Good (insert time of day here) everyone!

Now, I don't have any random notes to make here, so I'll just jump right in to the story-related notes.

One reviewer mentioned that Clockwork isn't on the lid when he's supposed to have been sick. Anyone else notice this? Well, whether or not you have, it wasn't a mistake. And I explain all in this chapter.

Anyway, now that we've gotten that straightened out, I think it's time for our story to continue. And if I missed any reviews, whack me with something, and it might renew my abysmal memory.

Chapter 9: The Cure That Wasn't There
"Hi, Danny! How're you feeling?" were Jazz's first words as she stepped over the threshold to Danny's bedroom. She was followed closely by Sam and Tucker, who were bearing a stack of books that appeared to express the full content of Danny's locker.

"Wha-? Oh, hi Jazz," Danny eyed the stack of books Tucker and Sam had just dropped on his bed with a loud wham "That's not all homework, is it?" he asked apprehensively.

"Well, it depends how you define 'homework'..." Tucker said, followed by a groan from Danny.

"As if I haven't done enough writing today," he grumbled.

"Been working on that translation?" Sam asked. Danny nodded.

"Need any help?" she continued.

"Nope. I've already finished it," Danny answered truthfully.

"Really?" Jazz seemed more than mildly surprised.

"Yeah. Here," Danny showed them the notebook, which was now full, cover to cover. He then coughed; he still wasn't feeling well, and he had been phasing through random objects, or else becoming suddenly invisible, as a constant reminder throughout the day. In this case, the notebook had fallen to the floor.

Jazz retrieved the notebook and flipped through it curiously.

"Anything else happen today?" Sam asked.

"Well, let's see... I'm running a so-called fever of about eighty degrees Farenheit, and there are three more names on that little lid there."

"Names?" Jazz asked, looking up from the notebook. Danny nodded and handed her the sheet of paper containing the translation of the lid. Jazz blinked and looked at it for a few moments, with a look in her eyes she only had when trying to solve a complicated problem.

"So?" Danny asked.

"Well," Jazz began slowly. "You did tell me at some point that you had fought some sort of a griffin ghost right before you collapsed on Monday, right?"

Danny raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, that griffin-thing. Right before the Box Ghost... But what does this have to do with anything?"

Jazz smiled. "I think I know what this lid is all about."

"You do?" Danny asked. He, Tucker, and Sam moved closer.

"Yep. Okay, so first you fought that griffin, who collapsed. So what if he had the Sleeping Sickness? And then you found the Box Ghost, who also collapsed. Then you collapse right after you throw him back in the Ghost Zone. Then, the next day, you fight Technus. And yesterday, Vlad got sick. See the pattern?" Jazz held the paper up so they could see it.

Skulker
Bertrand
Penelope Spectra
Griffin
Box Ghost
Danny Phantom
Technus
Vlad Plasmius
Kitty
Johnny 13
Shadow

They stared at it. Then Danny's eyes widened.

"Jazz, you don't think that this keeps track of who comes down with the Sleeping Sickness, do you?" Sam asked. Jazz nodded.

"And then Kitty, Johnny Thirteen, and his shadow ghost got sick, too?" Tucker asked. Jazz nodded again.

"Jazz, you're a genius!" Danny exclaimed, hugging her. Jazz blushed.

"Well, I- 'Genius' is a bit- I mean, Danny, anyone could have-" but she seemed unable to be entirely modest at the truthful suggestion.

"Okay, so now what do we do?" Sam asked.

"We find a cure, duh, Sam," Tucker answered her.

"How?" Danny asked. "We aren't doctors or chemists or anything, we'll need like a lab or something, fancy computers, and things like that, not to mention ghost-compatible equimptment... Where are we going to get stuff like that?"

"Let me see," Tucker pondered sarcastically, "Your parents are the world's leading ghost experts, they have their own laboratory filled with every sort of ghost-related equiptment known to mankind, and your sister is a super genius... Um, no idea."

Danny winced. "Uh, right. So how're we going to get my parents out of the lab?"

"How else?" Sam asked. "We lure them away."

"With what? It's not like we can just get a bunch of ghosts to-" Danny slapped himself in the forehead with his hand. "Right. Okay, so I'll lure them away."

"Danny, you're in no condition to be luring them away from anywhere. Besides, for some reason the Sleeping Sickness seems to affect you more drastically in ghost form," Jazz argued.

"So now what? We're just supposed to go ask some random ghost, who probably hates me anyway, to lure them away?"

"We could ask Vlad-" Jazz began.

