A big thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed! I was absolutely floored to see this story get such a positive response so quickly. Here's hoping I manage to live up to hype!

"You've been quiet," Jazz said, glancing over at her brother in the passenger seat without taking her eyes fully off the road. "Worried about heading back to school?"

"Eh, not worried," Danny answered with a shrug. He had his arm resting on the car door's armrest, his hand up to cradle his chin and his forehead pressed to the glass of the window – the quintessential 'I'm in this car because I have to be, not because I want to be' posture. "More annoyed than anything. Fighting ghosts during the summer was a lot easier. Not having to sneak out of class all the time or worry about oversleeping. I'm gonna miss that."

Jazz offered him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, I can see why that would get you down. If it helps, I'm only taking four AP classes this year instead of five, so I'll have a little more spare time to hunt. That could ease the burden a bit."

"Right. I'm sure that will make a world of difference."

"It's a little early in the morning to be that sarcastic, Danny," Jazz said, rolling her eyes. "It'll help, I swear. And, hey, a couple of the new weapons Mom and Dad have been working on these past couple of weeks have been getting pretty efficient. I mean, I know that's going to be a problem when they start trying to use them on Phantom, but if we snatch up a couple of them, it would help our productivity too. Good news, bad news, I guess."

Danny lifted his head away from the window and turned to Jazz, one brow raised. "I didn't even know they'd made any new weapons."

"Well, you haven't been in the lab much either," Jazz pointed out, "What with your whole vow to spend as much of the summer out of the house as possible. But yes, they've been poring those blueprints non-stop trying to get the designs right."

"I suppose that's one of the things that new researcher going to be helping them with?"

"Might be. They didn't exactly give us much detail about him between last night and now." She slowed the car to a stop as they hit a red light, which gave her a chance to turn to her brother fully. "You're worried about him, aren't you?"

Danny frowned at her and innocently asked, "Why would I be worried?"

"Maybe because having someone in the house who's supposed to be some sort of genius about the supernatural could present certain complications when it comes to keeping certain secrets?"

"Only if he decides to study me," Danny replied. "So, my plan is to just avoid him. It's not like he's going to be working with Mom and Dad forever, right? It'll probably just be a few weeks."

"Well, you're at least going to have to meet him. You know how enthusiastic Dad gets about introducing us to his colleagues."

"Then I'll politely shake his hand and not introduce myself as a half-ghost. Crisis averted. The light's green, by the way."

Jazz sighed and turned back to face the road as the car started up again. "Okay, so you have the researcher all figured out. You're still worried about something, though."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, for one thing, I heard you mumbling in your sleep last night. You only do that when you're stressed."

Danny scowled at her. "How would you have heard me? Our walls aren't that thin. Jazz, tell me you haven't been spying on me."

"I get curious," she answered simply.

Danny groaned and slumped in his seat. "I swear to God, I have got the nosiest sister to ever exist."

"It's the universe making up for the fact that you have oblivious parents. Do you have an explanation for the mumbling?"

"Well, I mean – I dunno, I've been having a bit of trouble sleeping lately, I guess."

Jazz shot him a curious frown. "And why do you think that is?"

"Not sure. Maybe subconscious knew my sister wanted to psychoanalyze me and decided it wanted to give her a challenge."

"Har har. I'm only trying to help, Danny."

"Yeah, I know that," Danny said. He sighed in resignation as the car pulled into the student parking lot, and he grabbed the strap of his backpack, ready to sling it over his shoulder once they were parked. "Look, for now, if you wanna help, help by picking me up some melatonin next time it's your turn for a grocery run. That's really all the help I need."

"All right, deal," Jazz replied. She settled into her parking spot and pulled her keys out of the ignition. "See you after school, Danny. And that's right after school, got it? Promise me you won't get detention on the first day of the school year."

"I'll try, but I can't promise anything," Danny said, grinning as he hastily got out of the car and began heading into the school before his sister had the chance to scold him.

His first stop in the school that morning was the front office, where he joined the throng of students who, like him, hadn't had the foresight to download his schedule from the school website, and so instead had to wait in line for a hard copy from the frazzled secretary. As he waited, Danny eyed the crowd of students, trying to determine which ones were in this year's crop of freshmen. It wasn't easy; admittedly, Danny had never bothered to get to know the other students in the school outside of his own classrooms, so he wasn't sure how many of the faces he didn't recognize were actually new.

He occupied himself trying to puzzle the crowd out until he finally reached the front desk and got his schedule. Nothing unexpected there, he noted as he glanced up and down at it. The classes were all the same as those the guidance counselor has laid out for him at the end of last year. American Literature, Geometry, World History, Spanish 2. It was still a bummer that he had been placed in Earth Science instead of Chemistry with Tucker and Sam, but he supposed he couldn't blame the school for not wanting him around the lab equipment yet. His elective slots were filled by Computer Science and Psychology, which he'd signed up for at Tucker's and Jazz's insistence, respectively. Something told Danny that by midterms, he would regret taking those instead of Home Ec. and Music Appreciation, which he knew would have been easy A's, but at least he had a couple of reliable tutors on hand. The remaining schedule blocks were set aside for Study Hall, which he was glad to see he had today, and Phys. Ed., which he was glad to see he didn't. Additionally, he had Ms. Stark for homeroom, which was just across the hall from his locker; hopefully that would make at least a little bit of a difference in his less than stellar tardiness record.

