Disclaimer: I own nothing from Danny Phantom

Note: Just a heads up, since I didn't want to drag all the changes to the more or less canon timeline out too much because Vlad's not Danielle's enemy this time around like I did in "Haunted" I glossed over a few episodes and changed a few things as you'll soon see. Translation, there's at least one important thing I switched back to something similar to what Vlad did in the show only this time he's doing it to help Danielle indirectly. Also, I did a lot of skipping ahead in this chapter and I'll be diving into a really important scene pretty soon to push the plot forward since I'm not planning on making this story too long. And finally...dang it, I really meant to wait a while before I wrote another chapter since I already posted TWO the other day, but I couldn't help myself. Somebody plz stap mii...! Lolz!

Chapter 8: A Double-Life With Double-Standards

Danielle's POV

As expected, this trip turned out to be a huge mistake because coming here ended up only giving me MORE problems to deal with, not less. Don't get me wrong, I did end up learning a lot about my parents, but almost none of that information came from them at all. Practically everything I learned came straight from Vlad, who as it turns out is also a hybrid because of a ghost portal accident similar to mine and he put me through a lot of selfish bullshit because of it.

Sometimes though, Vlad almost seems like a real father because even before he learned my secret he actually paid attention to me and noticed right away when I was anxious about something. He was unexpectedly kind to me, comforting me when it felt like the world was crashing down around me after another fight with my parents. I can't really explain it very well, but let me put it this way-

For years my dad's hugs have felt stiff and impersonal, not to mention almost crushing, but Vlad's are much more restrained, hesitant even, but mostly very gentle. And they had this desperate edge to them that made me believe he was secretly lonely and was totally serious about wanting me to stay here with him so Vlad could love me like a daughter instead. As for my mom, I can't even remember the last time she hugged me without immediately letting go, acting like I was being too clingy, or a time my parents haven't welcomed me home the instant I walked in the door only as an excuse to show off their latest invention so they could boast about all the ways it's meant to hurt or detect ghosts which made me nervous for obvious reasons.

Anyway, all of that aside at least my brother finally got over himself long enough to notice something was seriously bothering me when we were waiting for our parents to finish repacking all their weapons into the Fenton RV. Because unlike our parents, Jace tends to be almost the opposite and he cares about me too much and is always coddling me. I guess that's better than being totally ignored though. If Jace suddenly started treating me indifferently too I don't think I could-

"Dani? Are you ok? You look kind of pale," Jace asked worriedly, mirroring the concern Vlad expressed when I watched my parents doing the exact opposite and unpacking those same anti-ghost weapons.

"No. I just want to go home," I replied bluntly, sounding much harsher than I meant to. But thankfully it wasn't like I was mad at him anymore, no, if anything I was mad at myself for getting wrapped up in Vlad's drama and finding myself in his orbit now that I know what kind of guy he is.

Taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, Jace rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and replied sheepishly, "Look, about yesterday, I'm sorry for being such a jerk. We're just really worried about you, that's all. And I realized shortly after we got here that maybe it was a mistake to assume you'd actually get the chance to talk things out with mom and dad when they were so caught up in the reunion that they barely spent any time with you. So in a way, I was actually mad at myself too for messing up when I only wanted to help you. I'm glad Vlad decided to keep you company though and you seemed to be hitting it off pretty well with him so at least I was right about how much it helps to have someone you feel like you can openly relate to."

Putting an arm around my shoulder and giving me an awkward side-hug, Jace smiled warmly and continued, "Anyway, I'm sure mom and dad will come around eventually, and I'll keep working on them until they do. So don't let them get to you too much, ok? And I know it might not always seem like it, but I love you very much and I've always got your back. You're still my adorable little sister after all."

Giving him a tired smile in return when I remembered that Jace already said he loved me in his sleep before the whole Plasmius disaster in the library, I nodded and leaned my head on Jace's shoulder, answering, "Yeah I know. And I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to take my anger out on you either. So, bygones?"

"Bygones," Jace winked, letting his arm fall away before adding, "But I still expect to be treated to the usual apology milkshake when we get home!"

Snickering I elbowed him and said, "Fine whatever you brat. Better yet, I'll try to get you a damn milkshake on the way. Because at least for road trips it's the only time mom and dad really give me a decent amount of spending money for snacks so I should still have enough for that. Besides, just between you and me, I'm sure we can do better than the ones we usually get at the Nasty Burger."

