A/N: Yay, the lines work! Finally! (composes self)

Anywho...sorry again about this being late due to getting shoved aside from writing ASU. That always seems to happen, doesn't it?

Alright, now this chapter is not what you guys expect it to be, given the structure and general outline of the past three chapters. I won't say too much since it's right below, but some things need to be covered before they go running off to Wisconsin, so sorry, no Vlad yet. But he's coming! Don't worry! But don't be disappointed, because this chapter will clear up a lot of theories you guys have, leaving the real mystery...

Oh, and just to let you know, I've posted my character profiles for Kimberly, Noelle, and Jacob on my deviantart account. They're insanely involved and half of the information probably will never come up, but it's still just fun to have. Here's the link in case you're interested http / www . deviantart . com / deviation / 40025151 / (just make sure you take out the spaces).

And thanks again for all the reviews! You guys rock! (I really need to start finding different ways to thank you guys...they all sound the same...)

Chapter Eleven
Victoria

Thankfully Kimberly's parents agreed to let her have another sleepover, and Noelle and Jacob's parents allowed them to come over for another one, as long as they promised not to have one for two weeks, but it was a noble sacrifice.

Kimberly now sat on her bed, staring at the canopy, wishing the time to pass quicker while she let the day's events sink in. She knew she probably should be downstairs with her parents, spending time with them since she hadn't seen much of them all day, but she just felt weird talking to them. When she was trying to convince them to let her have another sleepover, something just felt off between them, and she was sure it had something to do with the revelation she'd received from Lancer.

All this time her parents had known about Danny Fenton being Danny Phantom and probably had a pretty good guess about how he disappeared as well, and still they'd never told her. They'd kept something this big a secret and she knew that until she told them she knew, things would be slightly awkward among them. She'd have to tell them, there was no other way, but she was going to wait until everything was over and the Danny of this period was found. Then she'd tell her parents everything about their adventure with the Danny from the past and maybe about being a half ghost as well. They seemed to accept Danny Fenton even though he was a ghost, so it stood to reason that they'd accept her as well.

Finally she couldn't take anymore staring at the ceiling and got up, deciding to take a walk while she tried to sift through all the information in her muddled brain. She walked, going over everything they'd learned in the letters, still trying to piece together what they still needed and trying to guess how much of the puzzle still needed to be completed. It seemed like there was still so much they didn't know, but how much longer could this go on? Tomorrow was Sunday and then it would be Monday, and Kimberly and her friends needed to go to school, and she didn't think Danny could wait until the weekend to continue looking. If she and her friends were really supposed to help them, then that would mean they'd be finishing this soon, but it seemed like there was just so much left to do, and that didn't even include actually finding and rescuing them either.

Kimberly stopped and realized she was in front of the door that leads to the attic. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been up there and figured now was as good a time as any, since she had nothing else to do. She opened the door and ascended up the staircase, coughing at the dust that flew into the air from her movement. Obviously the maids never cleaned up here, but then again, there really was no reason to. As she entered the dark room, she created an ecto-blast in her hand, searching, and failing to find, a light.

She enlarged the ecto-blast so it lit up most of the attic. Unfortunately for Kimberly's attention span, the large space was generally empty. A few stray pieces of furniture or old baby toys of hers or her siblings' were stacked in boxes here and there, but otherwise there was nothing of interest. She took a few minutes to look through the old toys, relishing in the nostalgia they brought, and was about to head back downstairs when an old chest caught her eye. It was a wooden chest the same color as the attic so it blended in nicely. Kimberly would never have noticed it had the green light of the ecto-blast not reflected off the metal of the lock.

She walked over to it, wondering why she'd never seen or heard her parents talk about it before. What could they possibly need to store in a chest up in the attic? Did it have something to do with Danny? Pictures of him were illegal, but they could only get in trouble if they were seen by others, which was why Lancer hid the photograph so well and why her father was so concerned about her seeing it. Was this where her parents stored all the old pictures? She tried to open it only to find that it was locked on both sides, each requiring a key. Kimberly smiled, knowing that something as simple as a lock wasn't going to stop her. She touched the chest and turned it intangible, moving it to the side while the contents slid out. She let go of the chest, it's majesty and splendor forgotten as she beheld the contents, not believing her eyes.

At around eight Noelle and Jacob knocked on Kimberly's door. The butler answered, remarking that he hadn't seen or heard from Kimberly all afternoon but he assumed that she was in her room. They thanked him and raced up, sure that Danny and his friends were already there. Unfortunately, no one was in the room.

"Well, where do you think everyone is?" Jacob asked as he shut the door.

"Oh we're here," Danny answered, causing the two newcomers to jump as Danny and his friends regained visibility. "Sorry, we were hiding, just incase."

"Wait, where's Kimberly?" Noelle asked.

"We don't know. We've been waiting in here for like five minutes and we haven't seen her. We didn't know if we should go looking for her or what."

"Yeah, we probably should. It's a bad sign when the person who lives in the house is the one late for the party," Jacob remarked as he turned to head out the door, Danny, turning his friends invisible again, followed after them.

