Sam and Tucker had officially dug their trenches and started what I guessed would be a 20-minute argument over Sam's wheatgrass-and-pecan spinach wrap, and as usual, Danny was having none of it. Although to be fair, he also seemed kind of queasy. Pained, almost.

I wondered what it was about...? He hadn't done that much writing in English, really.

"Do you need to get out of here? There should be a bathroom out in the hall on the left."

'How the heck do you know that already?'

"I pay attention. Hey, you should try that sometime!"

I chuckled as he rolled his eyes at me, before calling out to Sam and Tucker over their arguing. "Guys? Listen, I'm not feeling so hot. I'm just going to step into the bathroom for a minute, OK?" They both gave him sympathetic looks before he dashed for the door like a man possessed.

...or, uh. Like a man in a hurry.

I wondered, though. The more attention he paid to that arm, the more it seemed like the nerves were... Calling out to me, I guess. It was a bit like the weird stiffness I had felt trying to move that arm in the morning, except I wasn't trying to do anything. But oddly enough, it also sort of reminded me of the tingly feeling I got yesterday when I had to hide us from Dash, right before what I'll just call "The Alley Incident". That had been a panic response and I barely thought about it, but now? Now it felt like an old friend was trying to reach out and touch me. Like I was meant to take control of this arm. It was ready for something to happen, and as I realized that, I felt the softest little touch of agreement bead up somewhere in our chest.

I may be a ghost, but this was weird. Nerves aren't friends. Agreement isn't a physical object. I had no idea what these feelings were or what the hell was wrong with my brain, but that's how it all seemed.

The aching stiffness became so much more real when Danny finally reached the bathroom sink and started running the arm under water. He was willing himself to let go of that pressure, and I guess that meant it got heaped on me. If yesterday was any indication, I'd have to go full-on ghost. Hopefully a certain somebody wouldn't freak and pass out again. Pretty much the last thing I wanted was for half of me to be afraid of myself, just hours after we had finally agreed to try to get along.

"Can I ask you something?"

'What if I say no?'

This guy. What a comedian. "Yeah, laugh it up. Listen, do you trust me?"

His silence spoke volumes.

"OK, fine, that's fair. Here's the thing. I want to try something, but I'm going to need you to relax that arm all the way."

'Oh, yeah, I can do that. I thought you were going to say something crazy like "hey let's jump off a bridge" or whatever.' He smirked an annoying smirk into the mirror, to make doubly sure I noticed it. I made absolutely no comment until he hopped up onto the counter and let the aching arm fall to his side.

"All right, here goes nothing..." The pressure mounted, and I could feel his mind relaxing as the pain left him. It was all on me now, but I didn't feel in pain so much as under pressure. I gave it a sharp yank and the pressure built; the arm felt like the careful balance of power and tension in the moment right before an over-inflated party balloon finally explodes.

It all snapped into place in a moment. I raised our hand.

"Whoa. This feels weird."

For a moment all I could do was stare. Partly out of shock, but mostly because I forgot to actually do something with the tendons and all that. I played with the fingers for a moment and gave a little wave. It may seem small, but this was the easiest muscle control had come to me. On the right side of the body anyway. I was probably grinning like an idiot.

'So, was that all you wanted to do, or what?'

Right. "No, I just wanted to make sure I'd be able to control it before I tried this."

So, here's the deal. You know in movies where there is a record scratch and time freezes right before things get crazy? This was like that. I just gave the power a good shove, and then our hand was on fire. The nerves were screaming the whole time, but it was like the feeling of cracking your knuckles or popping a kink in your back. A bit of pain, but immediate satisfaction. The pressure disappeared and in that one perfect moment I had about managed to form the flames into a neat little fireball when Danny freaked the crap out. Again.

Now, whereas taking control of the arm and using the fire powers had been quite pleasant, what happened next was a bit like somebody taking a crowbar and cleaving through my head. Our head. Whatever. It sounded like somebody had set off a firecracker right in the middle of our brain and was desperately trying to pull it into two, but it got caught up at the roots, and so they just kept tugging... I think it displaced that time when I was six, nearly ran straight into a bolt of lightning, and seriously screwed up my left arm when it got caught in the arcing as "the second worst pain I have ever felt".

To summarize, Danny forcing himself back into control was pretty awful, and what felt like days later when the pain finally cut out, I was annoyed. "What was that for? I had that under control!"

