For Hollyflash aka Lurking for the Phic Phight.

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"Ancients, Vlad. I'm not rejecting you because I'm a rebellious teenager and you're an adult, I'm rejecting you because you're incredibly creepy."

Vlad sniffed in what he hoped was an aristocratic manner and raised an eyebrow, minutely adjusting his grip on Daniel to keep him pinned to the floor.

"We're human-ghost hybrids, Daniel. I'd hoped that you'd have realized by now that we are meant to be 'creepy.'"

Daniel squirmed and began to mutter into the carpet. "Clockwork never acts like this, I'm fine with him—"

Vlad pulled back as if burned. He hadn't heard that name in—in—

In a long time.

Years.

The thought was almost expelled from his head when Daniel managed to elbow him in the jaw hard enough to make him see stars. Before he knew it, Daniel had slipped from his grasp and zoomed away.

Whatever aspersions Vlad cast on Daniel's mastery of his ghostly abilities, the boy was fast. When he put his mind to escaping instead of picking a fight, he managed it more often than not, to Vlad's great frustration. Hence Vlad's usual strategy of needling the younger half-ghost until fighting was the only thing on Daniel's mind.

He set down on a nearby roof. There went his plans for the day. Which, admittedly, had consisted of distracting Daniel while his ghostly minions set up a nasty surprise for him at the school, hence making him fail his test, which would, in turn, convince Maddie and Jack to let Vlad set Daniel up with a tutor, something he had suggested to them earlier, and—

Well. Daniel would find them, now, no doubt.

Ah, well.

He had more important things on his mind, now. Such as, how in two worlds did Daniel know Clockwork? Because Daniel never just said things like that. He barely knew anything about ghost culture. He wouldn't know to bring up obscure, secretive, ghost historical figures. He wouldn't know what that particular name would mean to Vlad.

Tongues of fire flared out of his fingers, bringing a measure of stability to the gyrations of his core and his emotions.

Daniel knew Clockwork. And, it seemed, met him with some regularity. Enough for him to compare his actions to Vlad's.

Would that ghost never be satisfied with ruining Vlad's life? Was he not satisfied with—

He cut off the thought, shaking his head. Never mind that.

What Vlad needed to do was find Clockwork. Which meant inducing Danny to go to him at a time when Vlad when Vlad could follow. Which meant determining when he had visited Clockwork in the past. An undertaking to be sure.

He closed his eyes and teleported to his lab beneath his mansion.

"Maddie!" he called out, even before his body had fully reformed.

The hologram flickered to life with a faint crackled from the projector. "What is it, sugarpie?" it asked with a smile.

"Review the audio recordings from Fentonworks," ordered Vlad. "Search for the term 'Clockwork.' Report findings to me."

"Sure thing, honey!"

Vlad had to review the cheerfulness settings on the Maddie program. Maddie was upbeat, but not that upbeat. This was almost sickly sweet.

He threw himself into a nearby chair.

Clockwork. He thought he'd never hear that name again. Not after he'd been literally and figuratively ghosted by him.

He telekinetically pulled a book off his shelf. He ran his fingers over the leather tooling on the cover. The book had been given to him by Clockwork, years ago, when he was still in that hospital.

Clockwork had been the one to first show him the Ghost Zone, and all the wonders in it. Clockwork had been his friend, his only friend, through that long, agonizing hospital stay. He had been supportive, wonderful, kind. He visited often, though not on a regular schedule. He'd helped Vlad ride out the waves of misery and anger that so often threatened to overwhelm him.

Then, without warning, nothing.

No goodbye. The last time he left, he had even said something along the lines of 'see you soon,' although the memory was frayed from age and Vlad could no longer recall the exact words. For a long time, Vlad had worried something disastrous had happened to Clockwork. But then he had finally managed to build his own portal, reach the Ghost Zone under his own power, and, according to every search he did, every line of inquiry that bore fruit, Clockwork was just fine.

Vlad had been furious. He had been betrayed. He had spent the better half of a decade trying to plot revenge against Clockwork, before realizing that was akin to plotting revenge against a god and turning his sights to a more manageable target.

Now…

Now, Vlad just wanted answers. Both as to the reason behind his abandonment and as to why Clockwork was apparently repeating history with Daniel.

