A/N: *coughs* Since this fic didn't wrap itself up in October like it was supposed to, I am now picking random prompts off the Ectober list until it does. Here's the prompt for day 9, Mask.

Valerie sees him for who he is now, but the others don't, and Danny's happy to keep it that way. He can help her with her problem, but why does she still think the reverse is true when she's already helped with this whole video thing?

"You're an idiot."

Danny jerked and spun in the air, a ghost ray glowing to life in his hands before his brain caught up with the situation and he let it die. Valerie hovered behind him on her jet sled, arms crossed and her visor up so he could see her glaring at him. He hadn't thought she'd find him so quickly. Sure, he hadn't stayed invisible once he'd gotten to the north end of town and hidden on a rooftop a few blocks away from the mattress factory that was still undergoing repairs, but still. He should've been out of the range of her sensors, and it had barely been half an hour.

It had taken Skulker longer to find him last time he'd been the hunter during one of their extreme hide-and-seek style games on a truce day. Danny had been one of the last ghosts Skulker had found, and Ember still wasn't letting him live that one down. Of course, Danny wasn't, either. Use of hackable tracking missiles aside, Skulker's aim was worse when he was angry.

Danny let his hands fall back to his sides. "What?"

Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Running? Like that? Honestly, you're just asking for them not to believe you."

"Right." Danny had known, from what Valerie had said earlier, that she'd figured out the truth. Somehow. Still, it felt so weird to be talking to her like this. Even after she'd let him go after helping him rescue Dani, this was…. He hadn't ever expected something like this. If nothing else, he'd thought there would be more yelling if she'd ever found everything out. "Yeah. That might not've been the smartest thing. But in my defense, I was pretty sure Kwan was planning to throw the Ghost Catcher at me, and if he'd caught me, that would have been worse."

She rolled her eyes. "Can we talk or do you want to try running from me again?" He glanced around, more out of instinct than anything else, and she added, "We can go out of town."

He was tempted to ask if she planned to shoot him now that she'd put the pieces together, but the truth was, if she'd wanted to do something like that, she'd have already done it. Warning him ahead of time wouldn't have happened—she'd never give up an advantage like that—and tempting though it was to jokingly ask if she planned to take a few shots at him, that would only encourage her to do it.

Knowing the truth about Dani had changed some things for her.

Still, he hadn't thought knowing would be enough for Valerie to make the leap to him.

Apparently, he'd been wrong.

Again.

Then again, seeing video evidence of him using his powers would've helped.

So much for being careful. Not that he hadn't tried; he'd made sure the alley was empty before he'd done it, and he hadn't waltzed inside after Dash despite the strong temptation to rub his nose in it. Tucker had even asked him why he hadn't, which meant it had been him, not Danny, who'd gotten slugged by Sam for once.

Sure, Danny had found it weird that Dash hadn't shoved him in a locker after failing his math test, but he hadn't thought that had had anything to do with the dumpster thing. He'd assumed it was because Mr. Falluca or one of the other teachers had noticed and said something, maybe threatened Dash's spot on the football team.

Valerie telling him that she knew he was Phantom in one breath and then telling him about this video prank in the next had thrown him, but despite what she'd wanted, editing was a safer story than pretending to be overshadowed. She'd met his parents. She should know the farther away the story was from a ghost thing, the better.

"Yeah, sure, let's go," Danny murmured, and when Valerie edged forward and pointed for him to join her on her sled, he didn't argue or remind her that he could fly on his own.

He simply turned them both invisible before anyone else had a chance to notice them.

Ten minutes later, Valerie had taken them out of the city and gotten Danny completely turned around in someone's corn field. If he hadn't turned them both intangible, she definitely would've knocked some stalks down, even if the destruction would hardly have been crop circle worthy. "Is this really necessary?" he asked when she finally stopped, signalled to him to drop their intangibility, and spun the sled in a circle before retracting both it and her suit.

He hadn't known the edges of her sled were that sharp—he was pretty sure they normally weren't, meaning embedded knives or saws, meaning it must have been a recent upgrade because he'd have remembered running into those before—but it had cut through the thick corn stalks with barely any resistance and gave them room to stand comfortably.

