A/N: Life happened.

Disclaimed.

…Amity Park…

Dash turned his eyes back to the road for the second time in as many minutes. After Fenton had left the janitor's closet Dash had stepped in front of the door to keep Paulina from leaving. He was just so sick of all the secrets and the mysteries! As he stood in her way she began to open and close her fists even as her face became red and tears slid from the corners of her eyes. She wouldn't tell him anything, and they'd stood there for so long just glaring at each other that he almost broke down and let her go. Finally, though, she looked away and told him the truth in the coldest tone he'd ever heard. In that moment, he truly believed she hated him.

Since when did he and Paulina get so far apart?

Now, he didn't know what to think as she sat in the passenger seat of his new blue convertible. She'd avoided him for the rest of the school day and if popularity had one drawback it was that you were typically the first and hottest topic for gossip. Everyone was talking about Paulina's refusal to look at him. Even the geeks! A few had even noticed the way Fenton glared at him suspiciously and come to their own conclusions. It was all crazy and stupid and messed up and he felt more sorry than ever that he'd cornered her.

Because if he hadn't cornered her, she would have come to him when she needed a ride instead of going to Lancer and if she had come to him she wouldn't have been the one to find the unconscious teacher. He'd give anything to forget the sight of her running towards the football field in hysterics.

He glanced at the girl in his passenger seat again. He'd give anything to see her not looking out the windshield with that absolutely blank expression on her face.

Dash bit his lip and pulled the car over. He didn't really understand why Paulina was taking this whole mess as badly as she was, considering that not that long ago she seemed to despise Lancer, but he did get that finding Lancer like that was freaky. He also got that nothing he said would help.

"Why did you stop?" Paulina asked, but he barely heard her and she didn't seem to care all that much.

"Where does your mom work?" he asked. At last, Paulina turned to look at him and it was a relief to see the surprise replace that horrible blankness.

"What?"

Dash hunched his shoulders and scratched his head. They didn't do this. No one in the A-list talked about serious stuff and feelings – it was too risky. One wrong word and all your biggest secrets could be all over the school, especially if you were at the top.

"I just thought, I mean…." Dash trailed off, averting his eyes. Couldn't she just tell him where her mom worked so he could take her there? He wasn't good at this stuff.

Paulina tilted her head so she could see him better. She couldn't remember the last time any of her friends had "just thought" of doing something for her like this.

"Dash?" she prodded.

The discomfited jock turned back to face her expectantly.

Paulina thought about what Dash had just tried to do for her. She wanted to tell him everything that she had held back when she'd told him the truth in the janitor's closet about her doubts and the Fenton's connection to Lancer. She wanted to explain how she was beginning to think maybe she could tolerate Lancer as her stepfather and Jazz and Danny Fenton as her cousins. She even opened her mouth to tell him but no sound came out.

"Paulina?" Dash asked, confused and afraid that she'd slip back into that weird zombie-state she was in earlier.

"It's too far," Paulina told him instead of what she wanted to say. She just couldn't do it. She couldn't take the risk.

"You sure? I mean – ." Dash panicked.

"Just take me home," she insisted, hugging herself.

…Airport…

"JACK!" Maddie cried one more time even though she knew by now that it was pointless. A ghost had taken her husband.

"Maddie!" a familiar voice called out. The redheaded princess turned around searching the crowd for the source of the voice.

"Damon!" Maddie called, grateful for a friendly face. "Damon, Jack-!"

"Has just been taken by a ghost, I know," Damon answered quickly, taking her arm in his to escort her out of the building. "We need to get you home and under a ghost shield."

"The hell I'm going under a shield when some ghost scum has my husband!" Maddie railed against him. "I am the ghost hunter here!"

Damon huffed impatiently. "I understand that, I do, but there are things going on here that you don't understand. I just can't explain here."

"What do you mean?" Maddie narrowed her eyes at the secret serviceman.

"I saw the ghost take Jack," Damon admitted. "I was just too far away to do anything about it."

"Which ghost?" Maddie demanded, stopping just outside the door to the airport, forcing him to face her.

Damon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think your files identify him as the Wisconsin Ghost. Now, can we please get you back to FentonWorks? You'll need weapons anyway."

Maddie's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You're not going to stop me?"

"Would I succeed?" Damon asked with a wry grin. He knew all-too-well how fruitless it would be to stand in her way.

Maddie smirked and headed straight for the parked GAV.

...FentonWorks…

Jazz paced in front of her bed as Sam and Tucker watched her expectantly. When Sam had asked her what she knew about Danny's problem with the word "clone" Jazz had tried to deny knowing anything. After all, she was the one who asked them first whether they knew why Danny reacted so strongly to it just over a month and a half ago.

Sam wasn't deterred.

She had been quick to point out the one great flaw in Jazz's logic: Jazz was just as stubborn as Sam when it came to Danny. The older girl was conflicted. On the one hand, she had promised her brother she wouldn't tell anyone about what she had figured out, yet on the other, Sam and Tucker were his best friends and they were worried. Jazz bit her lip and made another pass of the bed. There had to be a solution, she knew it. She just had to figure out what that solution could be.

"Jazz," Sam prodded, raising her eyebrows pointedly. Tucker looked between the two girls uncertainly. He still wasn't entirely sure that it was any of their business, but he knew that something had to give. Danny was keeping stuff from them beyond his problem with clones. He and Sam had decided that Jazz probably wouldn't know if Danny was planning to tell their parents about his ghost half, but they were both convinced that the halfa had confided in his sister about the matter of clones since she hadn't asked them about it in weeks.

