Things went pretty well all day, Jake figured. Danny had been welcomed by the other teachers, introduced as his visiting cousin, and allowed to pull up a chair in his classes. He got a few sidelong looks, but those were for reasons other than being suspected of being a ghost. Heck, people would've been more likely to suspect that Danny was a ghost before Rotwood's lectures on ghosts, given all the stories of them walking through walls and stuff that had been passed around. As it was, people probably just thought he was a cool kid sporting a new style.

Well, he hadn't been subjected to the usual rituals an actual new kid in school had to face, so Jake figured Danny had been given a pass. He was interesting because he was new, but he wasn't interesting enough to be given anything more than a second glance from anyone important.

The four of them—Jake, Trixie, Spud, and Danny—had had a bit of time to themselves over lunch. Danny hadn't gone invisible or anything, since other kids had seen him and might be looking for him, but he had stuck to the shadows in case Rotwood came around. To Jake's surprise, Rotwood didn't even try to confront him again. It had almost—almost—felt like Rotwood had been avoiding him.

Jake put it down to the fact that Rotwood was almost certainly trying to come up with some way to track Danny Phantom down and was so preoccupied that, as per usual, he missed what was right under his nose.

They hadn't had a whole lot to talk about, actually, in terms of urgent stuff. Danny had reported that the Fentons were on their way to New York and Jake, in turn, had recounted what Rotwood had told him. Trixie and Spud didn't have a whole lot to offer, admittedly—they'd finished up that group project that Jake hadn't really helped on at all—and, in their free time last night, had looked up a few things about this Paranormal Studies Convention before parting ways.

Frankly, the more Jake heard about it, the less he understood why Danny even wanted to show up there. If half—less, even—of the things that people had come up with to detect ghostly activity or whatever else actually worked, Danny wouldn't be able to get ten feet before alarms started blaring.

Maybe it was different when you had the ability to go through stuff, but Jake really didn't like it when everyone in the vicinity was suddenly alerted to his presence—especially when he was in his dragon form.

Unless that camouflage trick that Danny refused to do here would work there, Jake didn't know why he was risking it. The whole idea of catching a ride back to Amity Park and the stable ghost portal it housed with ghost hunters still kind of boggled his mind.

Plus, there was the thing that Haley had pointed out, first to Danny and then to him: there was no way their dad wasn't going to take Danny to the convention himself to reunite him with his 'family'. For one, Jonathan Long had a good heart and a sense of duty. For another, he'd probably heard enough about Jack and Maddie Fenton that he actually wanted to meet them and would, most likely, go to the convention anyway just for that purpose, even if Danny did just go off on his own for the last couple of nights. And Jonathan would probably drag Jake and maybe even Haley along with him, on the off chance that they did meet up with Danny Fenton again.

Which was another problem in and of itself. Danny Phantom wasn't Danny Fenton, so if his dad ended up meeting the real Danny Fenton….

There were so many ways that could go wrong, but with his luck, it would turn out wrong in a way he couldn't imagine right now and therefore couldn't plan a way out of ahead of time. Jake had a much better idea, now that he'd heard a few of Danny's stories, of why Phantom had not been happy to be given the pseudo-surname of Fenton. If the Fentons found out, Phantom would be paying for it. If his dad found out, he'd be paying for it. And would probably never be allowed to bring home a 'friend of a friend' again.

It was in home ec that things started to get interesting, though.

It wasn't because Sun Park undoubtedly knew Danny Phantom for what he really was, even if he had been introduced as Danny Fenton. Danny hadn't been too happy about that, admittedly, but Susan Long hadn't gotten the phone away from her husband before that name had been given. Jake figured Danny'd looked resigned to it, like he'd expected this to happen anyway. Probably had. His luck didn't seem to be much better than Jake's, really. Not when it came to things like that.

Still. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something interesting—the way things had been going, that most likely meant bad, or at least, something with a big potential to become bad—was going on when Danny, who had been pretty quiet for most of the day, suddenly stuck his hand up in class. "Can I go to the bathroom?" he'd asked the moment Sun had looked at him, before she had even given him leave to speak.

She'd looked a bit perplexed but had responded with a quiet, "Of course."

And Danny had been out of the room like a shot.

Now, Jake couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why Danny would have gone off like that. He was pretty certain it wasn't for the reason Danny had given. Not because he didn't know that ghosts didn't have to run to the restroom or anything like that—he'd never looked into the subject and had absolutely no desire to even speculate about it—but because it was just so unusual. And sudden. Danny had been fine five minutes before.