"True," Jace nodded, grabbing his bag and mine as a kind gesture before taking them both to the RV as soon as our parents said it was time to go.

Before I could get very far, Vlad showed up almost out of nowhere right behind us the moment Jace and I began making our way down the steps in front of the doorway. And while I hadn't sensed anything, given the fact that I knew he wasn't anywhere near us a few minutes ago I couldn't help but wonder if Vlad had teleported into the room while everyone else was outside and somehow hid himself from my ghost sense. Now that was a disturbing thought so I couldn't bring myself to even look at him when I did notice him there, especially because I didn't know how to feel about Vlad anymore...

Part of me was still pissed at him for everything that happened with Skulker, our battle in the library, and how he tried to manipulate me. The other part was hurt and confused, but oddly hopeful because Vlad actually did keep his promise to leave my dad alone for now apart from shooting him a few dirty looks behind his back that only I noticed. The only thing that really sucks about finding out things about my parents from Vlad is that I can't ask them about most of it because it might give away too much about our accidents and I don't want them digging into it too much and dredging up the past even more when all I want to do is move on with my life.

That's the other thing, I have so many questions I want to ask but I can't, and now it feels like I'm keeping even more secrets from everyone. I seriously hate how much of a liar I've become since I was always taught to be honest and upfront with people, but it's not like I have a choice given the fact that I'm secretly a ghost-fighting hero who happens to also be part ghost herself. Either way, I seriously hope that Sam and Trish have had enough time to get over some of their issues with me too because I really needed someone to talk to about all of this besides the person in question, aka Vlad himself.

"Jack, Maddie, it has been a pleasure seeing you again and I hope you had a wonderful time," Vlad smiled stiffly which to them probably still came off as a genuine smile. "I'm also very glad I finally got to meet your children, though it's a shame we didn't have much time to get acquainted as well Jason-" he added, turning to my brother and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright Mr. Masters, maybe we can talk again some other time," Jace smiled back.

"No need to be so formal my boy, we're practically family now so you may call me Uncle Vlad," Vlad winked and I had to resist the urge to gag.

Turning to my parents again, Vlad added earnestly, "I expect to see more of you and your family in the future since we have so much to still catch up on! I know it may take some time, but I for one am looking forward to reconnecting more with my two oldest friends. And I know we have a complicated history, but I would very much like for us to put that all behind us and start off with a clean slate."

Somehow I could tell that part was mostly directed at me but regardless my dad still beamed, "I'd like that too Vladdy! Next time you should come visit us at Fenton Works in Amity Park! We can show you the lab and the ghost portal in person! I bet I can convince Maddie to even make your favorite food for the occasion just like old times!"

Laughing nervously mom pointed out, "Well that's assuming I still remember how to make it. Back in college, we had to work with what we had and usually had to throw random things from the pantry together to get a decent meal out if it. They don't call it being a 'starving college student' for nothing you know. The three of us could barely even afford to go out to eat for our birthdays.

"No need to fret Maddie, if you cannot remember how to make that dish I'll treat all of you to a nice dinner at a local restaurant instead," Vlad laughed but again, at least to me it sounded mostly fake.

Their conversation went on like this for a few minutes so I was about to tell them I was going to go ahead and wait in the RV with Jace when mom stopped me and said, "Dani, aren't you forgetting something? You should thank Vlad for keeping you company and taking such good care of you during our visit."

Unable to muster the energy to reply besides giving her a shrug, I reluctantly walked back over to Vlad while everyone else piled into the car and muttered a quick 'thank you' just to make sure I did as I was told before turning to leave when Vlad grabbed my shoulder and said, "Wait Danielle. There's something I want to tell you before you leave, and I sincerely mean this from the bottom of my heart regardless of whether or not you accept my offer."

"Fine," I glowered, still annoyed that I couldn't tell for sure if Vlad actually meant it. "What is it?"

Looking a bit hurt by my curt reply but not remotely surprised, Vlad answered, "I know you're disappointed in me and we started off on the wrong foot, not to mention I made some rather foolish mistakes that only put you in a difficult position, but I want you to know that if you ever need help or are faced with something you can't handle my door will always be open to you. I'm a patient man, so take all the time you need to consider my offer to not only train you but to give you a better life here with me. Until then, I'll be eagerly waiting here to welcome you with open arms."

