Angel frowned as she tried to get a dent out of her bike; it wasn't going well. "Poor baby," she whispered, patting its fuel tank.

"1992, right?" Kat asked.

Smiling, the biker nodded. "Frank found her at the crusher, all beat up. Fixed her, practically rebuilt her. I fell in love with him that day." She laughed. "Well, so to speak. He was fifty-three at the time."

"Ah, father figure."

"Something like that, yeah." They fell silent for a little while as she worked. Finally, she leaned back and turned to face the girl sitting on the broken generator. "Thanks for powering this stuff, by the way."

Kat shrugged. "It's the least I can do to apologize for my dad's behavior."

"I'm surprised you're willing to trust me," Angel remarked.

Again, the ghost girl simply shrugged. "Phantom trusts you. That's all I need." Then she leaned forward, her eyes sparking dangerously. "And if you ever give me cause to regret trusting his judgment, you'll have all the proof you need that ghosts are real." Her only response was a derisive scoff, so she watched with great interest as the motorcycle was repaired; she'd never met anyone quite that obsessive over small details. "Seriously, though," she said after a while. "After that little fiasco, how can you not believe in ghosts?"

Angel stopped again and bowed her head. "Because it would mean that Frank is one, and I don't think I can handle that. So how's the kid doing?"

Kat made a face but complied with the change of subject. "He'll be fine. I left him with his sister before Jack and Maddie even got home. He's still new to telekinesis."

"Could have fooled me."

"He's a quick learner when he's interested. When he's not…" she broke off with an indulgent chuckle that the biker didn't share.

She couldn't shake the image of Danny's eyes, and she couldn't shake her concern. Even more than that, however, she couldn't forget the faint sounds of screaming that flitted through her mind whenever he got too close. "What happened to him?" she asked quietly without really meaning to.

"What do you mean?"

Angel stood to face her companion angrily. "Haven't you seen his eyes? He reminds me of me after Frank died. Something happened to him."

"Ah, that," Kat sighed. "He won't tell me. All I know is that when he came back from Carnate Island, he couldn't stop looking over his shoulder for about a week and was terrified of the color white. Then he got dragged to a ghost hunters' convention in Baltimore. Whatever happened there, it was bad enough that it activated three latent powers. But he won't talk to me about it."

She waited, but no additional conversation was forthcoming. They spent the rest of their time together in silence.

Danny opened bleary eyes and stared at the clock without really looking at it. After a few minutes numb incomprehension, he realized that he must have fallen asleep. A few minutes after that, he realized that he was at home in bed. Still more minutes passed before he realized that it was 2:47 PM, not AM, and lunged out of bed.

"Morning, sunshine!"

"Kat!" he exclaimed, tramping down the desire to transform in his alarm. "Please tell me it's really still Sunday."

"Jazz convinced your mom that you're sick," she explained. "Considering you refused to wake up under any circumstances, it wasn't difficult to do."

The boy stared at his friend leaning against the door with a superior little smirk, then sank back down onto his bed in relief. "So how's your dad?" he asked.

"Probably feeling really stupid right about now. I haven't gone to see him yet." She laughed and strode forward. "I thought I'd let him cool down for a bit first. Listen, I'm about to go make Jack and Maddie insane for the next hour. Angel wants to see you out where you left her the last time." She shrugged. "I assume you know what that means. Cheerio!"

Danny waited until he heard the familiar cry of "Ghost!" before he transformed and took off. The trip to the back roads on the outskirts of town wasn't a long one. Although he hadn't actually left Angel there, he couldn't think of any other place she might be talking about. He scanned the roads until a plasma blast shot past his ear and drew his attention farther ahead. He wasn't really surprised, but he was disappointed. "I should have known!" he called.

Angel slung the plasma rifle back over shoulder. "Now, that hurts, kid!" She kicked against the ground and shot off, leaving the ghost boy with the words, "Chase me," ringing in his head.

Ebony Angel was scared that people would see her face. Plenty of people had, but the fear was renewed each time she put her helmet back on. She had shown him her face to face that fear to keep him from having any kind of power over her. He could only assume this was the same sort of thing; she had thought at him as loudly as possible to ensure that he heard her think.

Even the smallest thing was a struggle for power in her world, the Los Angeles underground. Any kind of weakness was exploited mercilessly, and her weakness was fear that people would find out about her.

Danny huffed slightly in mingled parts confusion and irritation. Find out what about you? he asked. It seemed safe enough since she had been thinking at him since he found her.

And suddenly, without even getting a response from her, he knew: she was afraid people would find out that she was human.

Sweetheart slowed at last to stop next to a small wooded area several miles outside town. The road was just out of sight, which meant that whatever happened here would be between the two of them. He drifted closer while Angel shut off the engine and pulled off helmet. "I heard that," she told him, balefully.