Jake knew he had a phone, but it's not like he wouldn't have heard it even if it had been on vibrate. They'd been sitting, what, two feet apart? And Danny didn't need to make any frantic calls. As far as he knew, the Fentons were still on the road. And he'd talked to the daughter this morning, anyway. Jazz, he'd said. And it had sounded like Amity Park still had enough ghost hunters hanging around even without the Fentons or Phantom to take care of itself.

True, it might be nothing. But Jake didn't really want to take that chance. So when he asked if he could go get a drink of water, Sun had agreed, and Jake knew from the look she gave him that she knew what he was really up to. From the glances he'd seen Trixie and Spud exchange just before he headed out the door, they did, too.

That was probably just as well. If something bad was happening that Danny knew about and had just remembered or could sense or whatever it was, they might need help.

So, Jake didn't head to the nearest water fountain. He didn't even head to the bathroom. He ran outside, hoping to spot Danny or at least find a spot out of anyone's sight to transform. If this was going to be a fight or anything, he definitely wanted to be prepared.

The sudden shiver and eruption of cold that signalled Danny's ghost sense was unexpected, to say the least. It hadn't gone off in days. That didn't mean his response was any less automatic, though. He was in class, so he stuck up a hand and asked to go to the bathroom, like he always did. And, like he always did, he left the moment he got permission to go.

Danny made a beeline for the closest boy's washroom—he'd spotted it earlier—and ducked inside a stall. The bathroom had been empty when he'd gotten there—he'd checked—but he wanted to be on the safe side and not take any chances in case it didn't remain that way. Foregoing his usual cry, he transformed.

It wasn't until he was about to turn intangible and fly off through the ceiling that he realized something felt…off.

"Aw, crud," Danny muttered, realizing he'd inadvertently changed back to Danny Fenton. Maybe spending so long in his ghost form had been getting to him after all. It wasn't something he'd done before. He did know that he didn't necessarily transform back when he fell asleep or was knocked unconscious—the latter had happened often enough that he definitely did know that—but he'd never spent this much time in his ghost form. The last time he'd been human had been for those few brief moments when he'd gotten out of the Fenton Collapsible Cage.

He probably shouldn't tell Jazz about his slip unless he wanted to endure detailed questioning from her later, though he'd have to answer a bunch of questions for her anyway, since she'd think this was a perfect opportunity to check his endurance and see how remaining in ghost mode for a long time actually affected him.

It was almost like his body had gone into hibernation. Jazz would argue with that, saying hibernation wasn't the right word, but it was suitable enough. His metabolism had slowed down. Sort of. It was definitely different in ghost mode. He didn't need to eat as much or anything, and he had a lot more energy than he would've had in human form under the same circumstances. Though the very fact that he had so much energy would probably be why Jazz would say he couldn't describe it properly if he was trying to do it using words like 'hibernation'.

Whatever. It wasn't like he really needed to describe it, anyway. She'd figure out what he meant and put it down in proper terms. That was one thing Jazz was pretty good at. She knew what he meant even when he couldn't find a good way of saying it.

Still. Sleep in ghost form obviously didn't translate into enough or as good sleep in human form, because he suddenly felt really, really tired. His body clearly hadn't figured out a way to balance his energy yet. Maybe never doing an endurance test like this was coming back to bite him, but it wasn't like it was an easy thing to do. With ghost hunters and fans all around Amity Park, hiding as Danny Fenton was the best option he had.

Danny pushed himself off the wall of the stall—when had he sagged against it?—and steadied himself. "Goin' ghost!" he cried. Adrenaline rushed through him even before the rings finished sweeping over his body. He'd give his body time to adjust to this later. Maybe tonight if he thought he could risk it. But right now, he had a ghost to deal with.

"This isn't working out as well as you thought it would, is it?" Tucker asked as he and Sam—and, well, most the school, really, since the ghost alarm had gone off—watched as Amorpho (as Danny Phantom) faced off against Kitty and Johnny 13.

Sam slugged him.

"What was that for?" Tucker yelped, rubbing his arm.

"Looking smug," Sam ground out.

Tucker sighed. Sam wasn't in the best mood, having been up most of the night and dragged from bed by her parents extra early this morning in another failed attempt to get Sam to wear something brighter. Tucker had gotten the gist of the story out of her in Lancer's class. Amorpho kept trying to bend the rules she'd lain down. He'd encourage things, helping them to get out of hand, before morphing into Danny and putting on a show of stopping them. He'd made the papers this morning, as he'd wanted, but Sam hadn't been impressed.

Tucker was just thankful she'd let him sleep, even if he was paying for it now.

