I've been responding to many reviews privately, but I've missed the sense of give-and-take that I used to get when posting fic to an e-mail list (back when I was involved in the Due South fandom.) So, since the feedback in public, I'm going to try responding to at least some of the feedback publically as well, in the hopes of getting some conversations started.

Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet: First person POV is not something I've done much before, but this story demanded it–because so much of the "action" takes place in Danny's head. (There's a lot of "action" going on in Valerie's head, too, but for the purpose of this story the reader is supposed to rely on what Danny thinks Val is thinking.)

angel4U 185: Thanks so much for the kind words about the Danny/Jazz dynamic in chapter 6. It certainly was a pleasure to write! Originally I had intended for Danny to field a "what the hell do you thing you're doing?" phone call from Sam and a series of e-mails from Tucker during the day covered by chapter six, but the chapter worked so well with Jazz I decided to leave Danny's best friends out altogether.

Cali: I'm giving you the official Sam Manson "If You Go Through With This I Will Kill You If Valerie Doesn't Kill You First" Award for chapter 6. You are definitely in synch with just about everybody except Danny. What is driving him to do this, anyway?

Kassii: I'm sorry you had to wait a little while longer for more of Danny's encounter with Val. I hope that the chapter below (and the next, and the next) will make up for it. (Although it may give poor Cali an ulcer before it's done.)

KatrinaKaiba: I'm glad you enjoyed chapter six, as it was a little out-of-step with the rest of the story. The conversation with an outside observer was necessary to give the reader to a clearer peek into Danny's head, and I got such a kick out of inventing an "expert" for Jazz to quote!

Person: I'm glad to know that last sentence made you cringe. It was supposed to. Heh-heh-heh. . . .

Thanks to everybody who sent feedback, I'm very grateful! We're a little more than half-way through the story, and there's quite a bit of cliff-hanging to come. So check your harnesses and secure your ropes!

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Chapter 7

Second verse, the same as the first;

a little bit louder, a little bit worse.

I phased through the iron gate again, twenty-four hours later, and set off over the hill toward the picnic area. The grass was wet, the woods were dark, the full moon was just beginning to rise. I could have taken a different route, come early, varied the routine–but for some reason, I didn't. (Jazz could probably write a thesis paper about it.) I emerged from the woods at three minutes before eight, and Valerie was there, waiting.

In her full battle suit, with a combat rifle-sized ecto-gun pointed directly at me.

"Do. . . do you really think that's necessary?" I could hear the hot whine of the fully-charged weapon, feel the sweat trickling down my back. Had Jazz been right? Had I misjudged her so badly? "Look at me, Valerie. You see me in school every day. We're friends. I swear I'm not going to hurt you—just, please put the weapon down."

"I'll put my weapon down when you put your weapon down," she sneered, closing one eye and sighting along her ecto-gun at my chest. "But you can't do that, can you?"

I glanced down and realized that I had instinctively reacted to her armed state by building up an ectoplasmic charge in my right hand, which was now glowing ominously. I felt my face flush with embarrassment, as though she had caught me lurking invisibly in the girls' locker room. I let my arm fall loosely to my side and shook my hand vigorously, dispersing the power harmlessly into the air.

She stayed in a firing stance, but lowered the gun until it was pointing at my knees instead of my heart. "You got thirteen minutes left, ghost. I'm gonna ask the questions, you're gonna answer them. Sit down over there," she ordered, indicating the same picnic table where we had talked the night before, "but stay facing me, and keep both hands out where I can see them."

As we circled around each other, slowly, deliberately, I tried without much success to read her facial expression through her mask. I sat down on the bench with my back to the table, and carefully placed my hands on my knees. I took a deep breath, focusing my attention on trying to slow my racing heartbeat, fighting the urge to go ghost or do anything else that might set Valerie off. I had been counting on my human appearance to protect me, but as a human I was weak, slow, clumsy and unlikely to survive a direct hit from that gun. I reviewed my options: unable to fly, I could phase into the ground, or become invisible and try to get the hell out of her line of fire….

No. No! Reacting with my powers, even defensively, would just perpetuate the conflict, defeating the whole purpose of this exercise. I had to trust her, be honest with her and give her the Thermos.

