I've hit over seven thousand views on this thing, which is... wow. I'm so thankful for the amazing response this fic has gotten so far (and heck, we're still not even close to the real meat and potatoes of the plot!), and I hope to see your continued support moving forward!

"I don't want to talk about it," Danny snapped as he stomped into his room and flopped down across his bed.

Sam and Tucker, still following close behind, shared a glance before Sam closed the bedroom door. "Neither of us said you had to talk about anything."

"You were going to," Danny said. "I know that look. That's Jazz's signature look, you know. That 'something just happened and now you're feeling things and I want you to spill your guts so we can analyze you' look. Well, nothing doing. We all heard what he said, now we move on."

"Okay, that's fine," Sam said quietly. She edged over to his desk and sank into the chair. "Should we start on homework or something?"

"Yeah, homework," Danny muttered. He was silent as Sam set her bookbag on the floor and began pulling out her study materials, and then, "But, just so it's out there, if I was going to talk about it – "

"Oh boy," Tucker whispered.

" – I would say, who the hell does Stanford Pines think he is? Seriously, what makes him think he has any right to try to erase people – ghosts, whatever – from existence? I mean, he said himself it doesn't even work with the laws of physics! That's just arrogant, is what it is, trying to play God, screwing with how reality works. Thinking it's his call whether something is allowed to exist. And oh, no, no, just killing a ghost isn't enough, is it, he's gotta go the whole nine yards, get rid of every single goddamn trace of its existence. And then he tries to say he's doing it because it's kinder?! It's the 'preferable option'? Preferable option, my undead ass, he's just trying to be high and mighty about it so he doesn't look bloodthirsty or whatever. I mean, God, my parents may try to eviscerate me on a weekly basis, but at least they're up front about their motivations! They don't try to act like there's some moral reason, don't make it some stupid ethics thing. You're a scientist, Pines, not a freakin' philosopher. Lousy, arrogant, holier-than-thou, fat-headed, pompous little…"

The rest of his rant was lost as he rolled over onto his stomach and began muttering it into his pillow.

"Yeah, and can we address the elephant in the room?" Tucker piped up. "Let's talk about the six fingers. That's weird, right? Isn't that weird?"

"Yes, very weird," Sam said. "Look, Danny, I meant it, it's fine. You don't have to talk about him. In fact, it's probably better that you don't until you've let your head cool a bit."

Danny's head shot up from his pillow to shoot her a dark scowl. "My head is cool," he growled.

"Hey, we don't blame you if it's not," Tucker said. "I mean, geez, if Ford had gone on talking for a minute more, I would've started having an existential crisis, and I'm not even the one whose existence he was – "

"Anyway," Sam interrupted sharply. "We can just concentrate on homework now, all right? No need to get ourselves worked up over anything he said. It was all hypothetical anyhow; who knows if anything will even happen with it, let alone happen to you particularly." She flipped open one of the textbooks. "Want to start with English?"

Danny sighed, rolling over onto his back so he was facing the ceiling. "Fine. What was the assignment?"

"Discussion questions on the Dickinson poems Lancer assigned us. You read them, right?"

"Yeah, I read them."

"Okay." Sam unfolded the assignment paper that she'd stuck between the pages of the book and read the first question out loud. "In the first poem assigned, how does the use of personification affect the tone of the poem?"

Danny paused, chewing on his lip. "Uh, what was personified?"

Sam lowered the paper to peer over it at Danny. "What do you – was it seriously not obvious?" She looked over to Tucker, who only answered with a helpless shrug. "I thought you both said you'd read the assignment!"

"We say a lot of things," Tucker said.

"Ugh, fine, I guess I have to do that for you too, don't I?" Sam said with an exasperated eye roll. She picked up the textbook and began reading aloud. "Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste, And I had – "

"Hey, Sam?"

"…Yeah, Danny?"

"Do you honestly think this is the sort of poem I want to hear right now?"

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Sheepishly she shut the textbook, placed it back into her bag, and pulled out her world history book instead. "Better?"

Danny nodded. "Better."

Danny decided it would be best to skip the family breakfast altogether the next morning. If yesterday's meal had been anything in terms of precedent, his parents would be spending this morning raving about Stanford's work again, and he did not want to hear it. Instead, he told them he had to go into school early for homework help, and he'd take his scooter and grab breakfast in the cafeteria.