"I'm not asking him to do anything," a green-eyed Danny said flatly with folded arms.

"Well, he might end up passing out while he's luring them away..."

"On second thought, let's go ask him," Danny said suddenly, grabbing Jazz's hand and pulling her after him.

"Daniel, what on earth makes you think I'll do this for you? I'm not feeling well myself, you know..." Vlad blew his nose in an embroidered handkerchief.

"Mr. Masters, it's the only way we'll be able to find a cure," Jazz protested.

Danny suddenly had an idea.

"You know, Vlad," he said craftily, "if we don't find a cure, Jazz said last night that the Sleeping Sickness will mutate and become deadly to humans."

"So?" Vlad asked, turning away from him

"...Including my mom," Danny finished. Vlad whirled around.

"Okay, I'll do it," he relented.

"Great," Danny said, "Now here's the plan..."

"Mr. Fenton! Come quick! A ghost's attacking Danny!" Tucker burst out breathlessly as he and Sam rushed down into the lab.

"What?" Jack boomed, looking up from his latest invention.

"Did you say a ghost?" Maddie asked.

"Er, yeah," Sam said. "Um, up here!" The Fenton parents followed her upstairs and outside.

Jazz slipped into the lab with Tucker, Danny's notebook grasped in her hands.

"Ow! Hey, I thought this was fake!" Danny said, rubbing his arm where the red ectoblast had collided with it. This was the same shoulder the griffin had slashed and the Box Ghost had jarred; neither injury had completly healed and, to be honest, those ectoblasts could really hurt.

"Well, I wouldn't have hit you if you weren't running around so much," Vlad Plasmius retorted angrily with crossed arms.

"Of course I'm supposed to be running around! If I were being attacked by a ghost, do you think I'd just stand around here doing nothing?"

"Yes, and I'm certain that arguing with the ghost is a plausible alternative," Vlad sarcastically answered. A green ectoblast hit him moments later.

"Um, right over here, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton!" Sam could be heard saying loudly.

"That's the signal!" Vlad hissed.

"I know it's the signal! What am I, four?" Danny asked angrily, then remembered what they were supposed to be doing. He sighed deeply, then opened him mouth and screamed, running in the opposite direction. Danny was annoyed by this; he'd much rather be hitting Vlad with a much-deserved Ghostly Wail.

"Aaah! Ghost!" he cried. Vlad shot a red blast, and purposefully missed.

"Stop right there, ghost!" Jack threatened.

"Oh no. If it isn't Jack Fenton, the world renowned ghost hunter. Whatever shall I do?" Vlad asked, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

"I'm warning you, ghost! Get away from our son!" Maddie cried.

"Aaaah, help!" Danny was keeping up a good act. "Save me from the ghost!" Who still needs a cat, he added to himself.

Vlad shot another ectoblast at him and missed.

"Aah-oops!" Danny said. He hadn't meant to trip. Plasmius flew down with a glowing hand.

"Okay, so go, lead them off on a wild goose chase," Danny muttered under his breath. "And if you kill my dad, then trust me, you will be sorry."

Vlad smiled menacingly and flew away from Danny, dodging blasts from the now-trigger happy Jack.

Danny sighed and got up, brushing himself off, then went and joined Sam.

"Think he'll keep his promise?" she asked.

"If he doesn't..." Danny threatened, glaring back after his archenemy. He didn't finish his sentence, and Sam couldn't say she had wanted to hear the end of it.

"Nothing," Jazz said, dropping the notebook down upon the desk in the lab. "Absolutely nothing about a cure. Are you sure you copied all of it, Danny?"

"I'm sure," he answered.

"Great, so now what're we supposed to do?" Tucker asked.

"I dunno." Danny picked the book up from the desk. "I might as well read it. Maybe you missed something," he said.

Jazz shook her head. "I didn't miss anything, Danny. And didn't you already read it yourself?"

"Well, I wasn't really paying attention when I translated it."

Jazz sighed. "Well, we have to find a cure. If we don't..."

"If we don't then what?" Tucker asked. Jazz sighed and began explaining what she had told Danny and Vlad the previous night to Tucker and Sam while Danny read.

"...What I just don't understand, though, is how they found a cure the first time," Jazz said angrily.

"They didn't find a cure."

All three of them looked up at Danny suddenly, who closed the notebook and lay it down on the desk.

"What?" all three asked.

"Listen. Ever wonder what happened to that ancient Council that was supposed to get rid of this whole Sleeping Sickness? Where are they now? Ghosts just don't up and die, you know. And what I've been wondering about is where Clockwork is through all of this."

