A/N- I know that it's been boring lately, but it's going to get better and a lot more exciting, I promise!

Disclaimer- I still don't own it...

I want to thank the amazing, lovely people who have helped me immensely with this! Huge thanks goes to IceDragon19, Pheek, and KagomeKritin!

Danny

I heard the door open, even though Mom didn't, and I looked up right as Jazz appeared in the doorway. I winked at her, and smiled as Mom saw the gesture and sprung to her feet to launch herself at Jazz. I turned off the MP3, even though I wasn't doing much with it in the first place, and smiled as Jazz peered at me over Mom's shoulder. Her hair was tied in a messy bun, one of the many indicators she had left in a hurry, and it fluttered in front of her face as she sent me a tired, stressed smile. She looked at me with a look I could only read as "How's it going?".

I smiled and sent her my best "Fine" look, and I meant it, the talk I'd had with Mom running through my head again. I closed my eyes.

I let myself float in the air, a freedom I only used around my friends when I knew we were safe. The device in my hands wasn't very interesting, but it was something to to, and I welcomed the distraction as I placed the headphones in my ears and started up Dumpty Humpty's My Heart on a Wall. The lyrics blurred together and I wasn't really listening, the images of Skulker's lair flashing in a quick succession in my mind's eye, and I tried to keep the image of my dad in the confines of those walls. I knew it was stupid, I knew I was going to have to face the fact that my dad was trapped, and I was the one that would have to go after him, but it didn't make it easier to think of.

Through the blaring music and my scrambled thoughts I hadn't heard the footsteps making their way down the stairs, and then to stand in front of me. I hadn't looked up, hadn't even moved since I let my body float into the air, so the voice startled me.

"Danny?" I jerked my head up, almost falling out of the air as I looked up to see my mom standing not a foot away from me. She was looking at me strangely, as if she didn't know how to approach, and I instinctively flinched back as I imagined experiments and tests. It was irrational, yes, and the hurt look that flashed across her face made my heart hurt, but I couldn't take it back now.

I snatched the headphones out of my ears. "Yeah, Mom?"

She seemed to relax a little and so did I, the muscles in my side screaming in pain as I shifted my weight. I knew I wasn't going to heal by in the morning, not a cut this bad, but it wasn't stopping me. I would be fine as long as Dad was out of that taxidermy and back into the safety of Fenton Works. I knew this was going to involve me showing myself, and I had resigned myself to this with a secure sense of nervousness. I didn't know if he would take it as well as Mom had. I looked back up at her.

"Can't sleep?" she as me. I unfolded my legs and let myself drop into a standing position, my ankle sending little jolts up and down my leg, but I ignored it.

"Yeah," I said, sitting myself back down, but this time on the couch, and patting the seat beside me.

She stood there for a second, looking at the spot beside me for a second before walking over and gently dropping herself into the cushions. She had taken her hood down, and her dark red hair was everywhere, tangled and wild in a way I had never seen before. She seemed worse off than I was, but I chalked it up to having very little, if any, experience with situations like this one. Or it could be the lack of ghost powers, I didn't know.

She turned to me once she was settled, that strange look still in her eyes, and we sat like that, with her eyes never leaving my face and my eyes never reaching hers. The self consciousness got me though, and I caved. "What did you want to ask?"

Her gaze broke away from my face, but she answered anyway. " Who knows about, " she paused. "you."

"Jazz." I wondered if she had realized this. "Sam, and Tucker. They're the only ones."

"When did- When did they find out?" she asked, she hadn't met my eyes yet.

I wondered if I should tell her, if it would make her feel better or worse, and then I realized I didn't want to keep any secrets, not anymore. "Sam and Tucker were, well, they were there when it happened. Jazz caught me once as I transformed, it was about two months after it happened, I was still getting used to fighting then."

She looked at me, and the Twenty Questions continued. " Can I ask you something?"

I nodded, leaning back into the couch.

"What happened with the Mayor? And the circus and the jewelry?"

I sighed, even though I had seen the questions coming, it didn't mean I liked the wary way she had asked them. " I was overshadowed. Both times I was being framed. One of them, the mayor incident, was a ghost Warren, Walker, bent on putting me in prison until I turn to dust. He seems to think I break "The Rules" for fun. They aren't even real laws. The other incident, the jewelry, was also me being overshadowed. He, the he being the circus director, thought I would be a very powerful help to his cause. He made his money by overshadowing ghosts and making them steal for him. I had no idea what was going on until I was saving Sam. Freakshow's staff has that effect on ghosts."

I had expected a lot of responses to this, sideways glances, distrusting looks, awkward silences, but what I didn't expect is what she did. Before I knew what was happening, she was hugging me. I bit my lip against the pain in my side as her elbow grazed it, and didn't even have time to hug her back before she was pulling back into her previous position.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again, pretty much imitating a fish out of water until she said something. "I knew you wouldn't do something like that."