"Homework help?" Maddie asked. "It's only the third day of school. Do you really already have to get extra help?"

"Well, I mean, it's geometry," Danny told her. "It's hard."

"If you're already having trouble, that's not a good sign. Do you want to ask Jazz if she can tutor you?"

"No, it's fine, really."

"Or if you don't want Jazz to tutor you, we can hire someone outside the family. I'd really hate to see you falling behind again, Danny, especially after your grades last year."

"Mom, I don't need a tutor," Danny groaned. "I've just got, like, two questions for the teacher, that's all. Don't make it a big deal."

"All right," Maddie said, but her tone was still doubtful. "But Danny, promise me that if you're having trouble with any classes, you'll let me and your dad know, okay? I'd like to know before we have to discover halfway through the semester that you're failing a class."

"Fine, I promise."

He managed to escape the house before anyone had the chance to interrogate him further. Sure, Maddie's suspicions were mostly alleviated, and Jack of course would accept what he said at face value, no questions asked, but he knew Jazz would still be more than curious about his absence that morning. Not to mention that if she'd had the chance to speak to Ford at all yesterday, she'd definitely be itching for a nice long discussion about it with him.

Oh well. That was a problem for later.

It was a bit strange arriving at school so early, since he was so accustomed to not showing up until just under the wire, sometimes making it into homeroom right as the bell rang. At this time in the morning, the only kids around were those who were in those sports teams and music groups that met to practice at the most ungodly hours of the day. The fortunate part was that this meant the line in the cafeteria was almost non-existent. It took him only a minute to finish picking out his breakfast – he went simple, a hashbrown and a cup of peaches – and paying at the register, and then he turned to look around and decide where to sit.

"Hey! Hey, Danny! Danny Fenton! Hey, over here!"

The now-familiar voice got the attention of nearly every student in the cafeteria, but Mabel Pines didn't seem to care. She just continued smiling over at Danny, waving her hand so hard she may as well have been trying to guide a plane onto a landing strip. She was wearing one of those sweaters again, he noticed, this one a bright green dotted with daisies, and Dipper was beside her on the bench, head ducked down under his cap, chewing on a pen and staring at a book in front of him, which Danny was coming to recognize as his signature posture.

Although he would have preferred to have found somewhere to sit by himself, there was no way he could convincingly pretend that he hadn't heard or seen Mabel calling him over, so, trying to keep the resignation off his facial expression, he strode to their table and set his tray down across from her.

"Hi, Danny!" she greeted him, far too energetically for so early in the morning. "Been a while, right? Well, okay, two days, but still. Hey! I think we have the same lunch block as well! I'm pretty sure I saw you in the cafeteria yesterday too, but you were already sitting and one of the other girls in freshman chorus wanted me to sit with her so I didn't stop by and say hi then, but I probably should have, huh? Anyway, hi! How've you been?"

"Uh… been good," Danny answered. As he started on his own breakfast, he glanced at her tray. It was scattered with chocolate muffin wrappers, a few loose frosted Cheerios, and no less than four of the paper plates on which the cafeteria served cinnamon rolls. Well, that explained the energy. Mabel was already on a sugar rush. He couldn't help but wonder how long it was going to be before the girl gave herself diabetes. "So, why are you here so early?"

"Art club's got an informational meeting before school today. You know, I was vice president of our art club back in middle school. Kind of a huge deal, you know."

"You're joining art club too?" Danny asked Dipper.

"I'm here for moral support," Dipper answered. "Also, Stan didn't want to have to make two trips." He didn't look up from his work while he replied, and Danny subtly craned his head forward, trying to glimpse what had him so focused. He was disappointed to see it was just a Sudoku puzzle.

"So, what are you here for? Club? Sport? Ooh, I know the swim team has morning practices! Are you a swimmer Danny?"

The way her eyes brightened when she asked that told Danny that she was way too excited by the prospect, so he cut her thoughts before she could imagine it further. "No, no, I'm not an athlete. I just came in early for homework help. Geometry."

"Oh. Well, hey, you know what, you can just ask Dipper for help!" Mabel said, elbowing her brother, who finally looked up and set his puzzle aside. "He's a total math kid. He actually already finished Geometry, last year, the nerd. He's actually been in math contests at the state level. They're, like, really boring, but apparently they're a big deal for some reason."

"They're a big deal for a good reason," Dipper said. "If you place in the top ten at state, you can get some huge scholarships."