On one hand, he wanted to think that it had cut through so easily because the plants were turning brown and drying out, but on the other hand, he suspected neither Vlad nor Technus was above stealing ideas of tiny whirling blades from Skulker.

"I wasn't kidding when I said I knew the truth about all of you," Valerie said. She was looking upward, past the corn that towered over both of them, but all Danny could see when he followed her gaze was a hawk flying far overhead. "I figured I'd take what security I could get."

"Yeah, 'all of you' is still a weird way to say me and Dani," Danny started, but Valerie's bark of laughter cut him off.

"If I thought it was only you two, I'd have said both."

Danny swallowed. "So, uh—"

"I know about Mr. Masters."

Wait.

"And you didn't say that earlier?"

"I did. I thought that's why you stopped fighting me and started listening."

"I stopped because you brought up Dani when I tried to laugh off the accusation of being Phantom. As far as I knew, you wouldn't have any reason to connect her to Danny Fenton."

"Dani and Mr. Masters. You cut me off before I could say his name. So, all of you. Unless there are more of you?"

As far as he knew, Dani was the only surviving clone. Not that he was going to get into that with Valerie. "I don't think so."

She blew out a breath. "Good. I don't think I can…. Look. I'm sorry. I know that's not enough to make up for hunting you, but I need to start somewhere, and if I don't start with saying that, I don't—"

He reached out and caught her hands. "Valerie," he said, hoping to ground her before she spiralled, "it's okay."

"It's not okay. I—"

"It's okay," he repeated. "I didn't tell you, either. I didn't want you to know. I didn't want anyone to know. And who's going to assume that a human can be a ghost or vice versa?"

She looked down at their hands. Or maybe at his hands, specifically, which were still gloved. "How does that work?"

"It's complicated. Even to me. Just think of me as a human with ghost powers. That's what I do, and it's easier."

"But you're not just a human with ghost powers." She freed one of her hands and picked at his gloves, pinching the fabric between her fingers. He didn't pull away. "Even your suit is infused with ectoplasm or you wouldn't be able to contort it the way you do."

"That's why it's complicated." He closed his eyes and changed back, letting the fabric vanish from her fingertips. He met her eyes and said, "If you know about Vlad and not just me and Dani, we should be talking about that."

She pulled away from him and crossed her arms as she turned to stare at an ear of corn that was eye level for her. "I don't know if he knows yet. He might. I was working that day, when Dash and Kwan pulled their little prank. My watch never went off."

"Does it go off if I use my powers when I'm not in ghost mode?"

He saw her lips quirk up at that. "That's what you call it? Ghost mode?"

He shrugged. "Or Phantom form."

"Right," she said. She dragged one toe across the dirt, cutting a faint line into the dry topsoil. "I don't know if it can tell. I can't even test it."

Danny reached over and stuck his hand through the corn plant that had caught Valerie's attention.

She snorted. "That doesn't help. I don't know if the watch doesn't notice you when you do that stuff or if Mr. Masters turned it off remotely or something. I don't even know if he just turned it off for whatever you are or if I can still pick up regular ghosts. It never went off the other night, either. I didn't know anything was wrong until you woke everyone up, but when I went looking for you, you were already gone."

Danny shifted on his feet. "Yeah, that was one of Nocturne's friends, I think. Or at least the same kind of ghost. I had to wake everyone up to weaken him enough to get him into the thermos, but he's, uh, still in there. Which is good, in case Frostbite or Clockwork can't explain what happened with Star."

Valerie opened her mouth but hesitated and shook her head. Danny had seen her do something similar often enough to know that she'd come back to that topic later. Another day, another time, another discussion. She wanted details, had questions, or both, but she was willing to wait on all of it.

Valerie reached out and ripped an ear of corn off one of the nearest stalks and started husking it. The dry leaves crackled in her hands, punctuating each sentence. "I don't want to keep hunting you. I don't even want to pretend to. But I don't know what Mr. Masters will do when he finds out I know about him."

"Tell him the truth." She paused long enough to look up at him with an expression that clearly said she thought he was nuts. Which, fair. It did sound that way. "Not everything, but—" He broke off, trying to figure out how to elaborate. "Look, the best lies are wrapped in truths, right? Tell him you need a break after what happened with Dani. Don't say anything about him, and don't say anything about me. Don't say anything too specific at all. If he doesn't know you know the truth about him, he should make own assumptions."

