Remember when I said that the wait for this chapter would be shorter? Well, I am a liar. A filthy, disgusting, pestilential liar, who should be embarrassed to tell those kinds of lies where people can hear my crazy nonsense.

If Danny had to take a guess at what Dipper Pines' room would look like based solely on what he knew about him, what he came up with would have been almost one-hundred-percent correct. Dipper's room was small, with a sloping ceiling and a single window that left the space feeling awfully cramped. The actual décor of the room was sparse, with the colors of the furniture and bedspread drab beiges and blues, but that wasn't to say the room itself was anywhere near empty. A bookshelf sat against the wall across from the door, the books stacked haphazardly in an attempt to fit them all in, and some lying in a pile on top, as if Dipper had simply given up on said attempt. His bed, unmade, took up the rest of that wall, and opposite it was wooden desk that had acquired more clutter in the week that he'd lived in this room than Danny's own bedroom desk did in months. A corkboard hung on the wall over his bed, dotted with a few newspaper clippings and pictures that looked like the sort of fare Danny had seen in his notebook, but mixed with academic ribbons, some casual photographs, and a print-out of the school's lunch calendar. The rest of the wall was covered almost floor-to-ceiling, decked in posters featuring Ducktective, Ghost Harassers, and Babba; a constellation chart; a period table; and maps of the world, Illinois, Amity Park, and – amusingly – "Sasquatch Sightings of the American Midwest."

The man of the hour himself was seated near the closet door, on top of a small stack of cardboard boxes that most likely contained personal affects that had yet to be unpacked since moving in. His shoulders were hunched, chin tucked in, knuckles gripping the edge of the top box and his legs pressed close. As if actually hiding wasn't an option so he was settling for making himself feel small instead.

Mabel led Danny and Jazz into the room without a word, shutting the door behind her and seating herself cautiously onto the edge of Dipper's bed, her eyes darting to her brother before she spared a glance over toward the desk, where Danny spotted the incriminating notebook lying on top of a stack of school books. Just seeing it left his stomach roiling, some of the anger he'd felt upon first reading it bubbling back up.

Jazz must have noticed him tense, because she put a hand on his shoulder before addressing Dipper. "Well. You probably know that my brother has some things he wants to talk to you about."

Dipper nodded silently and, like his sister, let his eyes wander over to the notebook on the desk. "I, uh… I figured."

Jazz nudged Danny's elbow, a prompt for him to get started, and he took a deep breath, unsure how to begin. He had planned out this whole conversation in his head, but that had been before Jazz had insisted on tagging along and observing, and considering the sort of language his rehearsal conversation had contained, he now had to scrap quite a bit of it under her faux-parental eye. So, instead of going straight into a rant like he'd wanted, he cut right to the chase: "Who else knows?"

Dipper blinked at him. Probably hadn't thought that would be Danny's opening line. "Who else knows… about…"

"Who else knows about your – your – your little spy log?" Danny snapped. "Who else knows about all that snooping you've been doing, about all the – the stuff with Phantom?"

"No one!" Dipper said, holding up his hands and rapidly shaking his head. "No one! Just me!" Danny scowled and gestured with his head toward Mabel. "Well, okay, Mabel knows too," Dipper relented. "But that's it, I swear! And I mean – I mean – there's nothing to know! Right? I didn't have any conclusions or anything, I was just trying to figure out – "

"You shouldn't have been trying to figure anything out! I mean, God, you show up to a town and the moment one tiny little thing happens that seems odd, you start stalking people, trying to dig up everything they – "

"I wasn't stalking you!" Dipper interrupted.

Danny scoffed and stomped across the room to the desk, snatching up the notebook and flicking through the pages. "Hey, that's – !" Dipper began, but he was cut off by Danny reading aloud, "I think Danny is starting to get suspicious about me. He was being really odd before gym class, lingering in the locker room in front of my locker, and I'm pretty sure he kept looking over at me during class itself. Dear Diary, the Fenton guy is a teensy bit odd, so I'm gonna go ahead and start researching him online and taking notes on everything he does, because that's a reasonable, non-stalker-ish response."

"Danny," Jazz said warningly. Danny just rolled his eyes and closed the notebook in his hand.

Dipper, meanwhile, had stood up from his stack of boxes, the timid apprehension on his face replaced by a scowl. "It's not stalking. Besides, I was right, wasn't I? You do have something going on. You've got some sort of weird connection with Phantom."

