"A home for fleas. A hive for bees. A nest for birds. There ain't no words for the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my haaaiiirr…"

Valerie stared across the table at the young would-be singer and wondered. She didn't wonder much of anything in particular, she just wondered. It was mainly centered around the state of Lucy Fenton's sanity or lack thereof. She turned her attention to where Sandruu had picked up his half of a phone conversation.

"Okay, so we're in agreement? Dad's just going to stay in Stratford? …Yeah, that's what I was thinking. She's glaring daggers at me over here. …No. Hey, listen. Make sure he doesn't forget to feed Ancel. …Yeah, I know. But still. Just remind him, would you? …Thank you. …Yeah, you, too. Bye."

"Who's Ancel?" the girl asked.

"My dog."

"Bangled, dangled, spangled and spaghettiii! Oh, say, can you see…my eyes…if you can, then, my hair's too short!"

"Luce!" Sandruu interrupted, or tried to. She didn't actually stop. "We've had enough of the serenade. Put the guitar away."

"Doo doo doo, doo doo. Doo doo doo, doo-Hey!"

Fed up with being ignored, her older brother had simply reached across the table and snatched it away. Valerie walked to the window to stare into the street, listening with half an ear as the younger sibling broke into an a cappella rendition of Creeque Alley at the top of her lungs. Sandruu, she could almost tolerate. He reminded her of Danny…of Fenton, rather. Lucy, however, looked far too much like her father's alter ego, despite her taste in pale pink, floral print.

"So who's your mother?" she asked, not really caring.

"What're you, crazy, man?" Lucy stopped singing long enough to ask. "We tell you that; you make sure it never happens; we can say later to living."

Sandruu, who had opened his mouth to respond, blinked in shocked puzzlement. "She wouldn't do that. …Would you?"

"I might," Valerie agreed. There was a very prolonged silence, suddenly shattered, quite literally, by the sound of a glass full of water as it was crushed in a mechanical hand.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Sandruu demanded. "He's never been anything but good to you!"

"Ease off, Sandy," Lucy whispered. "You're not going to make the girl change her mind by wiggin' out like that." After a moment, a crash heralded Sandruu's chair hitting the floor as he stood and stalked from the room. Valerie was startled enough that she finally turned back and accidentally met Lucy's covered eyes. The woman smiled apologetically. "Boys, hey?"

Valerie was surprised by how hurt she felt. His reaction was perfectly acceptable; indeed, she would have expected worse. But why should she care about what he thought? He was the son of her worst enemy.

And she had known that when she first decided that she liked him. They saved each other's lives. He was obviously the same person she knew, the person he would become. He couldn't have lied, could he? Facing him again, she found she couldn't believe that. With a confused sigh, she sat down again. "What is it with you and the sixties anyway?" she asked, more harshly than intended.

Lucy shrugged and reached across the table to reclaim her guitar. "Ghosts obsess, man," she explained as though it should have been obvious. "Andy not so much, but Daddy's thing is ghost fighting. Me? I like that old fashioned rock and roll. Got to loving the sixties and just couldn't help myself, you know?" She started playing an old Buddy Holly song, then switched to something by Don McLain.

The young ghost hunter managed to stay where she was until her hostess reached the lines, "And I know that you're in love with him, 'cause I saw you dancin' in the gym…" She couldn't place any reason why the lines should bother her, but a feeling like mingled rage and despair filled her mind. "Shut up!" she snarled, earning a sour chord from the surprised player. She shoved away from the table and stalked away, unconsciously mimicking Sandruu's egress.

In the relative safety of the living room, the cyborg was draped across a couch, twirling his eyepiece around in his fingers. It was somewhat nauseating to see that empty socket, but she dropped into a chair where she could stare at him. Eventually, his eye flicked in her direction. "Did I tell you how I got this?" he asked.

Valerie nodded. "You said something about a war in Greenland."

Sandruu nodded as well. "We were ordered to ambush a small encampment of c…uh…the enemy. But they were waiting for us. One of our guys…" He stopped to laugh bitterly. "One of my buddies was selling information. He was there with us when we got captured, and he was so…so…indignant that he was being treated like the rest of us."

The young ghost hunter was unsure where he was going with his story, but some instinct told her she didn't want to hear. She stayed where she was anyway.

"They were laughing at us and…I don't know. I just snapped. I do that sometimes. I'm not as much a ghost as Dad or Screw Luce, but I guess I still inherited one's temper. It's like all I could see was red. I knew exactly what I was doing, but I lost my human morals for a little while, I guess. Or maybe I was just angry and trying to find something to blame my actions on. I don't know.

"I lunged for him; snapped his neck like a twig. The guards around us just laughed, and that just made me even more angry. I started going after them and they were shooting at me, and my buddies, the few that survived my stupidity that is, told me my eyes were bright enough to light up the night. There were four of us left when I finally collapsed, and one of them died later. The other side just ran."

"He was on life support for, like, six months," Lucy added from the threshold.

"It was five," her brother corrected. He shook his head mournfully. "Best five months of my life…"

"What about your friends?" Valerie demanded. "Don't you care about them?"

His face darkened considerably, and he closed his eye. "They're murder victims," he said shortly, as though that explained everything.

"I'll tell you later, maybe," Lucy added quietly. "We try not to talk about it around him."

"The moral of the story," the cyborg announced loudly, replacing his eyepiece, "is that lies can get you ripped in half by angry part ghosts if you're not careful."

"He lied to me!" Valerie leapt to defend herself.

"And when, pray tell, did you get around to telling him about how you're a ghost hunter who was outfitted by his mortal enemy?"

She opened her mouth, intent on a scathing response, but what he asked suddenly struck her like a Ghost Ray. "Vlad…Masters?"

"Sandy, quit flapping your lips," the younger Fenton piped up. "You're going to change the past, man."

"No!" Valerie burst out. "I want to know! What about Mr. Masters?"

Lucy shook her head. "I guess you're screwed, man, because we aren't saying another word. Got it, Candy Sandy?"

"Would you quit calling me Sandy?"

After a few seconds deliberation, Valerie decided to laugh. "You don't want to be called 'Sandy', but you don't mind 'Candy'?"

Sandruu gave an exaggerated eye roll. "Oh, no. I mind that, too. She just always calls me Candy. My name is Andrew. I will, on occasion, tolerate Andy."

Lucy laughed brightly. "You better get used to that 'S', Candy Sandy. It's what you're going by when the CW sends you back time."

He shuddered. "Don't remind me."

The conversation devolved into another sibling spat, but Valerie didn't pay much attention. It suddenly hit her that the Fenton children were human. Sandruu, she could understand. He practically was human aside from an eye that glowed when he got angry. Lucy on the other hand…

She looked too much like Phantom, and Valerie had never really thought of him as a person. She realized that she was still thinking of him as two different people, but she couldn't seem to stop. They were two different people, in her eyes. But suddenly, seeing his children act so human forced her to see him as human. She bit back the desire to cry and fled the room.

Danny jumped through Kat's glowing portal and turned back to watch it close. She had expressed disapproval at his desire to find Valerie and had tried to talk him out of it. Technus had made a scathing comment about stupid humans trying to get themselves killed. Fortunately for the boy's peace of mind, he had seemed less concerned than irritated at the thought of having to deal with Danny Phantom as a full ghost on a regular basis.

Finally back in the real world, Danny transformed and flew into the sky. "Now," he mused aloud. "Kat says she found us outside the Fenton Portal…" With a decisive nod, he angled for home.

A/N: Well, I think I can safely say that I'm back to daily updates again. Sweet!