"But what if he does know?"

"Then you're like me, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker. Another kid no adult in their right mind would listen to, at least if you tried to claim that the mayor of Amity Park and the billionaire CEO of Dalv Corp is a ghost. And if he tries to treat you differently just because you worked for him, I'll fight him."

She let out a little amused huff and tore off what remained of the tassel, rolling it between her fingers before letting it drop to the ground with the remains of the husk. "You say that like it's easy."

"It's easy enough. If he tries to go after your dad or something like that, I'll stop him."

"But what if you can't?"

If he couldn't? If he really couldn't, despite trying everything he could think of? He'd tell his parents everything and let them deal with it—or, preferably, trick them into dealing with it without having to tell them about him. Unfortunately, it was highly unlikely he could figure out a way to send them after Vlad and not have Vlad turn around and tell them his secret to distract them long enough for Vlad to make his escape. As such, that had to be a last resort and wasn't an option Danny wanted to put in Valerie's head, so he repeated, "I'll stop him. Trust me."

"Do you trust me?"

Danny blinked. "What?"

"Do you trust me? After everything?" She was running careful fingers over the cob and picking off the last strings of dried silk instead of meeting his eyes. "I wouldn't trust me. I'd think this was a setup."

If this were a setup, Sam would not the only one who would threaten to kill him for being stupid enough to meet the A-listers by himself. Sam wouldn't be happy that he'd agreed to meet with Valerie, but the fact that he'd invited Paulina and Star to join in? The fact that Dash and Kwan had shown up—something they would all say he should have anticipated? Jazz and Tucker would take turns holding him down so they could all take a shot at him. "This isn't a setup. You wouldn't be talking to me like this if you were trying to set me up."

"I got you to a remote location. The others don't know where you are."

"Val. Come on."

The cob snapped in Valerie's hands, but each half stayed trapped in her fists as she looked up at him. "You shouldn't be so trusting. What if Mr. Masters finds out I know and decides to use that against you?"

"Okay, one, he's already tried using you against me, so that's not exactly new—"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. I can handle whatever Vlad tries."

"You don't get it! You might be able to handle it, but I don't know if I can. It just…." The piece of corn cob in her right hand dropped to the ground as her hand went to her hair, twisting a curl around her finger. "I don't know if I can do this. Wear a mask all the time. Hunting ghosts was different. It gave me something to focus on, something to do. But stopping cold turkey and having to look Mr. Masters in the eye when I try to lie to him about why—" She cut off. "He's good at reading me. He might see right through it. He could overshadow me. I can't throw that off."

"He's more likely to bug you or tail you than overshadow you," Danny said, and it was only when Valerie looked away from him that he realized that hadn't been the smart thing to say. "My parents have tech to prevent that, though. Overshadowing. It's currently a belt, but Tucker could probably rework it into a bracelet for you if I can't convince Mom to do that." Well, Jazz would have to be the one to ask about that; his goal was never to be in the house when the Spectre Deflector was mentioned.

Maybe it would be easier to just ask Tucker to see what he could make up. It wasn't like he didn't know the combination to the safe where all the blueprints were kept as well as Danny did.

Valerie took a deep breath, and it shuddered as it left her lungs. He hadn't realized she was shaking until that moment, her fisted hands trembling uncontrollably. "Do you think you can deal with Mr. Masters for me? Say something to him about me that he'll believe?"

Danny reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder. When she didn't flinch away, he started rubbing a small circle between her shoulder blades and let it grow slowly. "I can figure out something to say to him, but he'll still need to hear from you first or he'll wonder why you'd talk to Phantom before him."

"Right," she breathed. "Of course. After you see about that bracelet thing?"

"Sure."

"Then let me deal with this thing with the A-listers for you." Her voice was steadier now. This whole mess with the A-listers was a distraction for her, something to focus on, something that wasn't causing her world to fall apart piece by piece. Danny knew that.

He didn't know what she meant, though. "Huh?"

"Kwan's video."

Danny stopped rubbing and took a step back to see her face full on. "What about it? We told them it was edited. Even they have to know how good Tucker is. It's not that unbelievable, and you said it was their idea."