"No, I don't."

"Oh, so when you came in here demanding to know who I've told about you and Phantom – "

"I was making sure you hadn't started going around spreading some stupid, baseless gossip about me and Phantom. I've got enough to deal with in reality without you throwing your weird fantasy in the mix."

Dipper crossed his arms. "It's not baseless. I know there's something there, Danny. Something off. I saw you react to the ghost weapons in my backpack, I saw you miraculously heal your foot overnight, I saw you vanish out of the house, and if your school record from last year can be believed, it's a pretty regular thing for you."

"When did you see my – "

"And I saw Phantom. I analyzed photos, Danny, and you and Phantom could be twins. It's – it's all too much to just be a coincidence. Something's up, and you're not gonna convince me otherwise, so you may as well stop trying."

Danny inhaled slowly through his nose and set the notebook down on the desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose and opened his mouth to reply, but Jazz beat him to the punch. "You know what?" she said. "I think that we've gotten off to a bad start here. This really isn't a very productive way of working anything out."

Maybe she was trying to give the two boys a common enemy, Danny thought, figuring that the look of incredulous irritation Dipper was sending her was identical to his own. But Jazz was unfazed. "I mean it. I don't want to just sit here and let you two yell at each other until you've gone hoarse. So if you're done trying that, why don't we sit down and talk about what's going on like mature, rational adults. Well, not adults, but, um, adolescents."

"Want me to grab one of my stuffed animals?" Mabel piped up, raising her hand. "To use as a share bear?"

"No," Dipper and Danny both snapped at her, to which she shrugged and said, "Your loss."

"Look," Dipper said. "I don't have anything to say that I haven't said already. You – " he jabbed a finger toward Danny. " – have some kind of – some kind of link with Phantom. You could tell me what it is now and save me the time and trouble if you want. But if you don't, fine, I'll keep looking into it myself, don't care what you have to say about it."

"What's it matter to you anyway?" Danny said, voice coming out almost more like a growl than speech. "What if, for the sake of the argument, I was, what, linked to Phantom or whatever. Why should that make any difference to you? How is it your business?"

"It's a ghost. They're always my business."

"Well that's just completely not true."

"It is. God, you should get that better than anyone. Your family studies ghosts, yeah? Well, so does mine. Not just ghosts, either. Zombies and goblins and demons and – and everything. And you don't get through all that without looking into it and finding answers, which is all I'm trying to do. And it's not stalking."

Danny brought up a hand to run through his hair. "I don't care. I don't care if this is your special hobby or if invading people's privacy is your anti-drug or whatever it is you're trying to say. You stay out of it this time, all right? There's nothing in that stupid notebook of yours worth looking into. Just leave the ghost-studying to actual ghost-studiers, would you?"

Mabel let out a small chuckle and leaned up against the headboard of Dipper's bed. "Man, he sounds like Ford, doesn't he, Dip?"

"Wait, what?" Danny said, whirling to face her. "Ford? Ford knows?"

The hint of a grin that had been beginning to form on her face dropped instantly. "Oh, um, no, I just meant – "

Danny didn't want to hear it, and he turned his furious glare to Dipper. "You said you only talked about this with Mabel! You told Ford?!"

"I didn't!" Dipper said, his eyes widening as he lifted his hands again in a gesture of innocence. "She was just saying – "

"Oh my god, oh my god," Danny groaned. He pulled Dipper's desk chair out to sink into it. "Do you have any idea – ?!"

"Danny!" Jazz scolded. "They're trying to explain, let them talk."

"I don't want to hear their explanation!"

"That's not very constructive of you, Danny."

"Jazz, I will bite you."

"I didn't talk to Ford!" Dipper all but shouted, cutting into their squabbling. "I swear, I didn't say a thing to him. He doesn't know I've been looking into this. He – Ford doesn't even know I've been looking into ghosts at all. Honest."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "He doesn't even know you've been – how could he not? All that research in the notebook, you did all that without him noticing?"

"No. No, most of that is, um, old. From before we started staying with Ford and Stan. And, uh, the rest, yeah, I – I did it without him noticing."

"What's the point anyhow?" Danny asked. "He's, like, a paranormal investigator for a living, isn't he? It's not like he would have a problem with someone investigating the paranormal."