Once he'd made it out of the office, his first destination was his locker. Sam and Tucker were already there waiting for him, and comparing their schedules. Danny had barely reached them when Tucker snatched the schedule out of his hand and scanned it.

"We all have homeroom together," he stated with a nod. "And English, History, and P.E. Same lunch block, too. Would've all had Computer Science together too if someone hadn't insisted on taking Botany instead," he added, scowling pointedly at Sam.

"After the whole deal with Undergrowth a while back, it just made sense," Sam replied. "No regrets here."

"Hey, four blocks together is nothing to sneeze at," Danny said. He opened up his locker and began emptying most of his backpack into it. "Really, though, I'm still just riding high on the fact that no ghosts attacked last night or this morning. Woulda sucked if I had to start the year with the teachers already pissed off at me for being late."

"I guess ghosts know the value of a good education," Tucker chuckled. He glanced up toward the intercom on the ceiling when a bell rang out. "Although, that's the five minute warning, so you can still be late if you show some dedication."

Danny rolled his eyes, then winced as he was knocked into his locker by someone's elbow. The hallway seemed to have become twice as crowded the instant the warning bell had rung and everyone began rushing to get to their homeroom classes. Pressing his notebook to his chest, he stepped out into the hallway, making it halfway across before another student tripped and they collided practically head on. The other student's bag fell from his shoulder, the contents from an unzipped pocket spilling out onto the floor.

"Sorry!" Danny said, hastily getting down onto the floor to help pick up the mess. The boy he'd run into didn't seem to have heard him, as he had already run off to retrieve the batteries that had fallen out of his calculator and attempted to roll away. Danny watched him go, trying to place him. There wasn't much he could tell from the back, besides that he was wearing a navy blue vest and a blue and white trucker hat. He appeared to be on the small side, too, both in height and weight. Danny bet he was a freshman.

While the other boy went off after the batteries, Danny went ahead and gathered the rest of what had fallen out – several mechanical pencils, two notebooks, and a folder that was now stamped with a damp footprint. Damn, the school day hadn't even begun yet and the kid's supplies were already getting ruined. Rotten luck, he supposed. He fetched the bag up off the ground and shoved the items inside.

Immediately, though, he yanked his hand back with a small yelp, dropping the bag in his surprise. Fortunately, nothing fell out this time, but Danny wasn't paying the slightest attention to that anymore. Instead, he cradled his hand against his stomach, staring at it suspiciously. There didn't seem to be any mark on it, and the pain was fading fast, but he knew there was no mistaking what he'd felt practically the instant he had stuck his hand into the bag. He had been burned. He was sure of it. For a split second he'd felt like his hand and wrist were engulfed by flame, and even after he'd dropped the bag, what felt like white-hot needle pricks lingered. But the bag looked perfectly fine, and the pain in his hand had cleared up now. So how the hell – ?

"You okay?" a voice asked, and Danny barely managed not to jump in surprise. He hadn't noticed the other student returning with his batteries. Now that he was close, Danny could glean a bit more detail of the boy. He'd been right in pegging him as short; the kid was a couple of inches below Danny in height. Thick brown curls poked out from under his cap, which he now saw was decorated with a logo of a solid blue pine tree. The brim was pulled low, covering nearly his entire forehead, but not low enough to hide the wide brown eyes that were currently fixed on Danny with a surprising intensity that set the latter's nerves on edge.

"Hey, um, did you hear me?" the boy asked. "I said, are you – "

"Yeah," Danny cut him off quickly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Carpal tunnel. The cramps just come out of nowhere."

"Oh," said the boy, nodding slowly, but the slight narrowing of his eyes suggested that he wasn't anywhere near convinced. But he seemed prepared to let the matter drop, since he picked his bag up, slung it over his shoulder, and began turning to leave. "Well, thanks for the help."

"Right, no problem," Danny said, but before he had even finished saying the words, the kid had vanished in the flood of students.

Another bell rang, one that Danny recognized as the one-minute warning, so he shook his head and strode into the classroom, joining Sam and Tucker in settling into three desks next to each other.

"What was that in the hallway, Danny?" Sam asked. "I thought I heard you yell or something."

"Nothing," Danny dismissed him with a shrug. Some freshman was just being weird, caught me by surprise."

Tucker shot him a grin. "Man, we're finally not the freshmen anymore, and you've got to take advantage of it. If the kid bugs you again, pull down his pants and steal his lunch money. It's our turn to try it."

"Tucker!" Sam snapped.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" Tucked said hurriedly. Danny just laughed at the two of them, moving his hand so that it was on his lap and out of sight when the bell rang to officially begin the school day.