"Look," Jazz said, finally coming to a decision, "Danny is planning on telling you about this himself. I can't imagine a situation in which he wouldn't. But I promised not to say and you know how seriously Danny takes promises."

Sam crossed her arms and scowled as she took a step toward the redhead. "I know he takes his promises seriously, but I also know that he relies on us to knock some sense into that thick skull of his. We can't do that if we don't know what's going on."

"And I know what is going on," Jazz sighed, finally sitting on her bed. "I think you need to trust Danny on this one, okay? There's really nothing we can do to help."

Tucker was just about to speak up to mention that maybe they should just trust Jazz's judgement when the phone rang and the he heard the front door open.

"Jazz! Danny!" they heard Mrs. Fenton call out frantically. Sharing a worried look, the teens hurried down the stairs.

"Mom?" Jazz responded, "Mr. Gray? What's going on? Where's Dad?"

"Your father's been taken by a ghost. Mr. Gray told me it was the Wisconsin Ghost but he also claims there's more to it. Where's Danny?" Maddie explained, looking at each teen and finally noticing that her son wasn't among them.

"Dad's been taken by the Wisconsin ghost?" Jazz asked with more alarm than Maddie thought was warranted. Yes, ghosts were dangerous but Jack knew how to handle them. Mr. Gray's eyes zeroed in on the girl immediately.

"You know," he stated, more surprised than he probably should have been. It was no secret that Jazz was a psychology prodigy.

"Know what?" Jazz responded innocently.

"WHAT?" Tucker exclaimed and all eyes turned to him. While everyone else was concentrating on Mrs. Fenton's news about Jack, Tucker had gone to answer the phone. He figured it was Danny calling to say he'd somehow found out about the Fruitloop's attack and was dealing with it.

"Tucker?" Mrs. Fenton prodded. The wide-eyed techno-geek didn't respond to her. Instead, he continued talking to whoever was on the phone.

"Jazz is fine. Can you describe the ghost?"

There was a moment of tense silence as Tucker listened to the response, a frown forming on his face.

"No need, Mrs. Fenton and Mr. Gray are here. Mr. Fenton's been taken, too."

Tucker listened for another minute and nodded before responding vocally. "Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'll borrow the GAV."

Another moment as Tucker listened.

"Yeah, I got it last month," he answered. "Bye."

"Which ghost?" Sam asked, already knowing what the call was about.

"Walker."

"Kids?" Maddie said. What had happened now?

Tucker, Sam, and Jazz fidgeted for a moment under the older woman's scrutiny. Like most of Amity Park, the trio had come to expect Danny to be late, but unlike everyone else, they knew what kept him. To them, this was not that different from normal.

"Danny's been taken," Tucker finally told her. "The ghost…Walker, used Lancer as a hostage against him. Lancer was knocked out – he's okay – but Paulina was the one who found him. Tetslaff's driving him here, but he asked me to go get Paulina since her mom's got a long commute, and he's not sure how she'd feel about Tetslaff knowing about him and her mom."

"Forget Parliament's ban on ghost hunting! My husband and my baby need me!" Maddie declared. She strode across the room in direction of the lab, ready to don her jumpsuit for the first time in far too long.

"Wait!" Damon called out. "The Wisconsin Ghost is Vlad Masters."

…Walker's Prison, Ghost Zone…

"…and as soon as my hands were cuffed he knocked Uncle Will out!" Danny finished with his head in his hands. Jack's brow furrowed at his son's story.

"Why did he go to so much trouble?"

"Huh?" Danny asked.

Jack's eyes were sharp as he looked at his son. "Why didn't he just grab you? Why use a hostage?"

Understanding washed over the teen's features followed closely by indecision. There was something more to this whole situation and Jack was tired of letting it go.

"Danny?"

The troubled boy lifted his eyes.

"I…" Danny's voice seemed to stick on the word. Was this it? Was it finally time?

There was a whimper from the corner of the cell behind Jack.

"Dani," Danny breathed out, rushing forward to check on the little girl.

"How do you know her?" Jack asked as his son fussed over the sick child. "Danny, I need you to tell me now. No more secrets."

Danny turned distraught crystal blue eyes to his father briefly before returning his attention to the girl. Jack watched him for a moment as he fussed over her. He'd never seen his son behave quite like this before. Then again, there were a lot of things he didn't know about Danny.

Seeing that Danny seemed to be at a loss as to what to do after he pulled the scrunchie out of her hair and the hat off her head, Jack pulled off his jacket and started tucking the girl in just as he'd done for his kids when they were small. The gratitude on Danny's face was almost too much and it worried him. Just what was his relationship to this girl?

"Danny-boy," Jack sighed, "I know I told you I was willing to wait for you to tell me the truth, but…I just, I don't know what to think anymore!"

Jack threw his arms in the air hopelessly. "I'm a ghost hunter, Danny. By all rights, I should've been the one these ghosts needed leverage to catch and yet it was you they put more effort into kidnapping. What are you hiding, Son? 'Cause I don't know what to think."

Danny gently threaded his fingers through Dani's hair, untangling it the best that he could as he thought. He was worried about how high her fever was getting. He knew that they needed to get out of here and he knew that going ghost was their best bet of doing that, but how was he supposed to start? How did he explain two years' worth of lies?

"It's…It started with the lab accident," Danny began, swallowing down his nerves. It was time.

…

A/N: Trick or Treat?