"Are you here to wreak havoc upon my town?" Amorpho demanded, hovering above Kitty and Johnny.

The two ghosts in question—three if you counted Shadow, but he hadn't made himself known yet—frowned. "It's not your town," Kitty retorted, arms crossed in a huff. "We're not planning on destroying anything. Johnny just agreed to take me for a little tour."

"Yeah, kid," Johnny added. "We'll stick to your rules."

"Rules?" Tucker heard Kwan whisper. "Phantom has rules?" From the corner of his eye, Tucker could see the jock grin. "Cool. No wonder he beats up all the other ghosts all the time."

Amorpho didn't seem impressed. "You're trespassing," he said bluntly.

Tucker glanced at Sam. "Someone's going to blow it, aren't they? Maybe we should've warned them. You know, not to give away the fact that that's not actually Danny."

Sam's frown deepened. "Shut up, Tucker," she growled. "This won't last much longer. Valerie's gone already. She'll be back here in a minute."

Amorpho held out his hands as if preparing to send off an ectoblast, which Tucker wasn't entirely sure he could do. Besides shapeshifting and the standard ghost powers of flight, invisibility, and intangibility, he had no idea what Amorpho was really capable of. And he somehow doubted Danny did, either, let alone Sam. "I would suggest," he said plainly, "that you leave."

Johnny revved his motorcycle, drowning out Paulina's adoring shouts to the ghost boy. "Get on, Kitty," he said. "We're gonna ride."

Kitty looked disgusted. "You're giving in to him?"

"Of course not, Kitten," Johnny protested. "I just—"

Amorpho swooped down over the motorbike, pulling up just short of hitting them. It was the equivalent of a warning shot, Tucker knew. Kitty shrieked and wheeled on Amorpho, who easily dodged her swinging handbag. Johnny ordered Shadow to attack before pulling Kitty onto his bike and making a break for it. The kids in the crowd scattered, finally listening to the teachers and getting away from the danger. Even he and Sam found cover. They both had a handful of weapons they could use, but they weren't about to use them here. They might be able to explain away having them easily enough, seeing as they were Danny's best friends, but they'd gained a skill that few other kids their age had.

Shadow lost no time in engulfing Amorpho, but the shapeshifting ghost had been around long enough to know what Danny had learned: Shadow hated light. Amorpho definitely was rustier than Danny when it came to fighting skills, but he'd caused—and evaded—enough trouble to be able to hold his own. Tucker wasn't sure if Amorpho could shoot ectoblasts, but he either did that or turned into a light bulb or some fluorescing animal, because Shadow scattered and left Phantom's form behind.

Tucker could give him that much. He was fast at the shapeshifting thing when he was in full control of his powers.

"He's not holding a thermos," Tucker whispered, knowing Sam would hear him.

She did. "He's not planning on catching them," Sam informed him. "He doesn't want to take too many risks. The thermos will only be for the animalistic ghosts or the floating blobs or whatever else. Not the more advanced ghosts who could track him down and retaliate when this is over."

"Smart," Tucker agreed. Hearing jets, he glanced over his shoulder. "And here's Val, right on schedule."

"Listen up, ghost!" Valerie yelled, aiming a blaster at Amorpho. Clad in the suit Technus had given her, she wore just about as much black as red, but people still knew her as the Red Huntress. She fired off a few shots which Amorpho dodged. Johnny and Kitty took advantage of this distraction to wink into invisibility partway up the block, and Shadow followed.

It was, as far as anyone else knew, just the Red Huntress and her prey, Danny Phantom.

"To what?" Amorpho drawled. "You aren't saying anything."

Valerie growled and let loose another volley of shots. "You can't just come here and pretend to be the good guy, Phantom. I know the truth, and I'm not falling for your act. You got that?"

A smile from Amorpho. "I've got that." He raised a hand. "Bye." He turned invisible, but Valerie already had her tracker out and she took off after him, her jet sled going at what must have been close to its top speed.

"Look on the bright side," Tucker said to Sam once the coast was clear. "He didn't call himself Billy Phantom this time."

Sam just ground her teeth and said, "Let's get back to class before we get detention." Tucker took it to mean they were on duty to track Amorpho until evening and make sure he didn't screw anything else up—or to follow up with Johnny and Kitty and make sure they kept their word and didn't do anything to hurt anyone, even indirectly.

It was probably going to be a long day.

Jake spotted Danny hovering a few feet above the roof of the school. He was dressed in the same jumpsuit Jake had first seen him in, and though Jake wasn't sure how he'd pulled off that change, he was grateful; it meant fewer questions in case anyone spotted him.