"What do you mean? Clockwork came down with the Sleeping Sickness, just like those Observants told us," Jazz said. Danny shook his head in disagreement.

"No. If he had fallen sick, he would be on that lid. He isn't. He also wrote that book. And when you think about it, he would have to have been around then to be able to write it. So Clockwork should have been able to get the cure, and everything would be all fine and normal again."

"What are you getting at, here, Danny?" Sam asked.

"They didn't find a cure. Instead, they just locked the Sleeping Sickness away, and wrote this book to make sure it never happens again. And they're gone now, because to get rid of the Sleeping Sickness, they would have had to come in direct contact with it. And they became sick themselves, so now they're all asleep. Which is why no one can really understand this code; everyone who ever knew it is deep in the Sleeping Death."

"That almost makes sense," a very stunned Tucker stated.

"Yeah, just a few problems. What happened to the other ghosts that had the Sleeping Sickness? The Council? And the sorcerer who was supposed to have created this in the first place?" Jazz asked.

"It's a big Ghost Zone, Jazz. Besides, I don't think they'd just be out there for everyone to see. They'd be in quarantine. And I think this sorcerer is responsible for the second time, too."

"What I want to know is where Clockwork is through all of this," Sam said.

"To be honest, I have no idea," Danny said. "But why would he think that I'd be able to come up with a cure?"

"I dunno, maybe it's because he thinks that you've got something that none of the other ghosts have?" Tucker suggested.

"I don't have anything other ghosts don't have. Well, except for the whole 'half ghost' thing, but that doesn't seem to make much of a difference."

"There must be something..." Jazz said.

"Nothing. I'll probably fall asleep any day now, just like Technus. He was perfectly fine one minute, then the next, he was coughing and falling out of the sky."

"Wait a second, Danny. Did you say that Technus was perfectly fine, then just fell out of the sky?" Jazz inquired suddenly, with the same pondering expression in her eyes.

"Yeah. Well, he said something about remaining 'untouched by the dreaded Sickness', then just started coughing and a few minutes later... Well, it was a nice change from his long-winded speeches..." Danny shrugged.

"So, what you're saying is that he was affected by the Sleeping Sickness almost immediately?" Jazz asked.

"Pretty much," Danny answered. "And this matters how...?"

"And you've been infected for three days?"

"More or less."

"And the Sleeping Sickness affects you more drastically in your ghost mode..."

"What are you getting at, here, Jazz?"

Danny's elder sister sighed. "Well, for some reason, you aren't affected by the Sleeping Sickness as quickly as other ghosts. And I think it's because you're human."

"Jazz, what would that have to do with anything?" Sam asked.

"Because, unless I'm completely wrong, I think that ghosts don't have an immune system."

"What?" the three fourteen-year-olds asked. Jazz nodded slowly.

"It would make sense. The Sleeping Sickness spreads rapidly because ghosts, unlike humans, have no natural defense against diseases. Which is why they couldn't find a cure. Whatever else they may have, ghosts are defenseless agains any sort of virus or bacteria. No blood, no white blood cells. But by the same token, there shouldn't be any sort of ghost disease at all. Ghosts don't have cells, they're really just-what was it mom said?-an 'odd manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness'."

Danny blinked. "So...what? The Sleeping Sickness shouldn't exist?"

"Exactly."

"But it does..."

"Unfortunately, yes."

"So, how do we get rid of it?" Sam asked.

"We take a leaf out of the Council's book and lock it up again," Danny said determinedly.

"Great. So what did they use to lock the Sleeping Sickness up in in the the first place?" Tucker asked.

Danny sighed and picked up a certain gray lid from the surface of the desk.

"Ever wonder what this is a lid to?"

Well, the cliffhanger-less chapters were there while they lasted.

Okay, that was incredibly awkward with the whole Vlad thing… I know, but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to work him back in… Actually, I've just managed to think of a remotely good explanation, so just be on the look out for that next chapter. Rest assured, I will still abide by the Sleeping Sickness rules I've set for myself.

Anyway, this is my big accomplishment of the day. Gee, what an exciting life I have.

So, next update… Don't count on one this weekend, so I'll set a goal for Tuesday and have it here by Wednesday, because I'll probably have a horrible case of writers' block or something. I really need to work on this goal-setting thing-been in Girl Scouts for ten years and that's what they try to teach us; laughable, really, that it's the one thing I haven't learned.

As the stories stand (next update-wise):

TSS: Chapter 11 by Wednesday
HF: Chapter 4 by Sunday
TPATP: Chapter 2 by Monday

Um,
-E.P.