"Sweetie pie," said the hologram, with a chime, "audio processing complete. There are over ninety-nine instances where the word 'clockwork' is mentioned. Would you like to play the selected files?"

"Yes," said Vlad. "Include the video portions where available, and the thirty seconds immediately prior to and following the mention."

He turned his attention to the nearest screen. He had a lot of videos to watch.

There was an envelope pinned to it. It was sealed with wax, impressed with the image of a pocket watch and the initials CW. Vlad attempted, and failed, to suppress the growl that grew in the back of his throat. Was this a joke to Clockwork?

He tore the envelope from the screen, ripped it open with equal viciousness, and began to read.

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Three cups sat on the tea service tray next to the teapot.

"Are you expecting someone else," asked Danny, "or am I going to break one of these?"

Clockwork chuckled as he began to pour the tea. "The former," he said. "Although you may always surprise me with the latter."

He handed Danny his cup. Danny inhaled deeply. It smelled sweet. "What is it?" he asked.

"A chamomile blend," said Clockwork. "For calm."

"I think Sam drinks chamomile before she goes to bed," observed Danny, offhandedly. "Who's coming?"

"You'll see soon enough."

Danny made a face. "Do you have to be mysterious all—"

The front door of Clockwork's lair slammed open, and Danny jolted forward in alarm – the only people who regularly did that were the Observants, who didn't much care for Danny – but Clockwork put a steadying hand on his shoulder and rewound his tea into his cup.

"Clockwork!" came the expected yell. The yeller, however…

"Is that Vlad?" asked Danny, not quite scandalized, but more than a little surprised.

"Why, yes," said Clockwork.

"Did you – Clockwork, did you invite him here?"

"Other than the Observants," said Clockwork, "no one can enter unless I will it." He took a sip of his tea.

"But," started Danny.

Clockwork raised a hand. "Don't worry, he'll find us soon enough." He repurposed the hand to pat Danny's knee. "And even should he prove to be in a combative mood, I will not allow you to come to harm. You are safe here, Daniel."

"Thanks," mumbled Danny, looking away, towards the door in the sitting room through which Vlad would presumably enter.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Vlad half-flew half-skidded into Clockwork's sitting room. He leveled an accusatory finger at Clockwork. "You!" he proclaimed, with a great deal of venom.

"Hello, Vladimir, I've poured you some tea. Why don't you sit down? I understand it has been some time."

"You under-? No! I will not sit down! I will not drink your tea. Not after you abandoned me for over a decade, just like that bumbling oaf—"

"Hey!" interjected Danny, not only because Vlad had once again insulted his father, but because he could tell that Clockwork, regardless of his stoic façade, was actually quite upset.

"Don't interrupt me, Daniel," snapped Vlad. "You don't know what this, this ghost is. What he does. You don't know that he gets close to you, makes you think you're friends, and then drops you without a moment's notice. Did you think it was funny to string along a man in dire straits? Did you?"

"I did not abandon you, Vladimir, I—"

Vlad scoffed and went on a tirade that Danny honestly found hard to parse. But it sounded like Vlad and Clockwork had known each other in the past and then fallen out of contact in a way that aggravated Vlad's abandonment issues. Which didn't seem like Clockwork at all, but Vlad sounded extremely certain and insistent, and Clockwork's upset was actually finding its way into his voice, now. Danny didn't—

With all the force and abruptness of epiphany, Danny realized what was going on here.

"Wait, wait, wait," said Danny, putting down his cup. "Vlad, breathe or whatever. Clockwork, you did tell Vlad that you experience time nonlinearly, right?"

"Of course," said Clockwork, clearly offended.

"But Vlad, ah, had you gone through natural portals often when you met Clockwork? Or, like, did you ever see him without him initiating contact?"

"I didn't have my portal built yet, Daniel, so, no."

Danny turned to Clockwork. "Why did you-? No that doesn't matter. Haaauuuhh, Clockwork, do you have-?"

Clockwork waved a hand and a whiteboard appeared.