Then again, even if anyone did notice, they probably wouldn't ask questions. Not unless it was Rotwood or someone like him, or perhaps 88 or 89, since those two still tried to do what they'd been recruited for, despite the fact that they'd resigned from the now non-existent Huntsclan. Most people would ignore it. Stranger things had happened in the streets of New York and people hadn't even blinked an eye.

Of course, while that made him feel a bit better, it didn't explain anything. Danny was still looking all around him, and though Jake surveyed things from where he was hiding—though hiding was a bit of a loose term, since he was just pressed up against the fence—he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

He looked back at Danny just in time to see the ghost get bowled over by a green streak. A quick glance to confirm that no one was looking later, and Jake had transformed and flown up to the top of the roof. He was ready to fight. It didn't take much to realize that Danny had been attacked. Heck, if he had to guess, he'd almost think it was another ghost. He couldn't think of anyone who knew about Danny that he didn't trust.

"Yo, Danny, you need any help?" Jake called, landing on the roof and trying to spot Danny. He hadn't gone invisible or anything, had he?

"No," Danny answered from somewhere behind him. Jake turned, following the sound of Danny's voice, and finally spotted him.

And a little green puppy.

"This is Cujo," Danny said, sitting up and pulling the tiny dog off his chest. Cujo barked happily before squirming around to lick Danny's face again. "He's not really my dog, but I've been trying to train him." He glanced at Jake. "You might want to, uh—"

"Yeah," Jake said, shifting back to his human form. "Ghost dog?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Former guard dog," Danny explained. "Used to live in Amity Park. He took a shine to me. Pretty protective, though, so I'd better introduce you as a friend. Cujo," he said as Jake sat down beside him, "this is Jake. He's a friend." To Jake, he added, "Let him sniff you. He might be a ghost, but it still works that way."

"Haley would say he's cute," Jake said, scratching the dog behind the ears.

"And you'd say?"

"He's slobbery," Jake said with a laugh. "Nah, I think he's a good little dog."

"He can also be a terrifying big dog," Danny warned him. "I'd better make sure he didn't come with a message or anything." He checked the dog's collar.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," Danny agreed. "He must've gotten out of the Ghost Zone and come looking for me." He frowned. "I don't know how he found me, though. I came here through the Ghost Zone. There shouldn't be a trail."

"Maybe he's just got a really good sense of smell?"

Danny grinned. "Yeah. Maybe." He looked down at the puppy again. "But what am I supposed to do with him? I'm pretty sure your parents wouldn't be too happy if I brought home a green dog."

"Mom wouldn't be too happy. Dad would just ask you questions. Like how come you're in your costume again."

"Huh?" Danny glanced down. "Oh, crud," he said.

"You didn't realize it?"

"Uh…no?" Danny reached for a near-invisible zipper on the front of the suit and pulled it down. "I hope your clothes are under here or I might've lost them."

Jake snorted, not really caring that they obviously weren't as Danny zipped his suit back up. "Never mind them. I'll tell Sun you had to split. She'll understand. Go home and change into something normal again and I'll meet you at Gramps's shop."

"I thought we were supposed to head to your place after school."

Jake shrugged. "I'll phone home. It's cool. I work at the shop."

"By 'work', you mean—?"

Jake grinned. "Yeah. Dragon training or other stuff like that, usually. Though Gramps still has me mopping floors and sweeping and cleaning the toilet and stuff."

Danny smiled, but Jake could tell there was something bothering him. He waited, and Danny finally said, "Jake? Since your grandpa owns an electronics shop, are you good with them?"

"Let me guess. You don't mean 'good with them' as in rigging up a killer sound system, right?"

Danny shook his head. "Cujo's turning up kind of drove home the fact that if any of my enemies show up here, I can't get rid of them. I might be able to beat them down, but I can't catch them without a Fenton Thermos or anything like that. I usually carry one around, but I don't bother when I'm in the Ghost Zone because that's where I dump the ghosts once I catch them anyway. But if Cujo found me, the others might, too, and I want to be prepared."

Jake blinked. "You want me to build you a thermos thingy to hold ghosts?"

"Can you?"

Jake shook his head. "Definitely not my skill. Spud might be able to help you, though. He's good with that sort of thing. You know how this thermos fits together?"

"Sort of. I mean, the Fentons have an electronic copy of their blueprints on their computer system—"

"Then don't worry," Jake cut in. "Spud can hack into anything. He'll get 'em. If he can't build it off of those and what we've got, no one can." He got to his feet. "And you can just tell Dad that it's a prop for your costume or something."