'I panicked!' This, I knew. 'You could have warned me that you were going to do crazy ghost stuff! Man, my hand is burning.'

1, 2, 3. Calm breaths. The important thing was, it totally worked. "...that was pretty cool, though, huh?"

'Are you kidding? I can shoot fireballs! This is freaking awesome! Although we should wear gloves next time, that serious burns...'

That was a relief. I had been pretty worried that Danny was going to totally freak out about this. Especially since from the looks of things, we managed to scorch a wall.

'...are you against gloves?'

"What? No, I'm just... You really want to do that again?"

'Yeah, that wasn't so bad. I mean, the last two times you did anything like that it felt like I got kicked in the gut—' Brother, you have no idea. '—but that wasn't so bad!'

I was about to tell him so, too, when Tucker stumbled in on us. "Hey, Danny, are you OK? You didn't actually spew, did you?"

He moved his hand around a bit before breaking out into a smile. "Nah, I'm fine. Actually, you know what? I'm great."

Words probably can't express how glad I was for that.

When we got back to the lunch room, Sam was highly amused, of course.

"Hey guys, I was starting to get worried you wouldn't be back before the bell. What took so long Danny, you fall in or something?" Danny just went along with the joke. She wasn't asking what was really on her mind, just like he wasn't telling her he'd just shot a fireball and vaporized a poster.

There was concern etched onto her face, all right. But it completely flew over Danny's head, as I've basically come to expect from him. Why did it seem like I was the only one of us that paid attention to those things? It hadn't always been like that, at least not from what I could remember.

It got me thinking back on the story we had read in English class. Besides it being odd to read a clearly Irish story in a class about the English (Note to self: ask Danny about that later), it was so strange to read about two brothers being at odds like that. If only they had explained who they were to each other...

I suppose that was the trouble with communication, though. It required a certain willingness on behalf of both parties. The disastrous conclusion of the story had me reflecting on my own actions. Perhaps I should tell Danny about my doubts; how it seemed that even though I had always been with him, I had never exactly been him. Was it even possible for two different... Beings? People? Consciousnesses? Whatever, to share a single life?

This was all immensely frustrating. Hell if I understood how it worked. I just knew that to avoid a complete disaster I needed to talk to Danny about it. On another level, he just deserved to know, really. Fourteen years was an awful long time for us to have been mutually unaware of each other, and now that we had this opportunity, didn't it make sense to take advantage of it...? It's not every day you meet a person who you can ask anything at all, to get an outsider's perspective, but from somebody who knows you better than anybody...

I felt like I should come out of my shell a little bit and start putting that theory to the test. There's no reason I shouldn't try warming things up with him a bit, even if I was going to wait until we could have The Talk much later. About then I realized Danny was sitting down at a desk and staring at a blank sheet of paper, pencil in his hand. I could tell he was frustrated. Since he clearly wasn't busy, I supposed now would be an OK time for us to talk.

"You know champ if you want to beat paper, I'd go with scissors before trying to stare it to death."

He just rolled his eyes. My comedy was lost on this audience. 'I was going to try the pencil first, but I don't even know where to start with this one. How are you supposed to "draw a straight line that isn't a straight line"? What does that even mean?'

Ah, so we were in art class. Never one of his better subjects. The teacher was sitting behind her desk looking intently over her class, the barest hint of a smile visible as gleaming eyes swept over some of the early results. Danny wasn't the only one struggling, but I doubted he'd get what the assignment was about. Not without some help, anyway. "Here, let me try something..."

Before he could object, I grabbed for my hand, since it was sitting unoccupied on the desk. Happily, he remembered to relax his grip on the limb, and I was able to painlessly take it over. I plucked the pencil out of his other hand and set to work. The feeling of skin brushing over the paper was just like every other sensation I had dealt with so far. Familiar and yet so very alien. It sent a chill down my spine; I suspected I would never get used to it. Maybe in our former life, Danny had been the one to interpret such things. Or maybe it was more ghost weirdness. It was hard to say.

'That looks an awful lot like a straight line to me.'

"Obviously, that's the assignment."

'Yeah, but the second part was to not make a straight line. I could have gotten as far as step one myself, thanks.'

I rolled my eyes at that. Well, in a manner of speaking; he was using both of ours. "It's all a matter of perspective. Now hush, artistic genius at work here."

