When the lift doors opened, Danny wasn't surprised to see that the hotel wasn't quite awake yet. The lobby was more or less void of people, with the exception of the guy behind the main desk who looked half dead anyway.

A delicious smell crept up his nose as they walked across the lobby in silence towards an area with tables and chairs. Chocolate croissants, it had to be. He'd been secretly looking forward to this ever since his social worker mentioned them. After everything that had happened yesterday, he hadn't had chance to really eat anything. Then again, he hadn't been all that hungry anyway. Now, on the other hand, he was ravenous. He had no doubt that he could eat an entire horse in one bite.

On the other hand, he was not looking forward to telling Vlad what had happened yesterday, not one little bit. In fact, he was dreading it. His mouth went dry at the thought of revisiting it all again because frankly, he wanted to forget that any of it had ever happened. He wanted to erase every detail of that god awful day from his mind and move on with what was left of his life. But how could he? His family died. He couldn't forget them, even if he wanted to. He didn't. He didn't ever want to forget them, he didn't want them to be gone, he wanted to be at home right now eating burnt toast and listening to his mom yelling at him about how late he was for school.

No. He pulled himself out of that train of thought before it got too late because he wasn't at home. He wasn't eating burnt toast and his mother wasn't around to yell at him. He wasn't late for school, he'd likely never step foot in Casper High again. It was a harsh reality that he'd have to get used to. Like, right now.

He watched as a woman placed a fresh hot plate of hot croissants on a buffet table, and headed right the hell over there. He grabbed a plate and a croissant, a small packet of Nutella and a butter knife. This was awesome.

Vlad raised an eyebrow at the not-exactly-healthy breakfast Danny was piling on his plate, and opted for a simple cup of coffee.

"So," Vlad began, "you were going to tell me what happened." How subtle.

Danny placed his half eaten breakfast on his plate. He knew this was coming. He just kind of didn't want it to.

"Right, but I want you to promise me something first. No, I need you to promise me that however crazy this sounds, you won't write it off as post traumatic temporary insanity or whatever."

"Go on."

"It's quite complicated. Okay. So imagine there are two timelines. In the original timeline, I cheated on a test. Because of this, my teacher Mr Lancer arranged to meet my parents at the Nasty Burger. I don't even know why Jazz, Sam and Tucker were there. And then there was the explosion that... you know." He paused and took a deep breath. This was sounding more and more coincidental and crazy by the second. "After that, you became my legal guardian. I was in a lot of pain, and you understood. You wanted to help. You thought that by removing my human half, you'd get rid of my emotions and I'd be able to move on. But you were wrong, instead you separated us into two living halves, and the first thing my ghost half did was kill my human half, the second thing it did was merge with your ghost half. The third thing it did was destroy everything. God, he's pure evil and there's no way to stop him."

He looked at Vlad, and saw the confused if disbelieving look he had on his face, and that hurt. He wanted Vlad to believe him, he needed him to.

"And that's where Clockwork comes in."

"Clockwork – now it all makes sense. I must admit, Daniel, your story was beginning to sound unrealistically farfetched. But now that Clockwork has joined the equation... Do continue."

"He sent a few ghosts to kill me. Get this – he sent a ghost called Boxed Lunch, aka the lovechild of the lunch lady and the box ghost."

"Yikes."

"When I defeated Boxed Lunch, she had this strange medallion around her neck. One thing led to another, and we traced it to Clockwork's lair. He tried to kill me again, but we fled to the future, where we encountered him. He seems to call himself Dan Phantom. Your name isn't even in there, sucks to be you. If it's any consolation, he does look more like you. Anyway, that's unrelated and probably doesn't even matter. He travelled to our timeline to ensure that he was still created by killing my family. I visited you in the future, and you helped me get back here. Speaking of, don't ever grow a hobo beard. Being a lonely old hermit is no excuse, it doesn't work. It just doesn't. It doesn't work on anyone." Vlad didn't know whether he should be offended or not, but decided against it. There were more pressing matters at hand, after all. Besides, he didn't even want a 'hobo beard', why would he?

...

Maybe he had considered it briefly. Just, like, once. Everyone goes through a beard phase at some point in their life, right? Just look at Brad Pitt.

"Anyway," Danny said with a certain tone of self discipline, "back to the story. When I made it back to this timeline, I managed to trap Dan inside a Fenton Thermos but it was too late. The Nasty Burger exploded, which is Clockwork decided to make an appearance, and he probably saved my life. But he didn't save theirs."

"And what of Dan?"

"Clockwork took the thermos and told me that Dan now existed outside of time, whatever that means. He said I should 'take the necessary steps to ensure that he is never reborn'. I think the general gist is to not, you know, split myself into two or anything like that. He's a big fan of the whole actions-have-consequences thing."

"Let me get this straight, Clockwork wants you to live with the consequences of an action you never took? Going on what you've just told me, you never cheated on the test."

"I didn't, but Dan did. He made himself look like me and cheated on the test whilst I was trapped in another timeline completely. I suppose Clockwork was hoping that I'd figure things out sooner and get back in time to save them myself. I did ask him, I begged him to let them live. He just told me that it was 'out of his hands' and that there was 'nothing he could do'." Danny realised that he was clenching his fist and that it was starting to hurt.

He took a deep breath, forced himself to relax. He looked at Vlad hoping for something, anything. He figured that he sort-of got what he wanted when Vlad's coffee mug shattered in his hands.

"In which case, it wasn't your fault. It was Clockwork's, that meddling little bastard. I'll kill him." It became apparent that Vlad was, oh, seething with rage.

"Calm down. There's nothing either of us can do. He's not like us, he'd see us coming before we even realised we were going. And besides, it's not his fault. He wouldn't want me to suffer for no reason at all, surely not. He was genuinely regretful when he said he couldn't help. I really do believe he was telling the truth." Okay, that was a flat out lie. Danny hated Clockwork right now, quite possibly more than he'd ever hated anyone ever before. In fact, he was fully intending on paying him a visit once he was settled in at Vlad's. But now was not the time. He couldn't afford to disappear right now. "How do you know Clockwork, anyway?"

"Ugh. Don't get me started. He's constantly interfering with my plans. He's been trying to get me to become a better person for years. After 20 years of being a selfish rich kid, and another 20 being a bitter old super villain, you'd think he would have realised that it's a lost cause." He seemed to be calming down a little, which was good. Danny really couldn't deal with Vlad freaking out too. He picked up the discarded croissant, which was now cold, and nibbled on it.

"So you were rich before you got your ghost powers?" This was odd. Small talk was something he and Vlad scarcely ever did, and when they did it was usually just a front to fool whatever witnesses were present.

"Indeed. I inherited the mansion and a reasonable fortune from my parents." He said as he started to pick up the pieces of the destroyed coffee mug. It was a good thing it had been more or less empty, otherwise he would have made a real mess. "I suppose it's why I still live out there. There's nothing else to keep me in Wisconsin other than the memories of growing up in that place."

Something suddenly dawned on Danny.

"I've never asked, what happened to your parents?"