Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: I'm sure in some alternate universe I own something of interest; it is probably not Danny Phantom though.


At Danni's slight nod Danny leaned further back in his chair tilting his head back to try to see behind him without turning around. Jack caught the chair as it began to fall and pushed his son back upright.

"Convince us to what Danny?" Maddie asked.

"Jazz! Mom and Dad are home!" Danny yelled, jumping to his feet.

"Daniel…" Maddie said sternly, causing Danny to wince at the use of his full name. He decided not to wonder why it didn't really bother him that Plasmius used it constantly, but it terrified him on the rare occasion that his Mother used it. The answer was probably in the question somewhere if he cared to look. "Convince us to what?"

"Well… Um…" A part of Danny brain that he really wished he could shut off was cheerfully cataloguing the number of ways his parents could kill him, just with the weapons they currently had on hand from their recent ghost hunting expedition. He knew they wouldn't, but there was still that part of him, namely the ghost part, that got a little nervous when facing irritable people holding ghost destroying weaponry. "I think maybe Jazz and I should stay with Mr. Masters while you guys are gone?" He said, subconsciously sidling over to stand closer to Danielle, who had leapt up when he had, putting most of the kitchen table between him and his parents.

If he took one more step back and two to the side he'd be directly across the table from them, a fact that was not lost on either of his parents. Maddie glanced at Jack, wondering just how close that stray shot the other night had come. She had no real way of knowing that Danny reacted in much the same manner, only slightly more openly defensive rather than merely wary, when confronted with an irritable Valerie in full battle gear.

Jazz came downstairs in time to hear Danny's suggestion, and couldn't help but notice that he was more hesitant with it to their parents than he had been with her. When she went in the kitchen she saw why, both her parents were still practically bristling with ghost weapons from their unsuccessful hunt, and looked vaguely annoyed. There were two ways she knew that it had been unsuccessful, one: they generally didn't look annoyed if they caught any ghost other than Danny (she wasn't the only one that sucked him into a thermos on occasion), and two: she'd called in that tip herself when she heard what happened at lunch, just in case Danny didn't get back before school let out. She'd have a chance to get home and erase any messages the school left about him skipping, use the booo-merang to find him, and wouldn't have to worry them over something Danny could probably handle on his own just as soon as someone let him out of the thermos. At least that had been her excuse when Sam had pointed out that she had covered for Danny yet again, just like she used to do before he'd told their parents about being Danny Phantom.

"What's going on?" She asked, mostly to break try to the tension since Danny wasn't the only one tensing up at the site of two heavily armed, semi-competent, and annoyed ghost hunters. Danielle's hand was white from gripping the back of her chair, and Jazz had a feeling that the one of Danny's hands that she could see would be shaking if it weren't pressed against the tabletop so hard. Something told her that she'd better figure out what had both halfas so tense before one or both of them snapped and let loose an ecto-blast or several.

"Yeah Danny, what is going on here?" Jack asked.

"Why do you suddenly want to stay with Vlad?" Maddie asked, pushing the question of why her son had backed away from her aside to ask another time.

"Uh…" Suffering Spooks, why couldn't I have taken ten minutes to think of a good reason? Danny though desperately, And why can't they put down at least a few of those weapons?! He was saved from answering however by noise in the basement. His parents drew weapons and Danny's quick reflexes were all that kept Danielle from firing an excto-blast at the weapons that were now pointed at the basement door, right behind her and Danny. His hand leapt from the table to close over her fist even as it rose from her side and she started charging a blast. The silence that followed his shouted, "Danielle!" was almost deafening as the youngest halfa's eyes widened and she went very pink. But she didn't apologize for her reaction since she still had weapons pointed at her, well, past her, but the effect was the same.

Jazz's own eyes widened slightly as she figured out part of the problem, and she cursed silently that she didn't see it sooner. "Danny, why don't you and Danielle go see what that noise was? Mom, Dad, I need to talk to you for a second." She said quickly, grabbing her parents and dragging them into the living room before anyone had a chance to argue with her, or even fully recover from the shock of what had occurred in that split second. The flash of light that was her brother and his 'cousin' transforming served as the only indication that either halfa had heard her.

"What is going on here Jazz?" Maddie asked, holstering her weapon and crossing her arms. She wasn't sure what was going on, but it was a pretty sure bet that, whatever it was, Jazz knew about it. "Why does Danny suddenly want to stay with Vlad?"

"I don't know exactly… But do I know that Danielle has been tense all day and Danny hasn't exactly been relaxed since he talked to her this morning." Jazz said thinking fast, "I think it has something to do with something she saw on Vlad's desk this morning but since neither of them are saying anything about it now, I'm guessing they can't prove anything. But with both of them this tense… Maybe it would be better to talk to them without all the ghost weapons?" she suggested hesitantly. There were a couple thuds from the basement, then silence again.

Maddie glanced at Jack, if Danielle had seen something on Vlad's desk that he didn't want her to see, then Danny might just want to stay with her in order to make sure she was safe until he could find out what was going on. But if that was the case, how did he expect to get Vlad to agree?