A few moments later, I had the basic outline of a small house drawn in two-point perspective. The leading corner of the building seemed to form a straight line with the hip on the roof in the drawing, although the perspective obviously made it appear like it was not one continuous edge. I hoped that was more or less what she had been looking for and quickly doodled in some windows and brickwork.

'Oh, I guess I see what you mean? If she wanted us to draw something in perspective, why didn't she just say so?'

"I dunno, maybe she just wanted to screw with you. Hey, how much longer is this class anyway? I kinda want to talk to you about something."

'It's only 1:40, it's still gonna be a while. She said she wanted to go over some syllabus stuff after we were done this drawing thing.'

Typical. I wanted to make plans to have The Talk after school, and he's too busy to pay attention. But that was the benefit of our relationship now; only one of us had to really be paying attention. "Alright, well, I wish you the best of luck with that! Grab me in about 40 minutes."

'Come on, don't bail out-'

I totally bailed out.

"So what are we doing?"

Danny jumped in his seat, earning a confused stare from Sam, who was sitting on the right-hand side of the lab bench. I suppressed a chuckle. 'Well, I was listening to the basics of cellular structure, but now I think I'm going to go find a priest and ask for an exorcism.'

I ignored that remark. "Is this biology? Why didn't you try to get my attention between classes?"

'Yeah, how exactly did you think I was going to do that? Because I don't really know how to work your freaky ghost mind powers.'

Again, his powers too, but apparently we'd be having that conversation later. "Fine, whatever. But we need to talk after class." I could tell he wanted some answers now, but like hell I was going over the whole 'Hello, I'm like another person who has been watching you your whole life' thing in such a public place. Sam saved me from a tedious line of questioning by choosing that moment to butt in. One of her many excellent qualities.

She leaned over in her chair and harshly whispered, "Danny, what is up with you lately?"

He turned his head down and pretended to be taking notes before replying in a low voice. "Nothing's up, what are you talking about?"

Not low enough apparently. The third voice came from the front of the room. "Daniel, is there something you would like to add to my list of organelles?"

Danny's full attention snapped back to the front of the class. "Uh, n- no, Mrs. Soucie. Sorry."

"Very well, then. Now, the cytoskeleton can also contract, deforming the cell. I'll give bonus points to anybody who can tell me something this might imply about its larger role in, say, animal anatomy."

It turns out, that's how muscles work. The cells pull together and make the whole group move more than they could individually. However, I'd only learn that later in the week, because at that point Danny more or less tuned out the rest of the lecture.

It was annoying only understanding speech he was paying attention to since that left the pair of us with little to think about apart from the awkward tension between him and Sam. As fun as that sounded, I opted to tune it out and spent the remainder of the class flipping through some of his memories from earlier in life. We still needed to talk, but I had hoped that maybe something would magically pop up and make the whole mess make sense. As I should have expected, it was a surprisingly uninformative half hour.

I realized we had arrived at the end of class when Danny's adrenaline spiked, in a big way. I checked in and found him at his locker, with the heavy fall of combat boots approaching him through the crowd.

Sam leaned forcefully against the locker next to him, crossing her arms. "OK Danny, spill. What's going on with you? And don't try to tell me it's nothing."

"It is nothing, Sam! I guess I'm just a bit nervous about school and all."

Wrong answer. "Come on, don't even try to brush this off. You've been acting super weird since that portal accident. It's like half the time you aren't even really there, and I keep catching you super deep in thought, frowning or smiling like you're going over these long conversations in your head, even when you're in class or sitting with me and Tucker at lunch."

Man, she was good. This is why I liked Sam. "You should probably tell her about me, you know. You've never kept secrets from Sam and Tucker, why start now?"

Danny sighed. "OK, you've got me. There is something up. But... Can we talk about it before school tomorrow? I'm kind of exhausted right now."

She was still frowning but seemed to accept that deal. "Fine. I'll talk to you tomorrow then." And she left without another word.

"...hey, good job champ, you totally didn't get punched in the face. I'm not sure what good you think delaying it is going to do, but—"

'Hey, cut me some slack! I don't even know what I'm going to tell her! Like, "Hey Sam, so it turns out after I got thrown across the room the other day, there's this ghost that lives in my head and maybe I'm kind of becoming a ghost myself but don't worry! It's probably all fine!"'

"Well when you put it that way, yeah, it sounds kinda bad." I sighed. I guess I'd have to tell him before he got more keyed up, although I wasn't sure what I was going to tell him any more than he knew what to tell Sam. "That brings me to something I wanted to talk about, actually."

