It was almost lunchtime by the time Danny reached the school, so he walked to the cafeteria doors and waited for the lunch bell to ring.

The instant Sam and Tucker saw Danny, they sprinted to his side and started asking questions of his whereabouts.

"Where were you?" Sam hissed.

"Why are you late?" Tucker added.

"Long story, I'll tell you over lunch," Danny groaned before jerking his head towards the cafeteria, which clearly expressed his desire to go sit down.

When the trio had their lunches, and were sitting at their claimed "Loser Table", Danny started his rant.

He started on what happened the night before, where his parents were gushing over the portal and their inventions, prototypes, blueprints, etc.

Unfortunately, the more he thought about it in his angered state, the more hatred for his parents he felt. He was jealous of his parent's work because he truly believed that his parents cared more about ghosts than they did their own children.

Then he started complaining about Jazz and how he hated it whenever she dragged him into her room to psychoanalyze him.

"Then she dragged me into her room and asked me how I felt when Mom and Dad were showing us their stupid inventions! She didn't even care when I said that I hated them for loving their work more than us! Their own kids! She probably doesn't care, either! She doesn't care about me, or what Mom and Dad do or don't! All she's ever loved in her life are her books and psychology! I hate her!"

What Danny didn't realize was that Jazz was right behind him. Sam and Tucker knew this because they were sitting on the other side of the table, facing Danny. They saw Jazz's broken eyes at Danny's words and the way her mouth opened and closed as if she had no idea what to say about what had just come out of Danny's lips. They saw her lips begin to tremble and her eyes water at Danny's proclamation for how he felt about his sister at that moment before her eyes hardened and her lips set into a firm frown.

Jazz quickly spun around on her heel and stalked away.

Danny didn't notice Sam or Tucker's grim expressions: he was too angry to notice anything around him. He continued to what happened that morning with his parents and the embarrassing (and gross) samples they had taken from him.

That caught his friends' attention from Jazz.

"Wait, they took blood samples?" Tucker gasped, absolutely horrified at the thought of needles.

"They asked for your urine?" Sam scrunched her nose, clearly disgusted.

"Something about stomach enzymes and the digestive track," Danny explained. (Jack and Maddie were testing to see if Danny's diet needed to be adjusted in case something within his digestive system had been affected, but Danny didn't know that.)

"What if they find out that you're part ghost?" Tucker whispered anxiously.

"I don't know!" Danny sighed. "Do you think your parents might take me in if my parents disown me?"

"I know my parents wouldn't," Sam muttered.

"At least your parents are normal, while I'm stuck with the town's freaks."

"I think everyone's parents have their little weird quirks-" Tucker started, but then realized that Danny was glaring green eyes at him, "-buuuut, I have to agree with you there, Danny, you're parents take the cake. Please don't kill me." He raised his hands in surrender to Danny, who stopped glaring at Tucker to glare at his lunch.

"At least your parents care for you more than they care about their work," Danny muttered.

Sam and Tucker both knew that Danny had every right to have a pity party at that moment. They were moody teenagers, and teens go through at least one pity party during their puberty. Danny's near-death, or half-death, experience was a perfectly acceptable trigger point for his minimum of one teenage pity party.

But, knowing teenagers, he's probably going to go through many more. As will Sam, and Tucker, and (even) Jazz (except Jazz will know that she's going through a pity party and will record everything that happens or manipulate herself out of it).

Danny ranted a little bit more about his parents and sister until his pent-up frustration seemed to finally ebb away. Tucker took that window of opportunity to bring up that Jazz had heard Danny earlier.

"Are you done being angry?"

"No!" Danny folded his arms, then sighed as he realized he had nothing more to rant about. "Yes."

"Then you should probably find Jazz and apologize for what you said earlier about hating her," Tucker advised.

"Why? She didn't hear me… did she?"