"Thanks," said Danny, picking a marker up from the little shelf on the bottom. He uncapped it, then recapped it. "Actually, before that. Vlad—" he pointed at Vlad, who looked about one second from exploding "—you have some idea of how old Clockwork is, right? Or at least how old ghosts can get?"

"Yes, Daniel," said Vlad, managing to overlay his supercilious 'I know better than you' attitude over his still obvious anger.

"Okay, great. So, just to establish, Clockwork has been around at least since, uh, beginning of time?"

"Give or take," agreed Clockwork. "Although I have not experienced it all directly."

"Right," said Danny. "Just, already, his perception of time is different from our because of age differences."

Vlad looked slightly less angry, and slightly closer to curious.

"But, then, there's the larger issue," continued Danny. This time his uncapping of the marker was decisive. He drew a flat, straight, horizontal line across the whiteboard. "This is our timeline. We deal with time linearly. We've also got, I don't know, parallel timelines, like this." He drew several more lines. "You following so far?"

"Yes, Daniel, I've read my share of science fiction."

He was probably rolling his eyes. Curse his solid-colored red eyes. It made interpreting his looks and figuring out where he was looking during a fight much more difficult.

"Anyway, Clockwork isn't on any of these lines. Because he experiences time nonlinearly." He drew a squiggly up and down line on the board that resembled the world's saddest sine wave. Or cosine wave. There wasn't a y-axis on the not-quite-graph, so it wasn't like anyone could tell the difference. They were effectively the same.

And Vlad still made fun of him for failing math. Danny knew plenty about math. He just didn't have time to do the work. Mostly because of Vlad.

"Now, that, that is Clockwork's timeline. It isn't always in contact with ours. It's, like, solutions to a system of equations. Nonlinear equations," he specified, in case it had been too long since Vlad had encountered basic high-school-level algebra.

"It is somewhat more complicated than that, Daniel," said Clockwork, exasperated. "It's more of—"

"Yeah, but this gets the idea across more than the whole parade metaphor, doesn't it?"

"I would say not. This doesn't even begin to touch on my abilities."

"That's because we're just talking about your perception of time," said Danny. He considered for a moment. "And also your ability to interact with our timeline."

"Which includes my ability to perceive multiple timelines."

"But that's complicated, and I still don't get it," complained Danny.

"It is less complicated than what you are currently trying to explain."

"To you maybe, but the whole point of this is that you aren't seeing things the same way we are. You disappeared on Vlad, what, a decade ago?" He looked to Vlad for confirmation.

"A decade is hardly any time at all," said Clockwork with exasperation. He sipped at his tea.

"It was fifteen years."

Clockwork made a somewhat dismissive motion with a gloved hand. "It's a tiny fraction of your life as a whole."

"It's… closer to a third of his current lifetime," said Danny with a wince. "Or a fourth? I don't know how old you are, dude."

"I went to college with your parents."

"I know, and you were already graying then. Your age is weirdly hard to place."

Vlad gave Danny a look, but his body language was no longer screaming 'I'm going to beat the snot after you.' Danny counted that as a win under the current circumstances. He disliked Vlad, but in a fight with Clockwork… Well, Clockwork could demolish just about anyone.

Not that Clockwork would. Just that he could.

"Daniel—"

"Please, Vladimir. Just sit down. Try the tea. I made it for you. I knew you would be upset, although I could not see exactly why." Clockwork was almost pouting, now. "Fifteen years is such a short time."

"Clockwork, I'm fifteen."

"I know," said Clockwork, patting Danny on the knee. "Your timeline is so small. And cute."

Vlad was now distinctly on his back foot, offput and disarmed. "His timeline is cute?"

"It is. Don't worry, yours is almost as cute."

Vlad opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish. Danny pushed the whiteboard away.

"Don't worry about it too much," he said. "Like I said, different perception of time."

"I really didn't mean to make you feel abandoned, Vladimir. I simply wanted to give you some time to, ah, how should I put this? Have space? Find yourself?"

Vlad sat heavily on the couch.

"You get used to it," said Danny. "But, Clockwork, do you think you can talk him into having fewer evil plans? Because, really. There are way too many. Like, one a week. They're destroying my grades. Have you ever seen anyone else who had weekly evil plans?"

"Evil plans, Vladimir? Really?"