I sent her a small smile, and she seemed to take a certain courage in it, because she asked even more questions.

"Do all of our inventions actually work?" she seemed skeptical.

I thought of all the numerous headaches I had received at the hands of the boo-merang and grimaced. "Almost all of them. Especially the Finder ones."

She'd seen the grimace, and I saw the questioning look she sent me. "I've had more headaches than I can count from being hit in the head with the boo-merang."

She cracked a grin at that, but the questions didn't stop. "Are there any more people with a," she stopped, as if not sure how to proceed. " with a situation like yours?"

I swallowed, not for sure how to answer that. It was Vlad's secret, not mine, to tell, but she was going to find out sooner or later. And then came the subject of Dani. I didn't know how to even begin to explain how that had happened.

" Danny?" She pulled me out of my thoughts, still not sure how I was going to answer her.

"Yeah, there are. You know one of them, actually."

She sent me an odd look. "Who?"

"Vlad Masters. He's really Vlad Plasmius." I said, watching her.

Her mouth opened, her shoulders sagged, and I wondered briefly if I should have told her later, after she was starting to get over all the other weird I had dumped on her tonight, but she recovered. She shook herself, and then looked back at me curiously.

"Who are the others?" she asked.

"What others?" I asked, not wanting to explain the cloning after how she reacted to Vlad.

"You said that I knew one of them, meaning there has to be more than one." I squirmed.

"There's only one other." She kept her gaze on my face.

"Who?"

"My clone."

I heard her suck in a startled breath, and then, far too calmly. "Why do you have-" she stopped, pulling in another breath of air. "How do you have a clone?"

"Someone decided they wanted a powerful apprentice. I was the one they wanted to clone."

"Who?" she expression was pained, but I couldn't tell from what.

"Vlad."

"Vlad?" she sounded choked, but her expression told of how she wanted to scream. I nodded.

"What did he- How did he? What happened?" she stuttered out.

"He took my DNA and made a clone."

"Danny, that much I know. But, what I don't know is, what happened to you?"

"Do you really want all the details?" The look on her face gave me the answer before I even finished the question.

"I need to know everything." She placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Vlad wanted a son, an apprentice as powerful as I am, and he knew he was never going to get me. I wouldn't betray you guys like that, and he knew that, so he found another way to get my powers under his thumb. He tried creating clones from just my Phantom form, he had enough of my ectoplasm to do that, but they all turned out to be failures, all except one, but I'll tell you about her later. I had to fight them, but they didn't stand much of a chance. They were the trap though, you see, he needed a sample of my mid-morph DNA," At her questioning look I explained further. "When I'm in the middle of a transformation. I didn't give it willingly, so he," I paused, not sure whether to tell her what caused some of the scars still on my body. "Forced it."

I looked at Mom's face, and I was just glad the anger simmering in her eyes wasn't directed at me. She waved a hand, which I only read as to go on.

"So, he got the DNA, stabilized the one clone he had managed to keep alive and gloated in my face that I had outlived my purpose." At this, her eyes hardened. "The clone from earlier, she heard what-"

She cut me off. "She?"

I smiled, thinking of what Dani what say to this. "A mistake with the chemicals. I'm in too far over my head in this to really know why she turned out to be a girl."

"Oh, okay. Go on." I could see the gears turning in her mind.

"She heard that he planned to destroy all the faulty clones, and she got mad. The short version is that she released me and helped me kick Vlad's butt. We ended up destroying the 'good' clone in the process, trashed half of his house, but both me and Dani got out alive, so I'm not complaining. He used some kind of growth hormones on her." I looked at her, and disgust was swimming in her eyes. "She's about fourteen now."

"Where is she?" her voice was concerned.

"With Pandora in the Ghost Zone, or with Frostbite. I don't know. She normally just wanders."

"But she's just a kid." The hand on my shoulder squeezed.

"I know Mom, but she won't listen to me."

We sat like that for a moment, the silence giving her time to think about the child she had but never seen. I understood, it was a lot to take in.

Finally, she broke the silence. "What kind of powers does she have?"

"The same I have."

"And what are all the powers you have?"

I'd forgotten she wasn't there when me, Tucker, and Sam train.

I listed them off, and her eyes grew wider as I reached the bottom of the list. I thought she would ask me about one of the more uncommon abilities, but she surprised me. "About how fast can you fly?"

I smiled just thinking about it. The door opened in the room next to us. "Around 210 on a good day."

I opened my eyes, only to see Mom holding Jazz at arm's length, fussing about the sleeper pants she was still wearing. I let my legs drop to the ground, standing myself up.

It was time to get ready.

Yeah, I know, it's just a filler... I promise it's going to get more exciting soon, but I don't want to feel like I'm rushing it. I also liked this scene. =]