Danny Phantom and all related characters are owned by Butch Hartman and Billionfold Inc.
Baby Face
Chapter 3: Mac and Cheese
"So when's Jazz coming over?" asked Danny as he reentered the living room, now dressed in Tucker's old clothes.
"In a few hours," Sam answered, watching Danny make his way across the room. He was getting the hang of walking, and even climbing as he pulled himself up onto the kitchen stool beside Tucker.
"How small are you?" asked Tucker, looking at Danny's baggy fitting clothes. "Those things stopped fitting me before I could talk."
"How old were you when you started talking?" Sam asked, earning a smile from Danny.
Tucker just grumbled. In response, Danny's stomach grumbled too.
"Are we hungry?" asked Sam.
"I guess…"
"Well…we usually have Cookie cook for us, but I might remember how to make a few things." Sam said, digging through the cupboards.
"Like what: Tofu Cheese Melts?" Tucker quipped, trying to make up for his loss earlier. Sam shot him a glare.
"Where are all your servants?" Danny asked. "Don't you usually have a bunch of people hanging around?"
"They're all on vacation. I gave them the week off while my parents are away. As long as they don't say anything, I won't say anything." Sam said, surfacing from the cupboard search with a familiar blue box in hand.
"Mac and Cheese! I didn't think that was on the Ultra-Recyclo-Vegetarian diet," Danny exclaimed.
"I wasn't always Ultra-Recyclo. Besides, who can turn down Mac and Cheese?" Sam said, pulling out a saucepan.
The two locked eyes for a moment and smiled that little puppy love smile.
"Get a room," Tucker interrupted, watching the two turn away from each other with a blush.
"So…. how are we going to break this 'spell'?" asked Danny.
"It'd probably be easiest to defeat Ember, like we did last time," Sam said, still busying herself with the Mac and Cheese. "But how?"
"I can still fight," Danny said defiantly.
Sam turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand, to look at the teen/toddler. "Prove it."
Danny climbed up onto the counter and stood. White rings slid up and down his body, turning him ghost. Oddly, his jumpsuit still fit.
"So you can 'Go Ghost'. That still works, but what if she hits you? A two-year-old body doesn't take damage as well as a fourteen-year-old. She could kill you!" Sam said, waving her spoon for emphasis.
"She won't get a chance to hit me. We'll just take her by surprise, suck her into the Fenton Thermos, and be done with it." Danny said, floating back down into his chair and changing back.
"Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"
"Famous last words, man. Famous last words." Tucker said,
Danny sighed, his stomach grumbling again.
"Why don't you two go play videogames or something?" asked Sam. "I'll bring the Mac and Cheese down when I come."
"Okay," both boys said together. Tucker was across the room in an instant, eagerly heading toward his favorite game collection. Danny, however, carefully climbed down his stool and started across the room. Granted he wasn't holding on to anything, but he was moving along pretty slow.
"Don't worry so much about falling over," Sam said, watching Danny walk. "Just don't hurt yourself."
Danny looked back at her with a smile before returning to the task at hand. With confidence he began to pick up speed and move pretty quickly around the corner and to the stairs.
Sam went back to her work, activating a nearby console to play her latest CD: December Underground. Before long the Mac and Cheese was done and she was handing it to Danny on the downstairs couch. He accepted it eagerly and dug in, polishing the whole bowl off in no time.
"Dude, that isn't normal," Tucker commented as Danny set his bowl aside.
"What?" Danny asked.
"Most two-year-olds can't polish off a whole box of Mac and Cheese by themselves," Sam explained.
Danny just shrugged.
"I was hungry," he said, fighting back a yawn.
"And now you're tired," Sam said lightly, suppressing a laugh.
"No I'm…" Danny yawned, "…not."
"Yes, you are."
Danny sent a death glare Sam's way and returned to his video game battle. He lasted another half-hour at gaming before sleep overtook his exhausted little body. Sam and Tucker just played quietly around him, waiting for Jazz to come. They knew that four heads were better than three, and hoped she would be able to come up with a better solution than a sneak attack on Ember.
The doorbell rang and Sam went to answer, returning with Jazz by her side.
"You know what I said over the phone about Danny being… different?" she asked outside the door to the gaming room.
"Yes," Jazz said, indicating for Sam to go on.
"Well, he's kind of…."
"Two years old," Tucker finished, poking his head out into the hallway.
"What!" asked Jazz, pushing into the room. Her breath caught as she saw Danny, still sound asleep against the side of the couch.
"Smooth, Tuck. Very smooth," Sam said, glaring daggers at Tucker.
"Oh My God!" Jazz exclaimed, kneeling beside Danny to stroke his soft, raven locks. "He's so tiny!"
"Only in body," Sam explained, shushing Jazz. "He's still the same old Danny."
Danny stirred, curling into the couch. Jazz drew her hand back, gazing lovingly at her now-much-smaller brother.
"How did this happen?" asked Jazz.
"Ember hit him with a new kind of sound wave," Sam explained, grabbing a throw blanket and draping it carefully over Danny. "The next thing we knew… he was like this."
"What are we going to do?" asked Jazz. "He can't fight like this."
"Try telling him that," Sam said, sitting in a nearby chair. "He can still go ghost, so he's still pretty much invincible."
"But how long can he stay a ghost? What powers still work? What self-respecting ghost would let themselves be defeated by a four-year-old?"
"Four?" asked Sam.
"Yes. Danny was really, really small for his age. He had some sort of growth disorder when he was little. He didn't get his first growth spurt until a few months before kindergarten," Jazz explained.
"You mean Danny…."
"Danny what?" asked a small voice from the couch. Danny turned over to look at Sam with those sparkling baby blues.
"You grew a whole lot just before kindergarten," Jazz answered.
"When did you get here?" asked Danny, noticing his sister for the first time.
"A couple of minutes ago," Jazz answered. "Do you remember your first growth spurt?"
"No…. I was only, like four."
"Danny, do you remember how small you were when you were four?"
"Oh…" Danny said, catching on. "You mean I might get that nasty, bone crunching, growth spurt? At any time?"
"I don't know. It could happen, I mean…."
"Wait a minute," Tucker interrupted. "Didn't Danny eat a whole box of Mac and Cheese all by himself earlier?"
"Shit." Danny said quietly, the cuss sounding strange in his little boy voice.
"Yeah," Sam said. "I guess that counts you out for hunting down Ember."
"No it doesn't!" Danny said, pushing his throw blanket away defiantly. "I have to be able to do something."
Sam sighed, realizing why Danny was so dead-set on helping defeat Ember. His pride was seriously hurting…. defeating Ember was the only medicine Danny knew of.
"We'll figure something out," she said. "For now, let's see if we can track her down."
AN: Next time we'll get out of Sam's house for a change. Sorry this story's so short, and that it isn't really going anywhere. It will change! Honest! Enough rambling (Bad K.G., Bad!), thank you for all three wonderful reviews! Hope you enjoyed the story! Thanks for reading! I'll stop being dramatic now! Ja ne!
K.G.