looking for him. He was supposed to meet me, and he didn't, and it wasn't just from some ghost attack that held him up, and—"

"He's the reason you're missing classes," Maddie said. "Isn't it? You're sneaking off to meet with him. What are you doing, Danny? What were you thinking, trying to befriend a ghost? You can't trust them. He'll use you. He is using you. Ghosts haven't maintained the concept of friendship in their afterlife. They're completely devoid of it. They—"

"Mom!" Danny reached out to give her a small shake, having given up the comfort of the blankets and shuffled down to sit beside her. "Please, stop. You're just telling me what you think, and I know what you think, and that's why I didn't tell you before. But Phantom's not like other ghosts, and he's not the only good ghost out there, either. Have you ever talked to a ghost? And I don't mean questioned one; I mean talked to one. They're not all emotionless and evil and bent on taking over the world. Some of them are nice and helpful and smart and—"

"Tricky," Maddie interrupted gently. "Danny, can't you see you've been fooled?"

Danny slapped his forehead in frustration. "I haven't been fooled," he said. "I just found out the truth. Really, if you'd just listen, maybe you would, too. Just, I don't know, talk to Phantom next time you see him instead of shooting at him, okay?"

"I can't let you be friends with a ghost, honey. You're putting yourself in danger." Danny rolled his eyes. "You are," Maddie insisted. "I'm going to make sure you don't get near Phantom again, Danny. From now on, you have to wear the Spectre Deflector to school."

"Wait, what?"

The instant panic in Danny's voice alarmed her. How much had he come to depend on Phantom's false friendship? How could they have been so blind to this, let it progress so far? "If you're wearing the Spectre Deflector," Maddie explained patiently, "then we'll know that Phantom isn't overshadowing you. I may not be able to stop you from seeing him, Danny, but I certainly can hamper your interaction with him until I can invent something that'll put a stop to it altogether."

"No, Mom, you can't!"

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry. It won't hurt you a bit, I promise. I know Phantom's the reason our inventions keep thinking you're a ghost. You've been in contact with his particular ecto-signature for too long." Even as she said it, Maddie knew it must be true, that her son had been interacting with Phantom for far too long. Phantom had hardly shown up before their inventions had developed the tendency to falsely identify Danny as a ghost. "We'll just decontaminate you first, to be sure, and I can get a pure reading of Phantom's ecto-signature from the Booo-merang."

As she'd been talking, however, Danny had sprung to his feet and backed away from her. He was still staring at her in horror, plastered against the opposite wall not three feet from the door.

"Honey, be reasonable," Maddie said, getting to her feet. "It's for your own good."

"For my own good?" Danny repeated, clearly not believing her. "You'll probably kill me!"

"What?" Maddie blinked in confusion, and Danny clamped his hands over his mouth, clearly wishing he could take his words back. "Danny, what are you—?" But he was already running, out the door and down the hallway.

"Jazz!" he called. "Jazz, where are you?" Maddie started to follow him as Danny slipped into Jazz's room. "Aw, crud," he muttered, evidently realizing that she wasn't there.

It did confirm her suspicion, however, that Jazz knew. Of course, Jazz had been quite vocal in her defence of Phantom of late, and she and Danny hadn't been pushing each other away as often as they once had, even considering that the two of them were teenagers. "I should have noticed from the start," Maddie murmured, her heart aching as she realized what a terrible parent she must be to have allowed this to happen.

Danny. Friends. With Phantom.

It would probably take quite some time for Danny to admit that Phantom had been tricking him. It was just as well that it was the weekend and Danny was grounded. They could start today.

"Danny," Maddie started again, rounding the corner into Jazz's room, "let's go—" But she broke off, startled.

Jazz's room was empty, and she kept it neat enough that Maddie knew Danny wasn't just hiding, though she did check by the bed and in the closet to be absolutely sure. Danny, however, was actually gone. But there was no way he could get to the ground by climbing out the window, short of jumping, and she doubted Danny was desperate enough to do that. And he simply didn't have the means to climb down or time to—

Phantom.

He must have been here the entire time, listening. Coming to 'rescue' Danny. Trying to disprove her words, to turn her son against his own family. Perhaps that was what he'd wanted all along: to sow dissent, to try to tear her family apart.

To think that Danny had been trying to argue that he was a good ghost.

Maddie turned heel and headed downstairs. Danny was with Phantom, and she could find them using the Booo-merang. Even if it took her all day, she'd find them. And then, perhaps, she'd finally get a proper explanation.

After all, what would have possessed Phantom to use Danny? Given the number of children his age who were taken with Phantom, already convinced he was a good ghost, she wouldn't have thought he'd go to the trouble of convincing Danny. That he'd been successful was entirely another matter, of course. But if Phantom's reason was simply to have some leverage against the Fenton family, Maddie was sure Danny would see reason. He wouldn't put his family before a ghost.

Unless he's already done that, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind, since he didn't tell you about his friendship with Phantom.

"I'm tired of this chase, Danny," Maddie said, Booo-merang in hand once again. "We need to settle this." Wearily, she tossed the activated Booo-merang and climbed into the Assault Vehicle, wondering how long it would take her to catch up to Danny this time.

