[A/N: Continuation of the previous prompt Day 21 - Ooze]

Danny opened his eyes slowly and was slightly confused.

He jerked into full alertness when the memory hit him. The last thing he knew was coughing up ectoplasm in the back of his English class. So how did he get home?

A warm hand touched his arm and he turned to see Jazz was at his bedside. "Hey, it's okay little brother. You're safe."

He relaxed at her words, "What happened?" His voice came out surprisingly groggy.

"What do you remember?"

He recalled the events of that day, how he'd gotten so ill, and wasn't sure why. "Wait does everyone know?"

"They know you had a bad reaction to the school's ghost defense system, but you weren't the only one. Just the first."

Danny cocked his head in confusion, if it was ghost-related he understood why it affected him, but what did she mean first?

"The system was designed to purge any lingering ectoplasm from the building in the hopes that it would keep the ghosts at bay. Unfortunately, the building wasn't the problem."

Danny pulled his legs closer as Jazz explained further.

"It turns out that whenever a ghost overshadows someone trace amounts of ectoplasm is left behind in the person's system. And so many kids at school have been controlled by one ghost or another. Not to mention the ghost bug incident."

"So that happened to everyone?" Danny asked slightly horrified at the idea of the entire school having all that mess coming out of their faces.

"It varied from person to person. Some only had a little nosebleed, some cried it out. Sam and Tucker sure had a lot to cough up, but I just had a headache and it came out my ears, got all in my hair. Super gross. So they had to send everyone home, closed school for a week. You definitely had it the worse."

"How bad was it?"

"You went to the hospital, Danny. Vlad swooped in with his specialist, but you were still there for a day. We brought you home last night."

Danny was quiet for a moment. He'd never been exposed to something like that before.

"And Danny I don't want to rush you, but Mom and Dad are going to want to see you now that you're awake. Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." He shrugged.

"Okay. Well, they might have some questions. Mom definitely has questions. Once they figured out why it was happening, I think Dad was quick to dismiss your case and lump you in with everyone else, but Mom's been oddly quiet."

"Which means she's thinking. Great. You don't think she knows, do you?"

"Doubt it. Unless she thinks it's even remotely possible, but she might have her own theories."

Danny nodded wondering if now was finally the right time to tell them the truth.

"If you want, I can stay here with you." Then as if she could read his mind, "in case you wanted to tell them."

Danny shook his head, "It's fine. I'll take my chances that they won't ask any hard-hitting questions right away."

As he waited, he decided to hold back on saying anything about his ghost side. He figured it would be better to see where they were first, maybe that would be easier.

His dad was beyond excited to see him awake. "Hey, there's my boy! Look and the color is back on his face too! Knew no ghost could keep my boy down! We Fenton's are just too tough."

"Now Jack, it wasn't a full ghost. Just the lingering remains clinging to him."

"Yeah. You think we should do our house like they did the school? That place was like a sauna, really cleans you out good!"

Danny couldn't help the small audible squeak that passed his lips, "please no."

Whether his mom heard him or not he wasn't sure, but she still rejected the idea, "You know how much I distrust the sort of things they used. It's too many variables and is in no way scientific. We can work on a purifier for that room off the lab, but there's no need to coat the whole house in magic."

Danny sighed then realized something about what his Dad said was off, "Did you guys go in there?"

"Of course sweetie, we had to clean up the school and we're the only ones qualified to handle such hazardous materials. And your father wanted to see how it affected himself, so he spent the night there last night."

"And you're okay?" Danny asked hesitantly, surprised by his Dad's boldness.

"Right as rain Dan-o!"

Maddie turned to Jack, placing a gentle hand on his arm, "Jack dear, why don't you go down and make Danny some soup. He hasn't eaten since yesterday."

Jack was quick to oblige and ran off leaving Danny alone with his mom.

She was quiet as she pulled up his desk chair next to the bed. "Danny did Jazz explain what happened." He nodded and she continued, "Good, because your father and I have been documenting this," she hesitated, "phenomena and I needed to ask you a few questions. Just so we have all the data."

Danny picked a loose thread in his comforter instead of looking at her.

"You got infected with that ghost bug like your sister, right?"

Danny couldn't hide his surprise as that was the question she had started with. "Uh," technically no, but he did pretend. "Yeah?" Where was she going with this?

"And what was your symptom?"

"I," what had he faked again? Oh right, "invisibility."

"But you didn't get quarantined immediately, why was that?"

He didn't realize she noticed that, "I actually had Tucker carry me there, I guess no one noticed me at first. Because, you know, invisible." He shrugged hoping that was good enough.

"Oh sweetie I'm sorry."

"It's okay Mom." If he was honest, sometimes it was just easier to be invisible.

"Okay, well I guess my other question is have you ever been overshadowed?"

"No."

"Are you sure? There hasn't been a time when you had gaps in your memory or hadn't felt like yourself?"

"I- actually yes. Did I tell you I had to switch lockers earlier this year?" With her curiosity piqued he continued, "Yeah, a ghost broke my locker, so I had to move. The thing is the locker I moved to had this rumor attached to it. I didn't believe it at first. I was wrong."

Danny sighed at the memory of how his pettiness got him trapped in the first place.

"The locker was haunted and the ghost, well he got mad at me and decided I needed to be punished. He took over my body by pushing me out and with no place else to go I got trapped in his former confinement. A mirror inside the locker. I'm just glad that I was able to get Sam and Tucker's attention. It took 50 years for Sydney to free himself and I really didn't want to wait that long."

"The ghost evicted you from your own body?"

"Yeah?"

"How long after the accident was it?"

"I don't know. About a month and a half maybe."

She pulled him into a tight hug, "No wonder you were hit so hard. I figured the lab accident must have left you with some residual ectoplasm, but you seemed fine." She pulled back and held his face in her hands, her eyes searching, "You didn't get ecto-acne like Vlad did, so I figured you didn't have any direct contact. Oh and to be so viciously possessed so soon afterward…" she didn't finish her sentence, only hugged him more.

He didn't correct her. He simply hugged her back.