Author's Note: Several people have wondered whether this will end up being Danny/Buffy. Normally, this is the sort of thing I think is best left to be discovered, but… Well… For future reference, it will not end up being a pairing precisely. I nearly killed Sam for liking Gregor after all. Imagine what I'd do to myself if I made Danny like Buffy? Now, without further ado, onto the story!

"Ah, the sweet smell of school in the morning. We're having…" Tucker Foley sniffed, dismay instantly sweeping across his face. "Awww man! I don't smell anything! Don't tell me you gave us another grass lunch!"

Sam Manson rolled her eyes. "Not that I'd let it stop me normally, but Danny's been having enough trouble lately without the Lunch Lady showing up."

"Right. Why have so many ghosts been attacking anyway?"

A loud cough from behind them stopped the pair in their tracks. Sam looked back and cringed. "Yes, Mr. Lancer?"

The balding teacher studied the duo for a moment before shaking his head. Their conversations were always about ghosts. If only they would put as much effort into school as they did ghosts… But that was a lecture for another time. For now he had more important business to attend to. "Have you two seen Mr. Fenton? He has an appointment with our new guidance counselor. I'd hate for him to miss it. The extra credit could raise his grade to something resembling acceptable."

Sam laughed nervously. "Oh! Right! Danny… He's umm…"

"Right here, Mr. Lancer."

Danny stepped out from the boy's bathroom, where Lancer was certain he'd checked at least ten times. He sighed. How that boy managed to hide so well he'd never know. For now, all that was important was getting him to that guidance counselor. Lately even his oblivious parents were beginning to call, wondering why their son was so consistently exhausted.

Like now. The black-haired teen had shadows under his eyes and what looked like beginnings of a nasty bruise on his arm. Surely Daniel couldn't be depressed and taking out his feelings on himself? Lancer frowned. Maybe the boy needed this counselor more than he thought.

He shook his head to clear it. "There you are! Hurry up now, or you'll be late. I expect you to let Miss Summers help you."

Danny blinked. "Summers?"

"That's right – now…" Lancer rifled through a book of slang quickly. "As you young people say, let's boogie on down there."

Danny waved helplessly to Sam and Tucker as Lancer dragged him off. At least Buffy wasn't involved with evil energy-sucking ghosts. Or at least, he didn't think so. As the door closed, leaving him alone with Buffy, he wasn't so sure. She looked almost as tired as him.

Buffy raised an eyebrow at the teen standing in front of her. "Get beat up much?" she asked, indicating the bruise.

Danny nodded. "Were you up late last night? You look tired."

"Nope, slept like a log. Not that logs sleep, but you get the picture."

"Right. Me too."

Silence. Buffy glanced at the clock. "So… I'm your guidance counselor. Ummm… well… what do you need guiding on?"

"English would be good."

She made a face. "Anything more… life involving? How am I supposed to know what a bunch of dead guys were talking about when they wrote about flies buzzing around in their brains?"

He laughed. "Yeah, right. It's actually not bad when you get the hang of it though."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Sure, and I graduated college with a 4.0 average. Actually, I didn't graduate at all. I think that's a bit outside the point though, don't you?"

"Why didn't you graduate?" Danny asked.

For a moment, Buffy just thought about it. Finally she shrugged. "I guess I had more important things to do." She pulled out a sheet of paper from a folder labeled "Fenton, Daniel" and sighed. "Which it seems you think you do too. These show a dramatic drop in grades a few months into your freshman school year. What happened? Someone zap you with a brain destroyer?"

Danny shrugged. "I've been busy."

"Doing what?"

"Nothing much. Just hanging out."

The minute hand moved another sixtieth of a circle. Buffy looked at Danny. Danny looked at Buffy. Buffy pulled out a sheet of paper and smiled brightly. "So! Who's up for some tic-tac-toe?" There was more than one way to dust a vampire, as she always said.

The session was almost over, with Danny beating Buffy 21-15, when Jazz burst in. "Danny! There's a-" She glanced at Buffy. "…really big rat problem in this school! I don't think you should be here until it gets taken care of. Why don't you just go hide in the bathroom until someone comes to get rid of those things?"

Danny blinked, and Jazz coughed meaningfully. He jumped to his feet. "Right! You know how much I hate rats! I think I'll go hide." He dashed out the door.

Buffy was left behind. She raised an eyebrow. "Your brother's afraid of rats?"

Jazz laughed nervously. "It's a long story."

Buffy was about to reply when a red-haired ghost burst through the wall and perched atop Buffy's desk. "Oh look – we have a new me. You think you can do a better job of guiding these young souls than I can? Only I can make them express their deepest darkest fears! You're nothing compared to me, Penelope Spectra." She smirked. "But then, you've always been second best. Faith was always so much better at the job, and Willow had magicks you never even would have dreamed of…"

Buffy felt a familiar wave of depression try to wipe her out and rolled her eyes. "Oh puh-leaze. Do you really think that whole 'make me feel incompetent' thing is original? I can't tell you how many demons tell me every day that there's no way I'll survive to see another sunrise. Yet here I am, still living."