"But you didn't."

Dipper's cheeks reddened. "I won regional, and I got eighteenth at state. Eighteenth best math student in California is nothing to sneeze at."

"Yeah, but it's also nothing to give a scholarship for," Mabel teased, tugging the visor of his cap down his forehead.

Danny decided to step in before the horseplay got too far. "Actually, ah, I don't need any tutoring for it. It was just a quick question for the teacher, that's all."

"You came to school this early to ask one quick question?" Dipper asked.

"Well, I didn't know how quick it would be."

"Okay, but hey, for future reference, you need math help, just ask Dipper. He does half my math homework anyway, he doesn't mind at all."

"Um, actually," Dipper said, "I kind of do mind, if we're being – "

"But I'm your sister and you love me so you're happy to it anyway, right?"

Dipper rolled his eyes. "Sure."

"Yay. So, yeah, Danny, here's your math buddy. We're gonna be over at your place after school today, actually, so if you've got homework…"

"Wait, wait, you're coming by again?" Danny asked.

"Yeah. We don't have anything after school, Dipper's been wanting to try and get some time with Ford in the lab. Oh, Ford was saying if you want to come down and join, that would be fun! Just a big old group of friends, learning about ghosts together!"

Danny stared at her, the pear he'd been biting into suddenly turning tasteless. "Oh, um, are – are you sure you want to do that?"

"Yes," Dipper said, frowning. "Why wouldn't we?"

"Well, it's, uh, it's just – you know, you're new in town, you don't want to just stay cooped up in my parents' basement helping with lab experiments, do you?"

"Kind of, yeah," Dipper answered.

Danny shook his head. "No, you know what, why don't we get out of the house for a bit, do something else? My friends and I can show you some spots to hang out around town or something. We could, uh…" He paused as he tried to think of any decent attractions in Amity Park. "I could show you the mall? Or, there's this burger place people at school like to go to."

"You know, that does sound a heck of a lot more fun," Mabel said. "Wanna do that instead, Dip?"

"I dunno, Mabel, I kinda actually wanted to talk to Ford about – "

"Oh, you can talk to Ford any time!" Danny interrupted. "But you're only new in town once."

Mabel and Dipper looked at each other, seeming for a few seconds to be having a silent conversation – Danny had heard before that twin telepathy was a thing, but he didn't know for certain – before Dipper finally shrugged and Mabel gleefully clapped her hands together. "Mall and burger place it is! For now, come on, Dipper, art club thingy's starting soon."

She collected her tray, waiting for Dipper to get up and join her in returning it. Danny decided that he was finished as well – that other half of the pear was just going to half to deal with being compost – and got up to follow along behind them. Mabel kept up a steady stream of jabbering to Dipper about all the projects she was hoping to work on in the art club all the while, not stopping until they were at the cafeteria doors about to part ways, when she finally took a break to send a "Bye, Danny! See you after school!" his way.

"Yeah, see you then," Danny said with a nod. "Bye Mabel, Dipper."

"What's up with your foot?"

Danny blinked, taken by surprise by Dipper's abrupt question. "My – what?"

"Your foot," Dipper said, gesturing toward it. "I thought you hurt it pretty bad yesterday."

Oh. Oh. Oh crap.

He had completely forgotten. Until this moment he hadn't even noticed that Dipper still had thick bandaging around his knee. Had the kid been limping? He couldn't remember, he hadn't been paying attention.

"Yeah, I, um, I thought I had," Danny stammered. "Guess it wasn't hurt as bad as I thought it was. I can barely even feel anything there now."

"You were bleeding straight through your shoe."

"… I'm anemic."

"I thought you become anemic after you bleed a lot, not the other way around."

Danny huffed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving the locks standing on end. "Look, I – I dunno what to tell you. It stopped bleeding just fine and just managed to heal up quick. I guess the foot gods were smiling on me yesterday or something."

Dipper's brows were deeply furrowed, and he opened his mouth to reply, but Mabel grabbed and tugged at his elbow and cut it off. "Dipper, not being injured is a good thing. Gift horse, you know? Now come on, I don't want to be late for art club."

"Right. Right, sorry," Dipper said, turning and let Mabel start leading him down the hall. "See you later, Danny," he called over his shoulder.

And it may just have been Danny's imagination, but it almost sounded like a warning.

So much for bonding with the kid.