Jack seemed to be thinking along a completely different line, his thought process was pretty much; I bet Danny burnt his hand stopping Danielle like that; we'll need to find the burn cream… Was it in the fridge or the medicine cabinet? I think I saw it in the fridge behind the brownies Thursday… "Maddie, do we have any of those fudge brownies left?" he asked suddenly as he set aside the Jack-o-nine-tails and started removing the rest of his weapons. If it weren't for the fact that he was putting the weapons down, the two women might have thought he wasn't listening at all.

"No Jack, we don't." Maddie answered, right before her son called from the kitchen asking where the burn cream was.

Jack's muttered, "Well it was behind the brownies…" answered one of his wife's questions. Sadly, it was just the question of how he went from thinking about his son to thinking about brownies.

"I think it's in the fridge next to the ecto-samples." Maddie called as she finished shedding weapons.

"Which ecto-samples?" Danny asked, "Never mind, I found it." Danny came into the living room a moment later the burn cream in one hand and a Fenton Thermos in the burned hand. "Mom, how long has this been in the fridge and who is in it?" he asked reasonably. He knew from the half guilty-half stern look on his Mom's face, and the surprised look on his Dad's that he had just caught them doing something they didn't want him knowing about.

"I saw that in the fridge last week, I didn't really think about it." Jazz joined in, from the way both her parents flinched, she knew they had won. Whatever those two were doing with that ghost in that thermos, they weren't supposed to be doing it.

"We just wanted to ask her some questions… And maybe do some tests." Jack claimed, but he didn't meet the eyes of either of his children.

"I thought we'd agreed, no more catching sentient ghosts and running tests on them without their consent!!" Jazz objected, she thought about when she'd first spotted the thermos in the fridge and decided that it was probably the Lunch Lady in there.

"She agreed when she knocked my baby out cold with a giant turkey leg!" Maddie claimed.

"That wasn't an agreement to anything Mom, that's my life. And it was chicken." Danny went on before his Mother could object again, tired of his parents reacting so strongly to such minor injuries from such minor battles. "I spent most of last year as an oddity in the ghost zone, so I had ghosts coming through almost on a daily basis, sometimes several a day, just to see how strong the new halfa was. And after your reunion, I had to deal with Plasmius too. I dealt Skulker hunting me, wanting to put my pelt on his wall. I dealt with you two hunting me, wanting to rip me apart molecule by molecule and study the pieces. And I dealt with Valerie, who just wanted to blow my molecules apart.

The point Mom, is that I survived. And I managed to earn their respect. The really hard part is over, now the only ghosts that I have to deal with are the most stubborn ones. The ones that think they can beat me despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And the Box Ghost, but think he just likes the fact that I don't laugh openly at him like most of the other ghosts do."

The room was silent, even Danielle, who had come up from closing the portal and putting the basement back to rights after the very brief fight with the Box Ghost while Danny had been talking, didn't say anything as Maddie took the thermos from her son and handed it to her husband. Then she took the burn cream and started tending Danny's hand, Danny shifted slightly on his feet, but let his mother tend him. The burn covered his palm but was already starting to heal, the cream was more to make it stop hurting than to do anything else. It probably wouldn't be more than a little red in the morning, it surprised her sometimes, how fast her baby healed now. And he was right, Phantom wasn't spotted fighting over the city as often now, and rather than being chased off the scene by the Red Huntress or the Fentons, he sometimes got help from them. And his friends were getting really good with that ghost hunting gear themselves, Danny had been right in suggesting they make some duplicates of some of the weapons. Her baby barely needed her anymore, somewhere along the way, probably when she'd been off inventing something that could kill him; he'd all but grown up.

Danny looked at her, "I'm not a baby anymore Mom." He said, no idea what was going through her head. "I can handle a little burn on my own."

"I know…" Maddie said sadly, "But you'll always be my baby." She added hugging him. "I'll talk to your father tonight, we'll call Vlad in the morning." She whispered, so low that even he barely heard it then she let him go. "Come on Jack, let's go to bed. I'm sure the rest of this discussion can wait till morning can't it?" she asked.

Jack sighed, glad he'd talked her into eating on the way home, he knew that look, and what 'this discussion can wait' was code for. It unfailingly meant that she intended to finish the conversation without the kids, which usually meant that they stayed in whichever room she chose, with the door locked (and for past several months a small anti-ghost shield set up), until the conversation was finished.

Danny smiled as his parents went upstairs, and hoped that the anti-ghost they would probably set up wouldn't block the like they did last time. He grabbed the thermos from where his Dad had set it on the couch. "I better go set her loose."


Author's Note: Wow, that was a long scene. Makes me feel like Technus, only instead of being the master of long winded speeches, I'm the master of long winded scenes. It took up the whole chapter! Thank again to Bookworm700 for looking over it. And please remember to review if you have anything you want to say, even if it's negative!