Danny cracked a smile. "I'm going as Danny Phantom, the ghost hero and public enemy number one of Amity Park. If I'm going to have a prop, that's the best one to carry." He set Cujo down and got to his feet. "Go home, Cujo," he commanded. "Go home, boy. Back to the Ghost Zone."

Cujo sat at Danny's feet, tail wagging.

"He's not going to move," Jake said.

Danny sighed. He lifted one hand and let what Jake now knew to be an ectoblast form. He cradled it, letting it grow into a ball of pulsing green light. Cujo's tail wagged faster as Danny drew back his hand. "Ready, boy?" he asked. Cujo barked, and Danny released the ball of ecto-energy. "Go get it, boy! Fetch!"

Cujo was off like a shot. "Let me guess," Jake said. "Not the first time you've done it?"

"Won't be the last time, either," Danny acknowledged, "but it'll get him out of my hair for now, because he'll look around to try to find it. He normally goes back into the Ghost Zone when he can't. Sam says it's cruel, but Tuck agrees that it's really the only way."

"Your friends?" Jake guessed. Danny had mentioned a few names when pretending to be Danny Fenton, so if they were the ones who knew about his trick, it wasn't so much of a stretch to figure out that these must be the friends he'd called yesterday.

Danny cringed, realizing his mistake. "Yeah," he admitted. "Look, uh, if you do run into the Fentons, don't mention that."

"What, you've had enough close calls to last a lifetime and don't need to give them any more clues as to where you might be?"

"Something like that," Danny said vaguely. He rubbed the back of his neck. "You can keep a secret, right, Jake?" he asked.

Jake snorted. "Think of who you're talking to."

Danny gave him a sheepish smile. "Right. Sorry." He stopped. "Look," he said slowly, "it's not that I don't want to tell you. It's that I can't."

"Because you don't want to tell me."

Danny opened his mouth to argue, but after a few seconds, he closed it and shrugged. "It's more complicated than that."

"And you think my life isn't complicated? My dad doesn't know he married into a family of reptiles." Jake crossed his arms. "You can't tell me you've got something more complicated than keeping secrets from your family. Especially family who just wants the best for you and keeps trying to shove his nose into your business to make sure you're behaving yourself and not doing anything he wouldn't want you to do and ends up making the things you have to do ten times harder because you can't tell him about anything and don't ever have any good excuses."

It had come out in a rush, but it was still a rash thing to say. Jake realized that the moment the words had left his mouth. He didn't think before he spoke. Gramps told him that. Fu told him that. His mom told him that. Heck, Haley told him that. But it wasn't a lesson he'd learned yet. And just as he regretted saying things before, like the things he'd said about his father without realizing he'd been overheard, he regretted this.

"Sorry," Jake said, wincing a bit himself at the expression on Danny's face. "Do you even, uh, remember your family? Is that something I shouldn't ask?"

"I remember them," Danny said quietly. "And even if you don't believe me, Jake, I really do know exactly how you feel."

Wait.

"Are your parents still in Amity Park?" Danny had died there, he'd said, about a year ago. He hadn't moved on. If ghosts were common there, it wouldn't really be questionable. But from what Spud had said, no one really knew who Phantom was. If he'd lived in Amity Park before he'd died, which he must have if he haunted the place, how come no one had made the connection? It didn't sound like it was that big of a town.

When Danny didn't answer, Jake was pretty sure he could take that as a 'yes'.

But Danny had also said only three humans knew about his camouflage trick. If Jake was right in assuming it was his friends, that meant his parents didn't know. So if they were still in Amity Park…. "Don't your folks know who you are?" It couldn't be that hard to figure out, could it? It's not like someone was going to change a whole lot once they died, right?

"I told you before," Danny said, staring at his feet. "Sometimes things change when they pass over."

So Danny's real parents, whoever they were, didn't know that he was the ghost protecting them from other ghosts practically every day in Amity Park. And he obviously had some reason that he didn't want to tell them. Maybe ghosts had some rules about that sort of thing? Maybe it was because of his enemies? Maybe he didn't get along with his family in the first place and that's why he didn't want to talk about them?

Jake knew he shouldn't ask, so he shut up, but he couldn't help but wonder. What he knew didn't quite make sense, but he'd definitely learned something pretty important about Danny Phantom. Even if he wasn't sure what it was or how it fit, he knew it was important. Somehow. And it, whatever it was, was tied into Danny's secret, whatever that was.

Man, Danny was right. This definitely was complicated.

A/N: Well, Amity Park isn't destroyed yet, and Danny's secret is still mostly safe, so that's good, right? Anyway, many thanks to those who take the time to review!