"How do you intend to find her in this huge house?" Tucker whispered.

"There are only so many places she would be. The house may be huge, but a lot of the rooms aren't worth checking since they're just offices or guest rooms or stuff like that."

"Ha, sounds like my house," Sam remarked bitterly as she stared at the interior, her dislike of large houses evident on her face.

After a few minutes they'd combed all three floors with no sign of Kimberly and neither her sisters nor Sylvia had seen her for the past hour.

"Alright, that does it. I haven't done this in a long time, but desperate times call for desperate measures," Noelle informed them.

"I'd plug your ears," Jacob advised.

"Why—" Tucker began to ask but he was cut off by Noelle.

"Marco!" she yelled loudly, standing still, listening for a response. "Well, she's not on the second floor. Let's move up to the third."

They ran up the stairs and Noelle took a deep breath while the others covered their ears. "Marco!"

"I think I heard something," Danny informed them. "It came from the left."

They nodded and headed in the direction, Noelle positioning herself in the middle of the hall and shouting again. This time all of them could distinctly hear the cry "Polo!" They continued yelling back and forth until they reached the door to the attic and entered.

"Kimberly, there you are! We've been combing the house for you!"

"What time is it?"

"Around 8:30," Jacob informed her.

"8:30?"

"Yeah. Looks like somebody got distracted and lost track of the time. What're you doing up here?"

"I was bored and wandered up into the attic and you won't believe what I found! This old chest was full of pictures and yearbooks, all containing pictures of the three of you with my parents."

"Really?" Danny asked, sitting down next to her and grabbing photos. "Wow, this is so surreal."

"From what I've found out from the pictures, my mom and Sam were roommates in college, as were my father and you, which is probably how he found out about you; it's probably really hard to keep that a secret from a roommate."

"Yeah. I probably did about as good a job keeping it from him as I did from Jazz."

"But that's not the most interesting thing. I found this group photo, dated in November of 2014, the month you disappeared."

"Really?" Danny asked, grabbing the picture. Danny and Sam were in the middle while Sam was holding a one year old. Tucker and Jazz were on one side of them while two other people, who Danny could only assume were Kimberly's parents, were on the other side. "Wow. Is this…" Danny asked, pointing at the baby girl.

"I think that's Victoria, your child."

"Oh my God," Danny remarked as he passed the picture to Sam, staring at the floor, amazed.

"I…I can't believe it…" She too deftly passed the picture to Tucker, who cracked into a smile.

"Aw, that's so sweet, it's your baby! She looks just like you Danny! But man, I look even more good-looking than I do now!"

Jacob grabbed the picture from him as he and Noelle looked at it in fascination as well.

"Alright, I think we need to go to Vlad's," Sam suggested. "As much as I enjoy this, it's a little weird. It's like those people that combine the pictures of the parents and show them what their kids would look like."

"No, we can't go yet," Danny replied, finally coming back to his senses. "Obviously Kimberly's parents are better friends with me than I thought, so they have to know something. I mean, there are pictures of us doing almost everything together."

"Danny, what am I going to ask them, 'What happened to Danny Fenton?' They'll tell me the exact same stuff they told me before."

"She does have a point," Tucker agreed.

"But you have more information now, and this picture. Play off that, ask them specific questions. It never hurts to try."

"I guess not."

"And I'll be in the room with you, invisible of course, and I'll stay in afterwards too, just incase they decide to talk about it after you've left."

"Alright."

The group waited outside the parlor while Kimberly and an invisible Danny entered. Kimberly's parents were sitting on the armchairs in font of the fireplace, her father reading a book and her mother doing needlepoint.

"Mom, Dad, can I ask a question?"

They put down their entertainment and looked at her. "Of course dear, what do you want to ask?" her mother asked.

"Have you told me everything you know about Danny Fenton?"

"What kind of a question is that?" her father asked, looking at her curiously.

"It's just, I can't help thinking that there's more to Danny Fenton than what everyone says."

"Well dear that's the thing, there is more to them, but the thing is that nobody knows."

"But surely you guys have to know something! You were like best friends with them! You guys did everything together!"

"What makes you think that?"

"This picture," Kimberly stated as she gave them the group picture. "It's a picture of Danny with his family, his best friend, his sister, and the two of you, the month he disappeared. You and the rest of the people in this photograph know something more than what you're telling us, I can tell every time we visit his grave. Tucker and Jazz still think he's alive and the only reason they would is if they knew something no one else did."

As Kimberly described her point, her parents involvement in the disappearance became clearer, like she was putting the pieces together as she stated her case, surprised that she'd never seen the connections before.

But her parents obviously didn't care about Kimberly's speech. They were still staring transfixed at the picture.

"Wh-where did you get this?" her mother asked.

"I found it in the attic. I was bored so I went up there to look at my old toys and found it on the floor next to an old chest," Kimberly lied.

"You're not supposed to see this," her father scolded.

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't stop the fact that I did. There's more to this and you're not telling me!"

