Danny zipped through the air across the city. He'd had to wait for Jim to leave and then he'd had to spend several minutes trying to slip away from his parents and Dr. Lake. It had been a bit harder than normal, but after a while, he managed. But he was still running late. When he'd left it was six fifty-two. At least he could fly fast enough that it didn't really matter. He'd just wanted to get there first to keep them for realizing he had anywhere else to be.

Danny slowed and pulled to a stop as he came to the edge of the woods. Standing right at the edge were Jim, Claire, and Toby. Jim wasn't wearing his armor this time and none of them had their weapons out.

"Hey," Danny called down, sliding into the visible spectrum and floating down to talk with them.

The teens jumped slightly and tensed as they glanced upwards. Once they realized it was Danny, they relaxed. Jim waved.

"Well, we've got a plan," Jim said, "but we're still working out some of the details."

Danny nodded. "I'm a little surprised you came up with anything that quickly. So, whatcha got?"

"First of all," Claire said, "how long are you going to be in town?"

Danny hesitated. He didn't want to rush them or tell them he'd be here longer than he would be, but he didn't want Jim to figure it out either. He shrugged. "Oh, uh, two weeks, I think?"

"You think?" Toby asked.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not really the one making the plans."

"Isn't that how long the Fenton's are supposed to be here?" Jim asked.

"Is it?" Danny asked, fighting to keep his voice level. "I hadn't noticed." There it went, straight into the stratosphere.

"You're following them, aren't you?" Claire accused.

"What? No! Absolutely not. Not following anyone. Just out here. On my own. Travelling."

"Yeah, you're a horrible liar," Toby said.

"Why are you following them?" Jim demanded, putting his hand in his pocket.

"I just told you, I'm not-" Danny stopped when he saw Jim's eyes narrow. He thought he saw Jim's jaw clench as well but wasn't certain. He sighed. "I'm not going to hurt anyone, and I'm not spying."

"Then why."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, as we mentioned last time, they don't exactly… like me. And they make weapons and other things that could seriously hurt me. They tend to be bad at the whole 'hunting' thing, but they might give it to someone better or they might talk to them about their tech or something like that. I don't want more problems than I already have. I didn't know they were coming out here to visit family, so I decided to… tag along?"

"That sounds like spying to me," Claire said.

"Yup, definitely spying," Toby agreed.

"Fine, okay, so I was spying," Danny admitted. "But I'm not spying now that I know it's just family, not some meeting with the Guys in White or someone like that. I just have to leave when they do so they don't realize I left Amity while they were gone."

Jim nodded. "I can live with that. Just one more question."

Danny rolled his eyes and gestured for Jim to get on with it.

"The Fenton's said you… well, that you've attempted to kidnap the mayor, robbed a few stores, and caused a lot of property damage."

For a moment, no one moved or said anything. The human teens waiting for Danny to respond and Danny waiting to see if they had anything else to say. "Alright, starting from the top," Danny mumbled when he realized that was all they were going to say. "The mayor was being overshadowed by a ghost that was deliberately trying to turn the town against me, and he succeeded. If anything, he was dragging me back into that building, not the other way around. The robberies were mind control. Freakshow, the ringmaster of the Circus Gothica had a staff that allowed him to control the minds of ghosts. It broke, and I was freed and was able to get him caught. All of the stolen items were found on his train. The property damage…" Danny sighed again. "I defend myself and Amity Park from ghosts that don't care if anyone else gets hurt. It's all I can do to make sure no one gets seriously injured. If I break a few walls, windows, cars, or whatever else, so be it. Add to that the Guys in White who destroyed the observatory just because they thought I was there without giving any warning or trying to get civilians out of the way, and I'm probably the last one the Fentons should be concerned about in regard to property damage."

"So, it's not your fault?"

Danny nodded. "And the Fentons only really blame me because they hate ghosts and have a bad case of confirmation bias."

Jim, Toby, and Claire traded looks. With a small shrug, Jim turned back to Danny. "I can accept that. It's not like we haven't gotten blamed for things like that before, we've just had some good luck."

"So…" Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck again. "I know Jim's name because… you know, but who are the rest of you?"

"I'm Claire," Claire said.

"And this is Toby," Jim finished.

"And your plan?"

"We're planning on finding a time to get Gunmar alone," Jim said. "You and some others will handle his guards and we will handle Gunmar. You'll also run some interference if more of Gunmar's soldiers show up."

Danny nodded. "Do you have a time?"

All three shook their heads. "We need to plan things out a bit more, but we should be able to do that before you're two weeks are up," Claire said.

"Yeah, just give us a little time to do some recon and we'll have everything ready," Toby said flashing a thumbs up.

Danny nodded. They waited. There wasn't much left to say.

"So, you're dead," Toby said.

Danny felt his back stiffen. This should be interesting. "I am," he said.

"What's it like, the afterlife?"

"What's it like living?"

"Toby," Claire whispered, "don't be rude."

"What!? How am I supposed to know if I'm being rude?"

Danny grunted. "That's a fair point," he admitted. "Just know that asking the dead about death generally isn't a good idea. Especially don't ask about their death."

"Why not?" Jim asked. "I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to-"

Danny waved him off. "Two reasons. It's personal and it's probably the most painful memory they have. Sharing is a sign of trust and care."

Jim nodded. "So, that'll be everything. We should probably go before any of us puts a foot in our mouth again."

Danny laughed and waved as they left.

"Wait, how will we get in contact with you when it's time?" Claire asked.

"You guys aren't in school right now, right?"

The three exchanged looks, then shook their heads.

"How do you feel about some awkward stalking?"

Claire made a face. "No thanks."

