"Oh my gosh!" Jazz squealed as she ran into the room. Danny looked up from the homework he had laid out on the kitchen table as she came running in with a piece of paper and an opened envelope. "I've been accepted! I've been accepted to St. Francis Xavier's Medical University!"

"But, you're only a junior," Danny pointed out, confused.

"I sent in an application a month ago becauseI wanted an early start, and they've accepted me! There's a lot of work I have to do, and I have to start now, but I've been accepted! EEE!" She screeched and hugged Danny before running downstairs to tell their parents.

"Well, it looks like I won't be seeing her for the next month," Danny commented with a raised eyebrow.

"What's all the commotion?" a voice asked as his ghost sense went off.

Danny looked up as the figure landed beside the table. "Hey Alesha," he smiled at her. "Jazz just got accepted into a university."

"But isn't she a Junior?" Alesha looked to where his sister had disappeared. Danny nodded.

"Yeah, but that's so like Jazz."

"Oh," she sat down across from him in silence for a few seconds before she spoke up. "I wanted to know what happened today," she said suddenly. Danny stopped writing, but didn't look up.

The half ghost stared at his paper as he spoke slowly and deliberately, "I...just...well, what you said was right...there is nothing that Dash can do to you. But some of those things you went through...were because of me." He glanced up before he looked down again. "I guess, I just felt bad." Alesha stared at him for a few seconds before she leaned across the table.

"Danny, that's all in the past," she said. "I've put it behind me, so can you." He looked up at her smiling face and nodded.

"Thanks," he smiled back. "When I'm finished with this homework we can go on patrol, if you want to come, that is."

"What else would I do?" she asked with a smile.

"Danny, I–Oh," They both looked over to see Jazz standing in the doorway. "Alesha," she smiled and walked over. "How long have you been here?" Alesha leaned back and smiled. "Oh, about a day."

"Really?" Jazz smiled. "Well, you're welcome as far as I'm concerned."

"I told her that," Danny grinned at his sister. The older girlsuddenly relaxed her otherwise tense frame. That was the first time she'd seen him truly smile in all the time she'd been around him since he'd returned.

"So what're you working on?"She took a seatnear him, opposite of Alesha.

"I need to look up silly definitions for all these words," Danny pointed to a long list. "I'm only on the 'b's too." He sighed.

"What's your next word?" Jazz asked.

"Brainwash." Danny replied.

"That's easy," Jazz smiled. "It's when someone gets told something over and over again, and they aren't allowed to get any other information on it."

"Thanks," Danny grinned as he wrote down the definition. "What about the rest of these." Jazz ruffled his hair. "HEY!" he yelled.

She winked, "If I told you all the definitions, you wouldn't be doing the work on your own. See you guys later."

"Oh, Jazz," Danny said quietly before she was out of hearing. She stoppedand faced him as he spoke. "I think I'm ready," he glanced at Alesha, who was staring at the tablecloth, obviously bored or distracted.

"Ready for what?" Jazz asked.

"To tell mom and dad," he whispered. No one answered for a long time. They all knew what he referred to.

"You may want to wait a little longer," Jazz said, just as quietly after the long pause. "Neither of them are in very good moods today." Danny nodded before lookingup with asmile.

"Thanks, Jazz," he said. "I want to tell them at the perfect time." Jazz smiled.

"You will, Danny. You will."

xoxoxox

Jack Fenton wasn't really paying attention to his work...he really wasn't paying attention to anything except the one thing he didn't want to focus on. He tried not to concentrate on the images now racing through his mind. He'd fallen asleep the afternoon before, and he remembered the dream almost as vividly as he was seeing the ectoplasmic energy rushing through the conduits before him.

He walked through a darkened cave...or at least he assumed it was a cave, because his steps echoed, but he couldn't see anything around him.He could, however,see his limbs as clearly as if he stood in broad daylight. How that was possible, he didn't know, but here he was floating...or walking...or something, with no idea where

"You did it!" a voice echoed harshly around him, seeming to come from everywhere at once. He went for the emergency weapons that he always carried, but found the holsters empty.

"Did what!" he asked, trying to sound non-chalant.

"You drove your own son away," the voice mocked. "You drove him from you."

"But I don't remember–"

"Not then, stupid," the voice interrupted impatiently. "All the time before. You never cared, you never showed anything but your insane obsession...you're a horrible father."

"Well, we got him back," Jacks own voice rose in anger. "I can show him now!"

"And what about all those lost years? Is he really better off living with you?" The voice cackled cruelly.

"I'll start over!" Jack vouched, shaking his fist.

"But Jack, the damage has already been done..." The voice now had a focal point. A floating figure in the distance.

"Ghost," he whispered, and turned to run.It took him a few moments to realize that no matter how hard he moved his legs, he wasn't moving. As the figure approached, he realized that it wasn't just one figure...four seporate beings came forward, and he gasped as he realized what he was seeing. Maddie suddenly came in to focus, just standing there, butsomething drastic had beendone to his wife. Her normally fair skin had turned blue,as hadher hair...and her eyes glowed a bright red. He could only watch in horror as an evil smilecrossed her lips. "No," he whispered as she raised her finger and started to laugh at him. Jazz, looking fairly normal, if mean and cruel, followed suit, as if they were sharing some sort of inside joke. Danny stood away from both of them, regarding them all with an angry, almost hateful stare. The white haired ghost boy that had been rampaging the town for so many weeksfloated behind him. His glowing red eyes regarding Jack with a mean glint. He smiled and put a hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny shook his head at his father, and turned to go with the ghost.

"DANNY NO!" Jack yelled and struggled to reach him, but he couldn't seem to move. "NO!" he reached out, but Danny had vanished. Jazz and "Maddie" seemed to only find this funnier, and began to laugh harder and harder. "NO!" Jack yelled again...but the figures had begun to fade, leaving him alone...

He'd woken up in a cold sweat after that, and he'd been afraid to go to sleep that night. Now, whenever he saw them, their cruel laughter seemed to echo around him, mocking him. And he couldn't help but see Danny's hateful face as he turned away. And then there was the one thought that truly scared him, and it seemed to run across his mind no matter what was going on around him. It seemed to whisper over and over to him: "The voice was right."