She pulled off her helmet, dropping it on the ground beside her. Her bountiful, curly hair was pulled back tightly and tucked neatly inside the collar of her suit, making her face seem unusually narrow and severe. "So. Was it your mother, or your father?" She asked the question coldly, as professional as any hard-nosed detective on Law and Order.

"Huh?"

"You said that you're half-ghost. Which parent did you get it from: your mother, or your father?"

"No! No. . . no, no, no no! You've got it all wrong. . . uh, I mean. . . ." My stomach turned over, just thinking about it. Ew! "Both parents human! Born human! Fully human until last year. . . ."

"When. . . ." she prompted, with a rolling hand gesture that urged me to get to the point.

"It's. . . complicated. There was an accident in the lab, and I almost died, but somehow I didn't, and now I'm half ghost."

There followed a long, awkward silence. I only had a few minutes left, and I didn't want to waste it going over the details of the accident, or the horrible days of convalescence, confined to my room while my new powers perversely went off at random intervals. I had far more important matters to cover.

"I assume that Sam and Tucker know all about this?"

"They were there when I. . . uh, had my accident. And my sister found out later, but she's cool about it. She covers for me sometimes."

"Ah." For a moment she looked thoughtful, almost wistful, realizing just how much she was an outsider. "And I take it they all know about me?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "We all knew."

"Great. I bet you all thought it was pretty funny, laughing at me behind my back."

Considering the circumstances, with my head still throbbing from the night before and a deadly weapon pointed at me now, 'funny' seemed a pretty strange concept. "Nobody thinks . . . we. . . Val, you scare the hell out of us! You've been trying to kill me, after all."

Her expression suddenly darkened, and she abruptly changed the subject. "Why are there so many ghosts in Amity Park?"

"There are. . . a couple of different reasons." I took a moment to frame my answer. "In part, it's because of me. Because of what I am. My existence. . . offends them. You remember Skulker, how he wanted to have my 'pelt'? He's not the only one. But from a practical standpoint–do you remember, in the Ghost Zone, all those doors?"

She nodded, with just a little shudder.

"Those are portals. Gateways between the Ghost Zone and other planes. Most of them were created by individual ghosts, for their own use, to be able to go back to whatever it is in this plane that they can't let go of."

"And. . .?"

"In the basement of FentonWorks there's a portal that my parents built, using technology instead of ghost energy. They only intended it to be used as a kind of window, to see into the Ghost Zone, but it turns out it doesn't really work that way."

"So the ghosts come into Amity Park through the portal in your basement!?"

"Pretty much." I blushed. "When the portal is open, ghosts come and go as they please. When the portal is closed, they have to spend a huge amount of energy to squeeze through from the other side–but not as anywhere near as much as it would take to create a new portal from scratch. And by the time I kick their butts, catch them and release them back into the portal, they're usually so weak, they can't come back through for a while, as long as the portal is kept shut."

"Yeah. . . I remember you said that yesterday. How long is 'a while'?"

"Uh. . . ." Tucker was the one who kept statistics. I just fight them as they come. "A month, a couple of weeks, maybe less– I guess some of it depends on how much damage I do before I use the Thermos."

Valerie gave a frustrated sigh, clearly unimpressed by my way of dealing with the problem. "Why would you ever open the portal, then?" Why not close it permanently, or destroy it altogether?"

"Yeah, right. Like I'm going to tell my parents that? They're the 'experts'," I said, using my fingers to put the word 'experts' in air quotes, "and I'm just a fifteen-year-old kid who can barely pass math. The Fenton Ghost Portal is their life's work, and you think I'm going to tell them to destroy it?"

She pondered for a moment, then made a mental leap. "Wait a minute! Your parents don't know?"

"Uh. . . ."

"You. . . you hypocrite!" She flew at me (not literally, her rocket sled was leaning against a nearby tree, but it was a pretty impressive move nonetheless) and knocked me backwards onto the picnic table. Only this time, I was on my back with her left hand on my throat and the business-end of her ecto-gun just inches from my left eye. "You stinkin', cold-hearted, half-dead-freak HYPOCRITE!"

Uh, oh. Didn't see that one coming.

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