"Yes… living. It's hard, isn't it? Working through each day… And after experiencing heaven too…" Spectra leaned closer. "Why is it always you? They just couldn't let you go… You were so happy, but they thought you must be in torment. Didn't trust that you could possibly make it somewhere better, so they had to drag you down into this hell they call home…"

Despite her best efforts, Buffy's vision wavered and she wondered dimly whether or not she'd brought the Specter Deflector to work. She tried to reach into her bag, but the ghost just wouldn't stop talking. It was getting really annoying actually… Her vision cleared some.

"Speaking of hell, how is it? You sent Angel there, didn't you? Don't you two ever sit down and have talks about that? Or does he still not trust you enough to get close again –"

Buffy was just snapping on the Specter Deflector when a green ectoplasmic blast blew Spectra into the wall. Buffy whipped around to see Danny Phantom floating there. He didn't look happy.

"Leave her alone, Spectra!"

The female ghost glared at him. "Bertrand? Come take care of this pest."

Phantom smirked and held up his thermos. "You mean this guy? I captured him before coming here."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "There are two of them?"

"Not anymore, there aren't."

Spectra glanced from Phantom to Buffy's Specter Deflector to the ray gun Jazz seemed to have suddenly acquired. "Fine! This isn't the last you'll see of me though! And next time I'll have back-up even you'll have trouble handling, Danny Phantom!" With that, she phased out of the office through the ceiling. Phantom seemed to momentarily debate over whether he should follow her or not, but finally settled for giving Buffy a quick wave and phasing through the wall.

Buffy looked at Jazz. "You're helpless against vampires, but you carry a gun to school."

The younger girl shrugged. "It's a habit. You never know when a ghost might attack."

"Yeah, well, you should probably get into the habit of carrying crosses and holy water too. A wooden stake or two wouldn't be a bad idea either," Buffy said, casually pulling said items out of a large trunk behind her desk.

Jazz frowned. "You never got around to explaining that. What makes you think that more vampires will be attacking here?"

Buffy shrugged and threw stake at a picture of a man with a pointy, tattle-tell-looking face. It hit him dead-on, straight between the eyes. Below him, white bubble-letters proclaimed him Snyder. She glanced at Jazz. "Demons and vampires like big magic-y places. Places like that also happen to be just about the only places ghosts can appear." She shrugged. "If you have one, you'll probably get the other soon."

"Oh. Hey, what was –"

Danny walked back in, saving Buffy from the oncoming question. She mentally thanked the Powers that Be, and turned to him. "So how were those rats?

He hesitated. "Rats?"

"The ones you had to go hide in the bathroom from," Jazz prompted.

For a moment, it didn't seem like he was going to catch the hint, but finally he brightened and nodded. "Right! Those rats! They, uh, cleared out when that ghost attacked."

Buffy looked between them and sighed. Was the whole family insane? She glanced at the clock. Oh well. "In any case, our hour is up, Danny. You're free to go."

Danny grinned. "Thanks, Miss Summers."

She smiled back. "Call me Buffy. Everyone does."

As soon as he and his sister were gone, she sunk down at her desk. From now on, she'd better have more protection than just a ghost-protection belt in her bag. If it hadn't been for Danny Phantom, she would… Well, she probably would have been fine, but there was always the chance that something bad could have happened. That wasn't an acceptable risk for someone who'd been on the job as long as she'd been. Just because the job was now vampire and ghost slaying didn't mean she had an excuse to relax her guard on either front.

Meanwhile, at lunch, Danny recounted the counseling session dutifully to Sam and Tucker.

"So let me get this straight: you just sat there and played tic-tac-toe for an hour?" Sam asked, biting into a mouthful of salad. Apparently the school board finally had the bright idea to serve pizza, which kept the regular kids happy, and salads, which kept the ultra-recyclo-vegetarians happy. Too bad the new meal plan was only for Mondays.

Danny shrugged. "Yeah. It seemed like she didn't want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to her." He frowned. "It was weird though. When Spectra attacked, I heard her say something about Buffy sending someone to hell… What do you think that meant?"

Tucker swallowed his last bite of pizza. "I don't know, but it's not like it worked, right? I mean, you said she was putting on the Specter Deflector when you got there."

"I guess…"

Sam raised an eyebrow but changed the subject. "Hey, Tucker, don't you have an appointment with her too?"

The boy grinned. "Sure do! I caught sight of her walking in this morning and man is she fine! I just need the right angle."

Danny and Sam exchanged looks and smiled. "Well, you could always talk to her about your obsession with technology," Danny suggested.

Sam nodded. "Or how you're trying to get a date with a woman almost a decade older than you."

"What can I say? She called me in. I'm just gifted."

The worst voice he could think of answered him. "Gifted in what, loserdom?" Dash laughed. The jock grinned. "I heard there's been some attacks in the newspaper. Maybe if I get lucky, I'll read about you guys tomorrow… in the obituaries!"

Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "Read? I've heard of optimism, but that's just unrealistic."

Sam rolled her eyes and turned to leave, only to run into Paulina. The pink-wearing girl jerked away. "EW! It touched me! What if her unpopularity rubs off on me?"

Sam's expression darkened. "Don't you think I should be the one complaining? Your mindless conformity might be contagious."

Tucker, in no danger of being beat up or suddenly involved in a catfight, sighed. It was turning out to be a normal day in the hell they called Casper High.