"Uh, sorry," he replied. "But is it true?"

"Do you know the rumors about me? I'm…an angel, a demon, a superhuman, a ghost, a magical whatever. I don't even know half of what they call me anymore. But that's not it." She shook her head and laughed scornfully. "I don't even know how I got like this. Frank died, and I just…I don't know…I…"

She trailed off, but her mind was still racing loudly. The words made little sense, but the sentiment was clear. "It's not other people finding out about you," Danny said. "It's him. Isn't it?"

Angel looked away. "Okay, get out of my head now."

"I'm not in your head. You're broadcasting at me; I can't help but overhear." Alerted to that, she got her thoughts back under control.

"I'm tired of it," she admitted. "I'm tired of chasing Roho. I'm tired of revenge. It's taken my life away. I don't even recognize myself anymore."

"Then stop," Danny told her. It seemed the easiest thing in the world to him.

She lifted an eyebrow. "You've been Mr. Hero for what, now? Since August, your friend said. Can you just stop?" He shook his head. "I've been Ebony Angel for ten years and hunting Roho for eight. You think I can just stop?"

He was fourteen years old. He was a fourteen-year-old kid. A kid. So why did she look at him as though she expected him to know the secrets of the universe? He was fourteen; he didn't even know how to sort out his ghost hunting life from his personal life.

Yet there she stood, practically begging him to tell her what to do. What could drive a person to such desperate straights that they looked up to a kid for help? He was tempted to find out, but he would respect her privacy. Still, he felt he should say something.

Now, if only he could figure out what.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Angel sighed and replaced her helmet. "I'm going to be in town for a few more days if that's alright. Roho's goonies are on a rampage back home, and I need to lay low for a while." At Danny's wordless nod, she started the engine and drove off.

The boy hovered where he was for a while longer, thinking. They really were a lot alike. They had both tried to be a hero, although she had stopped trying a long time ago. Neither had been properly appreciated for their hard work. They had even taken similar paths in life, though in Danny's case, the events that had led to that particular outcome would never happen, fortunately.

Angel had twisted her own reality until she didn't even know what she was afraid of or why. The only person who could possibly straighten it out had died eight years ago. He had looked for Frank after meeting Angel the first time, but…

He flew home before his parents could get there and miss him, then left his body asleep in bed and went to wait for Kat.

It was dark and cold, but she felt she deserved it. She sat cross-legged on the concrete floor next to the only thing that mattered in her life anymore and tried not to think. Thinking was painful.

She had never realized exactly how burned out she had become until she met Danny Phantom. He was so young, so full of life…or something…if you believed that cockamamie story about being half ghost. He reminded her so much of herself ten years ago, when Frank found an old Harley-Davidson Sportster and decided he could fix it.

He always saw the good in things and people. There wasn't a bad bone in his body.

She heard the voice, but dismissed it as her imagination because Frank was dead, and there was no such thing as ghosts. She steadfastly ignored the second call of her name until she realized which name he had used. Then she turned.

Oil-stained lab coat, mussed brown hair, those muddy brown eyes behind the glasses he had always hated…"Frank?" she whispered, not wanting to believe it.

He smiled warmly and nodded. "How are you, November?"

She simply stared, then rushed forward to embrace him, trying not to cry. He wasn't as cold as she thought a ghost would be. In fact, it was a little like trying to hug one of those electrostorm things, but she didn't care. It was just like old times when she'd come home all beat up from her latest scrape and start wondering why she kept trying.

He petted her head while she stammered out all her worries and fears, everything she'd been unable to form a coherent thought about. Once she finally fell silent, he held her out at arm's length and nodded encouragingly. "It's okay," he told her.

"No, it's not," she protested. "I'm a bad person. I'm a disgrace."

"You're not a disgrace. You were just a little lost, but you're going to be fine. Isn't that right?"

November blinked and sniffed hopefully. "Are you going to stay with me?"

He shook his head. "You've got to let me go, November. You have to let me move on now. And I can do that because I know you, and I know you'll do the right thing."

The right thing? Yes, she remembered that. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Goodbye, Frankie."

As he faded from sight, he mouthed the words, "Thank you."

He reformed outside and glared into an apparently empty patch of air. "You know we're both going to burn for that."

He's not in the Ghost Zone; what was I supposed to do? Frank's the only one who could have gotten through to her.

Frank flickered and faded to reform as Kat, the self-titled "World's Greatest Actress." "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she sighed. She flicked her wrist in a mocking dismissal. "Get thee from my sight, Phantom. I grow weary of your endless talking in my head."

Hey! I told you; I can't help it.

"Well, learn to. I did."

Danny stared at the place where she had been, then smacked his forehead as he finally put two and two together. Kat was an astral projection. Looking back on the similarities between her life story and his current dilemma, it should have been obvious.