"Look, we were close friends with the Fentons and we did see them a lot and yes, we did see them the month that they disappeared as often as we did other months," her father admitted. "Did we know when that picture was taken that in a few weeks' time they'd disappear and never return? No, we had no clue. We were just a bunch of old college friends having fun together. We don't know anything else about their disappearance. Now if that's all your questions I suggest you—"

"Why do I look so much like Danny Fenton?" she asked, the question out of her mouth before she could stop it. That question had been bothering her since she first laid eyes on Danny and she had to know.

Her mother sighed. "I don't know. I never cheated on your father with him and had you if that's what you're wondering."

"No, no, of course not. It's just, we look so similar, same hair, same eyes, same face."

"We noticed it as well, and we have no clue why you look so much like Danny, but we've got the birth certificate and DNA records to prove that you are the child of your father and I. The similarity must just be a coincidence."

Kimberly nodded her head, not sure whether she believed their explanation or not, if you could even call it an explanation. Frankly, it didn't explain anything, only that she wasn't the product of an affair, which she'd never considered in the first place.

"Alright if that is finally all your questions, I think you should go back upstairs with Jacob and Noelle before they start getting bored," her father suggested, in a tone that indicated that even if she did have more questions, it would be unwise to ask them.

Kimberly headed out of the room and turned the corner where her friends were hanging out in the hallway, waiting for her report. As she informed them of what little she'd found out, she hoped that she had at least done her job. All she needed to do was get them to start talking after she'd left so Danny could collect the information, and judging by her parents' reactions, she was sure her questions had stimulated enough of a conversation.

Danny watched Kimberly leave the room and then focused his attention on the parents. Her father was walking towards the bar, pouring himself a drink while her mother was pacing in front of the fireplace, her hand on her head.

"George, I don't like this, I don't like continuing to lie to her."

"I know, but it's necessary. We can't tell her the truth. We promised Danny we wouldn't."

Now Danny was intrigued. Promised they wouldn't tell her what? And when would they have a chance to make such a promise? His suspicions upstairs were right; they knew more than they let on.

"Yes, but when we promised him I didn't think she'd be coming to us with these types of questions!"

"Don't start getting soft Alicia. Danny's life may be at stake, if he's still alive, and we need to keep her ignorant until he comes back."

"And if he doesn't? We have to tell her sometime."

"He's coming back."

"You've been saying that for fifteen years. You're sounding just like Tucker and Jazz, full of hope and not thinking straight."

"Well, maybe I don't want to think straight."

"But unlike them we have to! For Kimberly! She can't go her whole life not knowing!"

"We just need to wait for the right time."

"I think the right time has long since passed, and you can't pretend to block it out any longer. Look at this picture, it's proof! This picture was in a locked chest in the attic! I just looked at the picture yesterday and I know for a fact that I put it back, and I have the keys around my neck! Face it George, she inherited his ghost powers, just like he said she might, and she's been hiding them from us. There's no other way she could have gotten the picture out of the locked chest."

"But what are we supposed to tell her? That she's Victoria Fenton and we're not her real parents? I don't think that'll go over too well."

"The longer we wait the worse it'll be. They always say that adopted children have a stage where they want to know about their true parents, maybe Kimberly's going through hers?"

"Yes, but those are adopted children that know they're adopted, and she doesn't, and I'd personally like to keep it that way!"

"But the longer we wait the harsher it'll be for her! We just have to tell her, and soon!"

"Alright, but tonight is not a good night, not after we just lied to her and promised her that she was our daughter, and especially not when her friends are over."

Danny stopped listening and floated in shock, staring at the burning logs in the fireplace. After he saw Kimberly go ghost he knew the possibility was very high, but he just didn't want to let himself think it. It would just be too weird, to be hanging out with someone his age who turned out to be his daughter. He just couldn't grasp his mind around the concept so he didn't and just forgot about it, Tucker and Sam as well. But now, there was no denying it. Mr. and Mrs. Jordan had just confirmed it. They weren't her parents. He, Danny Fenton, and Sam were.

He flew out the room and turned visible upon touching the floor and stared at the group, his eyes wide and his face pale, his mouth slightly open.

"What happened?" Sam asked, knowing something major had just occurred in the room. Danny could only continue to stare as he saw Kimberly, knowing that he was looking at his daughter. His throat was in knots and he couldn't find the words to speak.

"Danny? What's wrong?" Kimberly asked. The knot in Danny's throat got tighter as he heard her address him, and by his first name too. Everything was just so strange and jumbled in his mind he couldn't think straight.

"Danny?" Sam asked, now worried. "Danny, what happened? Are we really dead? Did we take too long? What's wrong?"

"Kim-Kimberly is...V-Victoria. Sh-she's our d-daughter."

A/N: I know, it's not that huge of a twist since you all probably saw it in the beginning, and let me just say once and for all that it wasn't supposed to be a shock. It's a classic example of dramatic irony where we all know that she's his daughter but the characters themselves don't...well didn't...now they do... But you know what this really means...there's going to be a lot of questions and thus, a lot of answers!

And just because this really wasn't a cliffy due to the fact that everyone kinda knew about it, I'll leave one here. The next chapter will be called "The Night of the Disappearance"

Told ya there'd be a lot of info coming...teehee...