'Oh?'

"Yeah, I mean, I've been going over some of our memories—"

'Whoa, you can do that?'

I grinned. "You're the one who was always saying I was just in your head."

'Hardy har. Hey, does that mean I have access to yours?'

"Probably, if you can figure out how to use our freaky ghost mind powers or whatever."

'Is that what you wanted to talk about...?'

Oh, right. "Uh, no. Like I was saying, I've been going over some of our memories, and I've noticed a bit of a pattern." Danny spun his lock and slung his backpack over his shoulders. I was still trying to figure out how to put this by the time he was walking out the exit doors. "...well, there are these events that we both remember, right?"

'Um... If you only got... "Tangled" with my body or whatever after the accident, how could you remember anything I remember? Are they just how you see my memories, or what?'

"Well, yeah, that's the thing. Listen, I can tell that these memories I have aren't your memories, not exactly anyway. We seem to remember events really differently... Not big stuff, but like, subtle differences."

'...uh huh.'

"Look, what I'm trying to say is, I don't think I'm exactly you."

'Of course not! I'm not dead, and you're a ghost.'

"Let me finish, will you? I'm not exactly you, but, I... I think I've always been a part of you? My memories go back as far as yours do. I even get snippets of our childhood that you don't remember yourself. It's like... We've always been together, but until now we didn't really... Notice each other." I paused, waiting for his response. It never came. "...please say something, Danny."

He had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I could almost feel all sense of logical thought process grind to a halt over in his half of our mind.

"Danny?"

'That... That can't possibly be true.'

"Wait, champ, listen—"

'Stop calling me that! Stop... Stop messing with my head! Just get away from me! I didn't ask for you to sweep into my life like this and just turn everything so weird, and—"

"Hey, genius! If you had paid attention, you'd know I can't exactly leave! I've always been here!"

'I don't believe you, ghost. You're just trying to mess with me.'

This kid was infuriating sometimes. That was the other theme I had noticed in our memories. If I was going to crack through his stubborn insistence it was time for drastic actions.

"Do you really think so? Recognize this?"

I had left Amity Park before, but this Wyoming place was really cool. It was just so different! This place had tall trees, and mountains, and all this water, and you could see so many stars! Our parents had taken me and my sister out here for a few days in the summer. I guess it was called camping, even though the RV had most of the same stuff our house had.

Jazz had gotten super tired and cranky and went into the RV to read her books for a while. I didn't like books much. Sometimes I tried to read them and make sense of the little squiggles next to the pictures, but I didn't really know why I did it.

I did like the stars, though. Mom had stayed outside with me and would sometimes point up at the stars and talk about them. I had no idea what she was saying, but sometimes I would make noises back at her that I guess must have been talking as well. I did that a lot, lately, starting from about 2 or 3 years ago. It was weird, but I guess everybody did it?

Even if I had no idea what she was saying, I didn't mind listening to the talking. Her voice was warm and gentle, like the heat from the low camp fire next to us, and when she or I laughed at something the crickets would stop chirping for a moment before picking up again.

I may not have understood some of the things I did, but I was OK with that. Even if this talking thing was a permanent addition to my life. Even if I never did figure it out. I was just happy to be with my family and friends, to feel loved. Their actions spoke so much louder than words.

As long as I had that, I could deal with anything else that came my way.

'Where did you get that...?' Danny sounded unsteady, again. I almost felt bad for springing one of our earliest memories on him like that, especially when I knew it must have been close to his heart, but... Well, it was close to mine, too. I had hoped it would prove my case, and it might have done, but he sounded so distraught it kind of took the wind out of my sails.

"It's like I've been telling you, champ," I said it as gently as I could, "I've always been here with you. I don't know who I really am, or why we are the way we are, but... I'm just glad we finally get to talk. So, what do you say? Friends?"

I smiled and held out a mental hand.

He nearly puked, and his brain went into complete panic mode right before it shut down and he fell over.

That hadn't gone quite how I had hoped it would.

Admittedly, I thought to myself as I took over the legs and shakily got us up on our feet, it was a lot to take in. And maybe I could have gone about it a different way. On the other hand, at least he hadn't tried to run away? I mean, we were pretty close to a busy road, and Danny has already proven that he has little trouble running through traffic when he goes all flight-or-fight mode.