Pursing my lips into a thin tight line when I couldn't bring myself to respond to that, I glanced back at Vlad, searching his eyes for something but it was no use. I still can't figure him out and like I said, I'm scared to trust him again, not that I'll ever admit it. But for now, I really didn't want to think about any of that so I wordlessly shrugged out from under his hand and walked back to the RV, immediately pulling out my iPod and cranked up the music once mom and dad double-checked to make sure all of us were accounted for for once.

Truth be told, I have been left behind before, once it was even with Jason but as you can imagine as soon as they realized we weren't there they turned around and came back. I guess that's the downside of these road trips because just like at home, we were easily forgettable. Too bad I can't forget everything that happened during this one which is going to haunt me forever. I suppose the only good thing about it is if Vlad's threat sticks, I won't have to worry about being hunted by Skulker anymore so that's one less enemy to worry about.

I just haven't figured out if Vlad's one yet himself.

I hate to say it, but sadly things only got worse for me from there as soon as we got home from the reunion. For one thing, a couple of weeks later my parents got into a huge fight when dad forgot mom's wedding anniversary, again, and mom kept bringing up something about a divorce. As if I wasn't already freaked out enough when I accidentally caught a glimpse of the Ghost Zone when the Spector Speeder my parents invented got shoved in there by mistake and this freaky ghost warden scared the shit out of me. In fact, I barely managed to get back home in time before my parents noticed anything happened while they were arguing.

It wasn't until dad ran off to chase mom who went to visit her older sister, my aunt Alicia in Arkansas, that I found the apology present dad forgot in the lab only for it to get knocked into the Ghost Zone while I was cleaning the house using my powers. I was at a total loss and tried to ask Sam and Trish for advice but talking to them about the present and the divorce only freaked me out more so I decided to take a risk and go back into the Ghost Zone to get the present back and fix my parent's marriage. And oh boy was that a disaster!

I ended up getting arrested by the same ghost who spooked me before who seemed to think he was in charge of keeping order in the Ghost Zone and to my surprise he had also captured a lot of my enemies, including Skulker. As you can imagine they weren't too thrilled to see me but you'll be surprised to hear that Skulker actually suggested teaming up so we could all break out of there. He was only talking to the rest of them at the time but when I pointed out they were probably going to need my help too, eventually Skulker agreed but in exchange, he asked me to put in a good word for him with Vlad since he hasn't been able to find any decent work in the Ghost Zone since then.

In the end, I told him I'd try to at least but the truth is I've been trying to avoid thinking about Vlad too much and I still haven't been able to bring myself to talk to my friends about him or what happened besides finding out he's half-ghost too. But hey, at least our plan mostly worked and I got the present back. And I learned that in the Ghost Zone, WE'RE the ghosts since some of their powers don't work the same there as they do in the human world. It's no wonder all these ghosts are so eager to come over to our side because they can do a whole lot more there. So basically what I'm getting at is that when I'm in human form I can still phase through walls and stuff.

Anyway, at least things ended on a high note, and Jace and I figured out how to get to our aunt's house to give dad the present just in time. But sadly that feeling didn't last and I was really starting to feel the same way I had before we went to Wisconsin as more and more ghosts started to appear and I was fighting something almost 24-7. It's around that time that I started to seriously consider asking Vlad for help but, no, I couldn't do it. Especially not after getting spooked into thinking my parents were going to split up and he was going to swoop in and seduce my mom, which by the way is still a super creepy thought.

As if the universe wanted to mock my suffering and remind me I don't have anyone to talk to besides Vlad and my friends about my ghost problems, I was forced to see a school counselor named Penelope Spectra who turned out to be a ghost in disguise that feeds on teen misery. Go figure right? And to her, I guess my misery especially was like a gourmet feast. Worst still, Spectra actually tried to freaking kill my brother in front of the entire school!

Thankfully I managed to save him and capture Spectra and her little assistant, this super annoying shape-shifting ghost name Bertrand who had been hounding me for days and I never realized those two were working together to make my life, well, more miserable. I guess the only good thing that came out of it is that my brother started acting a lot more supportive of me and even backed off a little when I said I wanted to be alone which nowadays might as well be code for 'there's a ghost I need to go deal with.' Not that he knew that, obviously.