"Even if she didn't hear you, you should probably apologize, anyway. I know it's a little hypocritical of me to say this because of all the rants you hear from me about my parents, but saying that you hate someone is really, really serious," Sam commented.

"So she heard?"

"Yep." Sam and Tucker both replied.

"Darn it." Danny sighed again and ran his hand through his messy hair. He looked at the clock in the cafeteria. "Lunchtime is almost over. Do you think I can find her in time before Biology starts?"

"Well, when wondering where Jazz is, the first place we should always check would be…" Tucker started.

"The library," Danny and Sam chimed in with Tucker.


The library was a safe-haven for Jazz. When Jazz started Preschool, she realized that the world was not a kind, warm place the way her home was. When her peers realized that her parents were the "weird, ghost-hunting freaks" of Amity Park, she became a victim to constant bullying. The friends she had made for a few, short days quickly turned their backs on her when their parents told them to "stay away from the Fenton girl".

When Jazz could not make friends with her peers, she first ran to the library to hide from the bullies. She would spend hours quivering in the corner, too afraid to go out and face the cruel world.

Naturally, spending hours upon hours hiding among the bookshelves lead to the young girl pulling books out and reading them. Hours upon hours of quivering in fear lead to hours upon hours soaking in the wondrous knowledge that the library offered her.

The library was her sanctum, the nonfiction section her teachers, the fiction section her friends. By the time the girl was in second grade, she was reading at a sixth-grade reading level. Her comprehension increased to the point that the elementary school library did not offer books that would challenge her. She quickly learned to rely on the public library.

Jazz eventually realized that she didn't understand people. She didn't know how to be social, or how to read people, or even empathize with them. The only people she could really understand were her family.

She recognized it as a weakness and was determined to turn it around into a strength.

She started out by reading self-help books to making friends, which eventually lead her to her current passion: psychology.

Knowing the way the mind worked helped Jazz understand people better. She could empathize with them, and she began to feel more than before.

It was her drug, her gateway to the life that most people took for granted. She understood: she understood the people around her much better, and more importantly, she understood herself.

She practically swallowed books on all forms of psychology: personalities, mental illnesses and disorders, emotions, then she found books on how to treat people that were mentally imbalanced, how to recognize the signs when something was wrong.

It was the best thing that happened to her in her life just short of her little brother being born.

Jazz was two and a half when Danny was born; she didn't remember much, but she remembered being super excited at the idea of having a sibling and absolutely loving the little red wrinkly thing that had come out of her Mummy's tummy, even though he looked ugly at the time. He was much cuter a few hours later when he was washed up.


When Danny and his friends arrived at the library, they found Jazz intently poring over a psychology book on teenagers. She was furiously scribbling in her notebook and muttering under her breath, leaning so far towards the book that her nose almost brushed its pages.

Danny knew from personal experience that when Jazz was in that state, a person only interrupted her if they had a death wish or if it was an urgent emergency.

"Come on," Danny urged his friends. "I'll apologize tonight, when she's not concentrating on her beloved psychology book."

Sam and Tucker didn't have a death wish, either, so they turned with Danny and headed to their Biology class.

They didn't see Jazz break as she threw her pen down, gripped the roots of her hair with both hands (which completely messed up her teal hairband), then slid down to a resting position on the table and quietly sobbed into her arms.

A/N I was saving this chapter to post on Christmas, but I'm impatient and couldn't wait. So instead of getting a chapter on the Eve and then on the Day, you'll be getting the Eve one now.

My family actually celebrates Christmas on the 24th, so expect a chapter on the 25th as a present from me, all you people who celebrate Christmas on the 25th.

For those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, I wish you a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa, or a simple Happy Holidays. :)

Let's hope that the next chapter is happier, but I seriously doubt it because of the way that the timing of everything worked out. Danny's stage of grief is currently in anger, and he is going to stay angry until he has no more reason to be angry. In other words, until he realizes that his parents do care for him, they just have interesting ways of showing it.

Once again, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, or Happy Holidays! :)