At my walking speed it took me 15 minutes to get us home. 3:59 pm. It was funny, almost. I walked us to school, and now I walked us back. Admittedly a blacked-out Danny was a bit more serious than a sleeping Danny, so I figured I'd better just lay us down on the bed instead of trying to do anything else. I was worried about the kid. It was hard not to be, especially when he didn't regain consciousness even hours later.

Eventually, I fell into a restless sleep myself.

I awoke to screaming. Our screaming. As soon as I came to, Danny was panting heavily and clutching his chest, bolt upright in bed.

"Man, that was loud enough to wake the dead! Are you OK champ?"

He was trying to figure out where he was, near as I could tell. 'It... It was a dream.'

Oh man, was he serious? Did... Could he have seriously blocked out the whole afternoon? On one hand, it would say awful things about his mental health, but on the other... Maybe I could take advantage of a 'Take 2' on the whole revealing-my-secret-identity thing. I just needed to be sure first. "Another one of those, huh? ...what was it?"

He finally laid down again, still breathing heavily. 'Dash. I... He burned to death. Disintegrated. And then I got shot by dad.' He was serious. I couldn't even see the barest hint of a lie. He didn't remember a thing.

But that didn't mean he was doing OK. Even if it wasn't as bad as what it could have been, if he's still having these psycho-killer dreams...

"Look, have you thought maybe... That maybe, you should talk to somebody about this?" I'm pretty sure he was about to tell me what a terrible idea that was, so I headed him off at the pass. "I don't mean like a shrink, but you clearly aren't handling this well on your own. You could tell Sam, even, since you promised to talk with her tomorrow anyway."

'I don't want to get my friends worried over nothing, and- Hey... Back up, when did I promise to talk with Sam? What about?'

"Right after you got out of biology, remember?"

'No, I don't remember saying anything like that.' Exactly how much had he forgotten...? 'Wait a second, how did I even get out of the bathroom?'

...seriously? We have one awkward conversation and his brain blocks out the entire afternoon? "Are you messing with me?"

'No! The last thing I remember was talking to Tucker after the fireball thing, then... That dream, and then talking to you! What the hell happened?'

"Uh... That was a while ago."

'Yeah, I figured out that much!'

"Are you seriously telling me you don't remember anything after that? None of this?" I gave him a quick info-dump. Hastily revised to hopefully avoid any more... Incidents. "And you seriously don't remember any of that? Or anything since?"

'Can you... I need a moment. Please.' ...Ah, right, he wouldn't remember that we had access to each other's thoughts, would he? I gave him a second. And then another second. And then a few minutes, actually. Finally he stopped fidgeting in bed and turned to quickly check the time; 3:17 am. The next feeling I caught from him was anger.

'No, I can't remember any of that. Or anything else in the last 15 hours.' This was a massive relief. 'But I'd like to change that now, so how about you finish that conversation you started outside my locker?'

Crap. Maybe those revisions had been too hasty. "Oh, you uh... Saw that."

'Was I not supposed to? Why is that, I wonder?'

I had literally no idea what to tell him. He was going to want answers that I didn't want to give a second time. I really, really didn't. I guess I was spinning in place too long because he got tired of waiting. 'Well?'

"Look, I know what you're thinking. I had nothing to do with you losing your memory. I didn't mean to, anyway."

'And?'

"And, the conversation was... It's probably for the best you don't remember how it went the first time around. I'll tell you, just... Don't take it too badly this time, alright champ?"

'I'm not making any promises until you just tell me what the hell is going on.'

"It's about who I am."

'Is... Is that it? What could be so bad about that?'

Oh, if only you knew.

I had a choice. I could tell him the truth I knew he'd probably never accept. That we'd always been together. That we were once equal partners. That I would always be there for him as he'd always been there for me. He would probably panic again, and maybe he'd hate me, and he would never want anything to do with me.

Or, I could lie.

Neither was an attractive option. But... I can't lose him.

"Because, I'm the ghost of Daniel Fenton."

Half a ghost. Half a human. Half the truth.

Author's Note:

I cheated. Part of the contents of this chapter was actually in Chapter 4, not Chapter 5 nor Chapter 6. But I felt that what was once an ending would work better as a beginning, in the least metaphorical sense possible.

This... May require a second editing pass. It is currently quite late where I am, so if the phrasing seems a bit off at any point, blame sleepy Workparty and her terrible grammar.