"Fair enough. But I don't exactly have much to do around here, so I've been staying near the Fentons." He put his hands up to stop Jim from calling him out. "Not sticking my nose in anything, but just kinda hanging out. Gotta say, I've taken a bit of liking to their kids." That was probably too much. "Anyway, the point is you can find me around them if you really need to."

"I suppose that works," Jim muttered. "Just-"

"Respect privacy," Danny finished. "Yeah, trust me. There are lines I'm not gonna cross."

Jim nodded and went back to herding his friends into the woods. "So, I guess you'll see me around."

Danny nodded and waved at the retreating teens and vanished. He quickly flew back to the Lake house and snuck back inside. Jim and the others were going to be out for a while yet. Hopefully, no one kicked up a fuss about that. Danny wasn't sure if he could safely deflect any suspicion, but he would probably try. Stupidly and stubbornly.

"So, Danny, where did you get off to? I know there aren't any ghosts around for you to fight."

Danny jumped and pushed down the instinct to throw an ectoblast. "Don't do that," he hissed at his sister. "And really, I don't have to have a ghost to fight. Maybe I just like flying."

Jazz thought for a second. "You could, but I don't think that's what you were doing. You'd probably have waited until everyone was asleep or slipped out during the day when no one would worry if you disappeared."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Okay, yeah. But I do like flying. It's good for clearing my head."

Jazz smiled. "I'm glad," she said. "You need some ways to destress. But, really, what were you doing?"

Danny glanced around. The parents were in the living room, enjoying themselves. Danny led Jazz outside before answering, better to keep this conversation away from eavesdroppers. "Do you remember what Dr. Lake was saying to Mom and Dad the first night?"

Jazz snorted. "You mean what she was saying about Jim? Yeah. Sounded a lot like you if Mom and Dad were more observant and you had the option of keeping ghosts and school separate."

Danny nodded. "More than you might think. Jim's got himself involved in… something."

Jazz took a seat on the back steps and waited Danny out.

"I don't know much, but… I need to help them. There's this guy Gunmar or whatever his name was. He has a way of controlling people. It's like a mix between overshadowing and Freakshow's staff. I can't just ignore that. And to make things worse, I think he's using it to build up an army."

"How did you find out about it?" Jazz asked.

Danny started pacing. "The first night we were here Jim snuck out. I thought he might be involved in something dangerous- well he is, I was more worried about criminal- and I decided to go out and try and find him. I came across one of Gunmar's puppets and got into a fight." Danny ignored Jazz's amused snort. "Part way through Jim and his friends showed up and started trying to subdue him, I think. I used the distraction to get inside and free him."

"And now you want to help them free the others."

Danny nodded, dropping onto the grass facing Jazz. "They're working on a plan. I think they're going to try and take Gunmar down at the same time."

Jazz nodded. "Sounds like you. I suggest you get to know more about what's going on here, though."

Danny snorted. "How do you expect me to do that? They don't seem to want to tell me much and I'm probably not going to know what they're doing until it's time to go. Oh, and they think I'm here stalking Mom and Dad, by the way."

Jazz gave Danny a look.

"What?"

"Really, you told them you were stalking Mom and Dad."

"Well, I used the word 'spying' when I was talking to them, and it was the only thing I could think of to explain why I was here for the same time frame as us, and they knew I was lying when I told them I wasn't following the Mom and Dad."

Jazz sighed. "We need to work on your cover stories."

"Hey! I do better than you!"

Jazz shrugged. "But I'm not the one being questioned all the time."

"I'm not usually being questioned either. Back home people just accept it."

"Yeah, and then we leave, and you get into trouble and things like this happen. What are we going to do if the Guys in White start thinking you're hiding among civilians again? What do we do if you are found as Danny Fenton near a ghost fight when you were supposed to be on the other side of town? What if someone does start questioning? We need an actual story. We need them to believe you."

Danny flopped back and watched the stars. He didn't like it when Jazz got like this. She was right, of course, but Danny didn't see what he could do about it. "We can see more stars here," he said.

Jazz looked up as well. "Yeah. It's beautiful."

The two sat in silence, enjoying the stars like they never got to back home, both because of the light pollution and because of the ghosts.

Jazz sighed and stood. "At least think about it, little brother. I don't want to lose you."

Danny could feel tears pricking at his eyes but held them back. "I know," he said. "I don't want to lose you either."

Jazz nodded to herself and stepped back inside.

Danny lay on the grass and reached his hand up, imagining he was touching the stars. Big fiery balls of light and hydrogen and helium millions and billions of miles away. Planets, mere pinpricks, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the mass, reflecting light back to the earth from their own sun. He sighed and dropped his hand back to the ground. He wanted badly to just go and fly now. Forget gravity, forget earth, forget the lies and deceptions and half-truths that kept him alive.

He'd always hated lying, even before the accident. Sure, he would lie from time to time, but only about small things. Then it happened, and everything changed, and Danny had no idea what to do. The only thing he was sure about was that he had become what his parents hated. So now he lied. Regularly. And he hated it more than ever.

By the Ancients, he wanted to go fly. He wanted to get as close to that stars as he could without leaving Earth. Probably as close as he was ever going to get now. With his grades and his… condition, he was never going to make it into NASA, much less on one of their missions.

Danny shook himself out of his thoughts and stood. He couldn't afford to go flying now. He'd already spent too much time out tonight. Maybe he could fly later once everyone else went to sleep. Regardless, for now he had to go back inside and spend some time with his family and act like nothing was wrong and his cousin wasn't actually leading some kind of war at night. He sighed and trudged into the house, plastering on a smile once his parents noticed him. He might not be good at coming up with stories if anyone questioned him closely, but he had gotten good at pretending everything was fine. Now, all he had to do was keep the act up until he could slip away again.