--Rewritten

'Where now?' Danny asked himself as he trudged slowly down the street. He didn't know if he wanted to trust anyone else tonight. He felt nothing now, but Jazz had talked about being "numb" often enough that he remembered something about it. Soon he would hurt...a lot. Probably within days, even, that is if he was still free and not in the hands of the Guys in White.

He planned on being far from here by then. A determination settled in his eye, and he whipped out his notebook. It took him a few seconds to locate a pen, but he eventually fished one out of his backpack, and scribbled a quick note on a scrap piece of paper. Then he shoved the pen into his pants pocket and ran towards his friend's house. He slipped the note under the door, hesitating for just a moment, wondering if he really should knock, but decided against it. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation.

After checking around to see if the coast was clear, he ducked behind some bushes along the fence on the side of the property. Seconds later he flew out as a ghost, headed towards the train station. The two silhouettes that had watched him from behind the house gave each other a high five, before they vanished.

oOo

Danny sat on the bench at the bus station trying unsuccessfully to even partially comprehend everything that had just happened, and everything he was about to do. He had unknowingly thrown his life into a tornado all because he didn't want to keep a secret. He should have listened more to his friends and waited for a better time to tell his parents. Maybe telling his parents at all was a stupid idea. 'Well, duh,' he thought sarcastically. Why had he thought that it would be a good idea?

He knew the answer to that question, though. He remembered sucking Freakshow (as a ghost) into the Fenton Thermos with a triumphant smile, and then his parents had come walking up to him. He'd been expecting some pretty drastic results. What happened next had surprised him more than just about anything else.

"I'm so proud of you!" his mother had said after throwing her arms around him, and then the crushing hug from his father immediately afterwards.

"Of course you didn't tell us," they'd said. They'd understood then. Why hadn't they now? What had gone so wrong? Why had they done this to him. They had lied and betrayed his trust...and still, he felt no rage. Vaguely, he recalled a slight surprise at that, but that didn't change his situation much. He sighed and dropped his head into his hands. Well, the only bright side about all of this that he could see was that now he could go somewhere like New York and try his hand at being a real super-hero.

"Daniel?" He jumped up at the sound of his name, and snapped his head up, expecting to see guns and ectoplasmic weapons pointed in his direction. Instead, he saw the last person he'd expected (and the last person he'd wanted to see) standing behind the bench. The only other half-ghost in existence stood with his hands on the back of the bench Danny sat on.

"Vlad!" he stood up very quickly, and began to back away from the wealthy, well-dressed, white-haired man.

Vlad observed but made no move towards him. Instead, he opened his mouth slowly. "Daniel, I heard what happened," he went on as if they were old friends instead of arch enemies.

"How did you know?" Danny asked warily.

"I keep a close eye on your house," he said, moving around the bench. Danny rolled his eyes. So Vlad did spy on him. Why wasn't he surprised? "When I heard, I flew here immediately," the older hybrid continued.

"Right," Danny said, inching towards the exit. "And you came here out of the goodness of your heart."

"Well, frankly, I came here to verify, and I was lucky to see you here, or I would have looked all over town, and you would have been gone by then."

"Yeah, whatever," Danny retorted.

"So where will you go?" Vlad asked, taking a seat and crossing his legs.

"New York," Danny replied before he could stop himself. He almost kicked himself for giving away information like that.

"Why?" Vlad asked, shaking his head slowly. "You won't be able to do anything there. Who will take a 14-year-old for a job? And what else will you do there? Rescue people? Save them? The only people they need saving from are themselves." He leaned forward. "But...I do have a job for you in Wisconson that-"

"No," Danny interrupted immediately.

"Why not, Daniel?" Vlad asked, his voice tinged with frustration. "I've never actually asked you that, and I'd like to know. Why won't you come and stay with me?"

'Maybe because in an alternate dimension when I did I ended up destroying the world,' Danny thought to himself dryly. Instead he shook his head. "Because I don't want to end up evil (or trained by anyone who is), I don't want to join anyone who hates my..." he paused and had to swallow the lump in his throat, "father so he can marry my mother, and I don't want power. I mean, hey...I join you, and we take over the world?" He asked sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Not going to happen."

"Take over the world?" Vlad raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Who gave you that idea?"

Danny blinked. "You did. The first time you met me you said together we could rule."

"The ghost world, Danny, I meant the ghost zone. Help those poor souls gain order, not like what they have now...that isn't order." He shook his head. Danny stood at the edge of the platform with his arms crossed, and glared at Vlad.

"If you think this is about your mother, well...when I heard what she'd done..." he shook his had sadly, "let's just say that I'm glad that my money couldn't buy her if she's like that. It looks like I seriously misjudged her. And now I know I'll never be accepted by her." Danny couldn't help but wince at that. Of course, if she couldn't accept her own half-ghost son, why would she accept an old, half-ghost friend? If Vlad noticed Danny's discomfort, he didn't acknowledge it. For several minutes, neither of them said anything. Finally, Vlad looked down at his watch and stood up.

"I'll leave this card," he took out a pen, and wrote something on a piece of paper. "If you ever change your mind, call me at this number. It's my personal cell phone. Until then," he set the card down on the bench as two dark rings appeared around his waist, and black-haired Vlad Plasmius jumped into the air, floating towards the ceiling. "I'm glad the platform was clear. Now," he looked down at his watch for the second time, "I can get back to my meeting on time."

He looked at Danny. "If you leave, I have no serious reason to stay, now. I'll resign as Mayor and go back to Wisconsin. You may not feel like you'll be welcome anywhere, but you'll always be welcome in my home," and with that he phased through the ceiling. Danny watched him leave, still wary of an attack of some sort, before he walked over to the bench to pick up his back-pack. He looked apprehensively at the card with the phone-number on it.

In a flurry of motion, he swept the card from it's place on the bench, and walked over to the garbage can.

"I'll never join you," he growled. "Never..." but his fingers couldn't seem to release the paper. Finally, he sighed, and slipped the card into his pocket anyway. Maybe it would come in useful later. He could give the number to the National Inquirer. That would be a laugh at the very least, and Vlad couldn't retaliate like he had before, not if he didn't know where Danny was.

He paced across the platform until the bus came. He handed the ticket to the driver, who checked it over and nodded, thumbing for him to pick a seat. Danny looked back out the door as it closed and saw Amity park for what he hoped was the last time.

End Flashback