Phantom planet never happened. Danny was still a thing of mystery to most if not all of the world. But things have changed in the past few years, a lot of things.


The last bell finally rang for lunch and for once Danny really didn't want to go. He had completely botched it this morning when he mentions he had been caught up in an alley. They weren't supposed to know! It hadn't been the first time he was caught in his human form and it won't be his last but what was he supposed to do? Sneak into his house through the front door?

Heaving a sigh the ghost boy walked into the cafeteria to sit in their usual spot. His class was the closest to the lunch room so he usually got their first. Pulling out his home lunch, yes he ate home lunch now, he waited for the inevitable.

Danny was looking at his homework when his friends sat down across from him with their own food, taking a few bites before speaking.

"So. You can't run this time. What happened?" Sam stared at Danny hard as she spoke.

In turn he put his homework away, he wasn't getting any more of it done right now, "I told you what happened, your going to need to be more specific."

Tucker bit into his burger, "From now on this topic will spoken in sports terms."

All 3 of them agreed before Sam spoke again, "Danny, what happened at Tennis practice? And when?"

Tucker swallows, "Yeah, start from the beginning again, last time we spoke it was a bit unclear."

"I told you the guy was all mad and yelling at me. No one else was around. He was talking about picking a fight with me but he backed off when I picked up my racket."

"Ok," Sam spoke slowly, "Then what happened when you went home? You said Jazz freaked out and stormed after you like she had a weapon."

Danny nodded, "Yeah, I was practicing my swing in my room when Jazz banged on the door telling me to quit it or I could break something, I had to explain to her what happened and she left me alone."

Tucker was taking notes on his personal PDA before showing it to Danny with a smile, "Dude look at this!"

Danny took it reading over what he had wrote before smiling, it was all part of their act, too many close calls in the past have given them tons of time to practice acting like they were normal but really they were hiding everything. Tucker was showing him something "funny" on his PDA but what Danny saw was all the information he had gotten from their conversation.

-Mugged

-Used a new ghost power

-Jazz knows

-Didn't call for help. Again.

-We had no clue

Danny handed it back, "Nice, I bet it was better in person."

Sam frowned, no doubt seeing this for his way of trying to get out of it. "You'll show us what you were practicing right?"

Sighing out a "Yeah, I can show you now if you want." Danny stood to throw out his trash, his friends following behind, "It's not really that big of a deal though."

Sam pushed the door open to the fenced area behind the school, "That's what you think, but Danny you never think of yourself."

Said teen huffed before following her outside, "Sure I do."

"Name one time." Tucker piped in.

"Uuhhhh….. that time I was helping Paulina even though you guys told me to stay away from her."

Sam looked unconvinced "You mean when you tried dating Paulina because she showed some interest in you and it turns out she was under influence of a ghost?"

"Hey! I helped get the ghost out!"

They had made it to the edge of the fence where they could see everything around them, no one could sneak up to eavesdrop if they could see everything from all sides.

"Uh-huh and we told you it was fishy for your own safety." Sam crossed her arms

"But I was thinking of myself! That has to count!"

"We're talking about your safety Danny! You know living? Not dying anymore? Making sure you don't get hurt?!"

Tucker held up both his hands to calm them, "Wow chill guys. Technically Danny isn't wrong. But Sam is right, bro you don't really consider your own health first when it comes to ghost fighting. You just plow in and sometimes try not to die."

Danny huffed out a cold breath at them, crossing his arms before responding, "Hey, I'm doing a swell job at not dying."

Sam poked his chest gently, "Yeah, yeah, ice breath. Show us this new move now."

Tucker stood next to Sam waiting for what was to come next. Exasperated Danny decided to finally humor them and took a moment to concentrate, think of something that makes him mad, think of things that piss him off or just plain irritate him, things that frustrate him, and making them go away.

Tucker yelped loudly before falling over on his butt, Sam gasped silently next to him moving her hands up a little in defence.

"There happy?" Danny let go of all those pent up feelings as fast as he had built them up, it wouldn't be a good idea to hang onto them.

"Dude! I remember you doing that sometimes when you first got your powers I thought it was just temporary?! Or like a mistake!" Tucker stood quickly from the floor.

Sam looked at Tucker in confusion, "You do?"

Danny's silent 'Same' conveyed his confusion as Tucker barreled through an explication, "You know! Like every time someone made you mad or-OH! Better example you remember when Sam kissed Dash during Ambers first attack?"

Sam cringes hard while making gagging noises and gestures "Ugh! Don't remind me!"

Danny smiles at her expense "Hey, you were the one trying to help me while simultaneously breaking my heart."

Sam waves a hand in his face "You know it wasn't like that! Besides I thought you forgave me for that!"

Tucker throws his hands in the air "That's not the point! You remember his eyes turned all glowing and green and we really-ok I really wanted to stay away from him and he was super pissed off?!"

They both nod at him in slow confusion before Sam's eyes widen "Oh! Yeah I remember you used to do it all the time but at one point you just stopped doing it."

Danny shrugs "I'm still not sure what your talking about."

"You get mad to use this so called "new move" right?" Danny nods "Then you have actually had this for a while, but the last time you were this upset was so long ago that we forgot about it. Have you really never noticed?" Tucker folds his arms.

"Not really, do I just… I don't know, do my eyes change when I do that?"

Sam leans on the fence "Do what? Get mad?"

"Yeah."

Tucker looks to Sam while she looks at Danny "You know, not every time. Just when your emotions get the best of you. I've noticed that you've been keeping a cool head for a while."

Sam nods in agreement "Yeah, really we all have. Things changed a lot the past few years. We aren't picked on anymore," she held up a finger as she counted off "Ghost's haven't been as much of a problem as they used to, our parents aren't as bad as they used to be as far as I can tell, we are passing school, we actually CAN get a full night's sleep now, even if we don't actually do it." She puts her hands down once more "It's almost like we're normal teens again, you know, aside from the odd ghost hunt out."

"True," Danny agrees "it used to be so crazy and things were happening every other day it felt like I could fill 3 seasons of episodes with all of my life. Too bad it wouldn't have that much of an exciting ending."

Tucker bursts into laughter at this "Don't be dramatic man! Even if your life was that exciting it would still be considered fiction! Or maybe a really old cartoon that people don't remember half the time!"

Sam smiles at that "Sure they would remember! It would be a great story to tell! You would just have to worry about whether or not they try to make a reboot of it and completely screw it up and then all the people who watched and loved the old version would get upset at the half rate crap they were showing the new generation."

Danny nods "Happens to the best of them."

The bell rings at this point signalling that classes will start in a few minutes. The group says bye as they all walk their separate ways to class.