A week later, and I'm still not sure how this happened, but you remember that guy Vallen that my best friend Trish almost went to our first high school dance with? Well, he became a ghost hunter after he somehow got his hands on ghost hunting equipment so I had to try to avoid him as much as I could while dealing with this ghost dog that made his dad lose his job at Axion Labs so he wouldn't get the wrong idea and think that it was MY dog. Once that was taken care of, I couldn't just let him fend for himself while trying to hunt ghosts when I know how dangerous they can be and the poor guy clearly had no idea what he was doing with those anti-ghost weapons at first...

I was really surprised though when Vallen came up to me out of the blue and said thanks for helping his dad get his job back but I had no idea what he was talking about. That is, not until I found out that Vlad is the one who vouched for him. I'm not sure why he did that or what Vlad was hoping to gain from helping me indirectly since I'll admit I had a really hard time dealing with Cujo since I'm not exactly a dog person. But I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Once Vallen started to surprisingly get better at hunting ghosts, I eventually backed off to let him do his own thing and I almost had to wonder if Vlad had anything to do with that. Like, was Vlad trying to get Vallen to help me deal with the overwhelming number of ghosts that keep showing up in Amity Park without him realizing it? Honestly I had no way of knowing without actually asking him directly. But I wasn't exactly ready to deal with Vlad's drama again just yet when I still had plenty of my own going on between still hunting ghosts all the time, issues with my parents, and still being bullied at school.

Anyways, I could keep going on and on about all the shit I've been dealing with, mainly with ghosts, but I think the worst out of all of it is when Walker returned to get revenge for humiliating him and turned the whole town against Dani Phantom when I've been working my ass off trying to show them I'm trying to help everyone. The night after Wulf sacrificed himself to send Walker back to the Ghost Zone, who by the way is this strangely friendly black werewolf ghost who mostly only speaks Esperanto, I think that's the first time I've had a major meltdown in ages and not even Sam and Trish could cheer me up. It felt like everything I've been working so hard to accomplish, to make being half-ghost mean something, all amounted to nothing in the end.

It was devastating.

I even admitted that I was this close to calling it quits and running off to Vlad's again just to escape from all of this because at this point it was becoming way too overwhelming. But I haven't seen or heard from Vlad in, what, three months now? And then there's my parents who have been getting on my case a lot lately so we've been getting into more and more heated arguments. My dad even crushed my cellphone when Trish and I were really obsessed with playing this online videogame called Doom which helped me keep my mind off ghosts for a bit until Technus overshadowed the game and tried to take over the internet.

Since then, I haven't been able to convince them to get me a new one and they even went as far as telling me to get a job and I screamed at them for being unfair again because Jason not only still HAS his cellphone but they got him a freaking laptop for his birthday while I still only have dad's old desktop computer! Besides, even if I wanted to call Vlad and at least talk to him again, it's not like I know his number. Even if I wanted to get a job, I already have one which is hunting ghosts but no one pays me to do that. Maybe if they did I could actually afford some decent clothes and get a new cell phone myself.

I just...I feel like I don't have any control over my life anymore.

Then again, I never really have now that I think about it. And I'm not dealing with just the things other teenagers have to deal with, I'm dealing with ghosts and parents with double-standards they expect me to just shut up and accept when it feels like they care more about Jason and his happiness than they do about mine since I ALWAYS get the short end of the stick. Nothing I do is ever good enough for them and I'm beginning to seriously wonder what I'm even fighting for anymore. Or why I care so much about meeting my parents insanely high expectations when I have to struggle just to get them to acknowledge me enough to say 'thank you' for doing my chores and then some to try and help out more instead of just magically expecting them to be done when they on the other hand barely even clean their own lab down in the basement.

Long story short, I feel like I'm suffocating. Despite everything I told Vlad about things getting better at home eventually if anything they've only gotten worse. But at least I have a good feeling he isn't the one making it worse at least as far as the number of ghosts I'm fighting is concerned because something tells me even Vlad's not that cruel. And even if there is an off chance Vlad's part of the reason I've been fighting more ghosts than usual lately, I think that's just another weird way he's trying to test me since for the most part, they're only moderately powerful ghosts, I dunno...

I can't stop thinking about his offer though, especially on really bad days where it feels like everything that could go wrong DID go wrong. I can't stop thinking about how safe Vlad made me feel, even if it was just for a moment, and like someone actually cares about me enough to worry about my happiness for once. I know Jason does, and so do Sam and Trish, but everyone else? My parents? They only care about themselves and maybe Vlad's right and I need to accept that and create my own happiness even if it's only in a small way. So that's exactly what I'm going to do.