Valerie snorted, suddenly looking more like herself than she had in the last five minutes. "Yeah, that's not going to hold up. Even if you tell someone something they want to hear, you still need to sell it."

"But you backed me up on it. They still trust you, don't they?"

"Right. Because being fair weather friends and throwing me off the A-list means they have absolutely no reason to suspect I might try to get back at them." She bit her lip. "You didn't answer me earlier. Do you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you. You're not shooting at me right now, right? And you helped me with Dani even before you knew about me. You have a good heart, and you're my friend."

Valerie's mouth had twisted at the mention of shooting at him, but she turned and hurled the last half of the corn cob away into the field. When she faced him again, her face was smooth. "Okay. Thanks. Then trust me when I tell you that they're not satisfied with that. Dash and Kwan might believe it right now because they want to believe it, but Paulina? Star? No. Digging up dirt on people is what they do. They can smell a secret a mile away, and they'll tell the boys about it sooner rather than later."

"But—"

"You ran. That's the worst thing you could've done, and it's all they'll need to doubt the whole story about the video being edited—no matter how good Tucker is. I mean, Kwan showed me the prank on the tape itself. If it were only the computer copy, you'd have a bit more leeway."

"Are you sure they won't think I ran because Dash was about to whale on me?"

"That might be what he says if Paulina brings it up, but I'm not convinced she even believed me." Valerie sighed and started drawing in the dirt with her toe again. "She's good at what she does. She's better than you think she is."

"If she was better than I thought she was, she'd already know I'm Phantom."

Valerie shook her head and met his eyes again. "No. She's still harbouring a crush on her precious ghost boy—"

"Please don't say it like that."

"—so she's too close to any situation involving him to see the truth for what it is. She is not too close to you. And when Sam compares her to a shark, she isn't exactly wrong."

Danny winced. "So what are you thinking?"

"That I'm not the only one who needs to wear a mask to get through this. And that you're going to have to wear a different one than just being Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom."

Danny shifted on his feet and waited for Valerie to elaborate.

She, apparently, had been waiting for it to click and for him to say something, because she finally threw up her hands and said, "What, do you want them to figure out the truth about you?"

"No!" That was an easy question, at least. "But you, what, want me to pretend to be a third person? Ghost, whatever?" He knew she didn't mean wearing a literal mask.

At least, he thought she didn't mean wearing a literal mask.

Valerie's mouth dropped open slightly, and then she said, "You are a lot better at coming up with something on the fly than you are at coming up with actual plans, aren't you?"

Danny stared at her.

He couldn't exactly argue.

"We need to get that tape. You know that, right? Either Tucker needs to actually edit it—even if that editing it just splicing out all incriminating evidence—or we need to tape over it with something else."

"And that won't convince them something's up when all of a sudden the tape is changed?"

"Would you rather they lose all their evidence under suspicious circumstances or that they can go to whatever geek they like to confirm that everything on the tape is real?"

"Uh. Neither?"

"Then we need to make the circumstances less suspicious."

"Less suspicious as in put the idea in Technus's head that he should go after all video footage so that he can get the recognition he deserves the next time he tries for world domination or what?"

Valerie smirked. "Yeah, I can see why you're more a think on the fly guy and not a plan guy. You're way better at coming up with this stuff when you don't have time to think about it."

"Should I take that as a compliment or an insult?"

Predictably, she ignored that, instead shuffling to the side and pulling him towards her as she pointed down at the dirt with her free hand. It was immediately obvious that she hadn't been mindlessly tracing lines with her foot, but that was about it. At a glance, he couldn't understand what she'd done—an f struck through with an x; an arrow from that to A c P; an arrow from there to a circled F followed by an equals sign and an m—but he'd hardly opened his mouth to ask before she was saying, "Look, this is how we need to play it."

He was more than a little dubious as she started explaining, but she knew the A-listers better than he did. Besides, he trusted her. He hadn't been lying about that.

He just hoped she was as good at this sort of thing—especially when it came to predicting what the others would think—as she seemed to think she was.

A/N: I haven't decided which POV to use for the next chapter, but I'm admittedly leaning towards Kwan or Paulina. What do you folks think? (Please note that I reserve the right to ignore the popular vote.)