Jazz wasn't in the library, much to Danny's dismay. The one time in recent memory when he decided to go to her first, before Sam and Tucker, and he couldn't find her. And he needed her. She was the only one who could help him. Tucker might be able to disable the Spectre Deflector once he had it, but Jazz was the only one who could doctor something before his parents forced him into it, and, if he was lucky, she'd be able to talk them out of it before it got to that point.

Stupid Booo-merang. It had gotten him into this mess. Why couldn't his parents just ignore the inventions that clearly didn't have much use? He'd admit it wasn't that bad an idea, if they were trying to hunt down a particular ghost that was actually troublesome, but, really, for him, it was just a major annoyance. Only now it had crossed the line from annoying to dangerous, since his mother had figured out it could locate him as Phantom, and….

This so wasn't good.

Danny hadn't made it to Sam's before he saw the Booo-merang spinning towards him. "Oh, no," he moaned, abruptly changing direction. The Booo-merang followed, but at least it wasn't leading his mom—it had to be her trailing it in the Assault Vehicle, after all—straight to Sam's. That would just lead to more questions.

Danny made a beeline for the park, hoping he'd reach it before his mother caught up with him.

He didn't make it.

The Booo-merang hit him just before the net, and before he knew it, he was spinning down towards the earth, wrapped in one of the phase-proof nets his parents had invented.

He hit the pavement hard, but considering he was thrown into buildings and onto the ground on a daily basis, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Except for the fact that his mother was pulling the net up, asking questions he couldn't quite focus on yet, and jabbing his arm as she proceeded to drag him back to where she'd parked the Assault Vehicle.

He was still a bit dazed when she threw him in the back of the vehicle and cut the net away, but he wasn't so far gone that he didn't immediately try to get away before she could wrap something else around him.

Only, he couldn't.

Well, he couldn't go intangible, at least, since that's the first thing he'd tried. But it didn't take long before he realized he couldn't go invisible, either. Or make a shield. Or….

"Are you finished yet?" Maddie asked, looking down at him with her hands on her hips—much too close for comfort to the many weapons he knew she had concealed in her pockets.

"Uh…." Danny blinked, trying to pull his thoughts together. Why were they so scrambled? "What did you give me?"

"A little something that I think just made it out of the experimental stage," Maddie said, sitting down next to him. "Do you like it?"

It was a rhetorical question. He knew that. She didn't expect an answer. But he really didn't like it. It felt like he'd been zapped with the Plasmius Maximus, without the corresponding pain. Or maybe the Ecto-Stoppo-Power-ofier. Or—

This…was not good. At all.

"You shorted out my powers," he whispered.

"I gave you an ecto-suppressant so you couldn't sneak off," Maddie corrected.

An ecto-suppressant? How the heck was his body going to react to that? And why didn't he pay more attention when she was telling him and Jazz about their latest inventions, about their projects? His dad was working on something…bigger, he knew. What had Jazz said? The blueprints had looked like a grenade launcher or something equivalent to that. He didn't remember either of them—or Jazz, when she had been filling him in—saying anything about an ecto-suppressant.

Crud.

And, wait—what was she saying? "What?"

Maddie sat opposite him and crossed her arms. "What did you do with Danny?"

"Nothing," Danny said.

She had her hood pulled back, so he could see her face. She arched an eyebrow. "Where is he, then?"

"I don't know," Danny said, thinking this conversation felt eerily like the one they'd had around this time yesterday. "With his friends?"

"Like you?"

Oh. Right. "His, uh, other friends?"

"Just tell me the truth, Phantom. I'm tired of playing games. I know you made a connection with Danny, and I know you've fooled him, but you haven't fooled me. I don't want you playing him, and don't think you can use him to get to us. Whatever you've been planning won't work. You might as well give up now."

Danny sighed. "I'm not planning anything. I never was." At least the confusion he'd been feeling was wearing off now. Maybe it was the shock of the drug in his system? He'd have to ask Jazz….

"All right."

Danny blinked. "Really? It's fine? You'll let me go?"

"No," Maddie said. "If you weren't planning anything, as you say, then, all right, I'll believe you. If you can explain how and why you and Danny are connected."

Danny groaned and closed his eyes. This was not the time to be the only one in the family who couldn't be thought a genius, the considerations of Genius Magazine aside, since that had just been a fluke and he was fairly certain his teachers had rescinded any special considerations he might have gotten because of it. Of course, that was probably just as well, because he likely would have just been given more work or stuff to prepare him for college, judging by what Jazz was doing all the time, and he already didn't have time to finish the homework he did have.

It didn't help that he was tired. The time in the thermos didn't really affect him, but the lack of sleep from the days and nights before did. And it was starting to catch up with him again.

Making up excuses was hard enough to do when he could think straight.

"I'm waiting, Phantom."

He was going to regret this.

"Danny," he corrected, opening his eyes to look at her. "It's Danny Phantom. I call you by your first name; you can call me by mine."

"I don't want to call you Danny," she said, "and I'd rather you didn't use my first name, either."

"No, Maddie, it's…complicated, okay? Just…call me Danny. Please. For now."

"I'm not calling you by my son's name," she snapped. And sure enough, another piece clicked into place. Her eyes went wide.

Oh, man, he was definitely going to regret this, but it was too late now.

"Danny," she mouthed, staring at him.