Dipper dropped the gaze that he'd done such a good job of maintaining all this time, suddenly seeming to find his shoes more interesting to stare at. "It's complicated," he muttered.

"Oh, that's real nice. You want answers from me, you won't take no for an answer, but when I ask you something – "

"It is complicated," Mabel said. "Honestly, we don't even completely get his thought process either. He used to be fine with Dipper and me getting into that sort of stuff, but there was this incident thingy last year and I guess he kind of was guilty about it? And he decided he didn't want us to have to face stuff like that again or something, so he made all these safety rules, doesn't want us doing anything until after he's declared it safe. But he still wants keep up with the magic-y things himself, so he's still studying them, and it's getting all tricky because we're staying with him and Stan because – well, that's sort of a long story, but anyway I guess he's okay with us being around the stuff so long as we don't try and be involved with it? So, yeah, Ford doesn't know about Dipper's research."

Dipper nodded toward her and looked back at Danny, as if he thought that whatever she had said explained everything. It hadn't. In fact, it just left Danny completely confused, and he didn't know what part of it he should question first. He eventually went with, "What sort of incident thingy?"

Mabel and Dipper shared a look between them. "It's… complicated," Mabel answered.

Apparently that was the Pines family motto.

Danny took a deep breath. Fine. He didn't have the time now to go into their family troubles or Ford's hangups or anything of the sort now anyhow, and if he wanted to later, he could always find a way to get info (and it would be awfully hypocritical of Dipper to be at all bothered by his prying if he did). For now, he just didn't want to get further off track. "So – so, bottom line, Ford doesn't know about any of the, ah, the things you've been finding, right?"

"I haven't said a word," Dipper said. He still frowned deeply, but his brows had relaxed enough that he now looked more curious than suspicious. "But why are you so concerned about Ford?"

"I'm not."

"I'm not an idiot, Danny." He folded his arms back over his chest. "What have you got to be worried about when it comes to Ford?"

"Now, Dipper," Jazz said. "Danny has the right to keep that between himself and Ford."

"Fine," Dipper said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "Then I'll ask Ford instead."

Danny stared at him. "You – you said you weren't going to tell Ford about anything. Because you weren't supposed to be looking into it in the first place."

"I said I haven't told Ford anything," Dipper corrected him. "Not that I won't. If it's something so bad that you want this badly to hide it, though, I think it's worth running the risk of getting grounded for a month." Danny opened his mouth, ready to forget about his decision to refrain from use of watershed language, but Dipper cut him off by adding, "Unless you'd rather just tell me now."

It was quite possible that steam actually came out of Danny's ears at that point. "You, Dipper Pines, are a rotten little child, you know that?"

"I've been called worse."

Danny sighed and looked over to Jazz, who lifted her hands in a helpless shrug. Dipper really didn't seem to be leaving him with any options here.

"That will depend on what – "

"He swears," Mabel interrupted, ignoring the look Dipper shot her. Her own eyes had gone round, and she seemed just as interested in what Danny was about to say as her brother was.

Good enough. Danny took a deep breath. "All right. Fine. You were right. About me and Phantom being connected. Phantom's… my twin brother."

Dipper just rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh. So that's why your foot healed, huh? You just went and swapped limbs with your brother?"

"… Phantom is my genetic clone, created to be an organ donor."

"Danny."

"Phantom is a figment of my – "

"Danny is Phantom!" That was Jazz this time, and if the Pines twins hadn't believed her right when she blurted it out, the murderous look Danny gave her confirmed it. "What?" she snapped at Danny. "You know full well he was going to figure it out eventually, especially if he went and got Ford on board, and you weren't going to tell him. Cards are on the table now. And I hope we can count on your discretion," she added toward Dipper and Mabel.

Dipper was frozen in place, as if stunned by the revelation. On the other hand, Mabel's eyes had lit up, and she was staring at Danny with all the enthusiasm of someone watching a particularly instense acrobatics act. "Are you serious?!" she cried. "You're – oh, I should have guessed! I heard a couple people call Phantom 'Danny Phantom' and I actually remember thinking, ha, now isn't that a funny little coincidence! But you're actually the same person?! So Phantom's, like, sort of a superhero, isn't he? Is this your secret identity, then? Which came first, Fenton or Phantom? Or have you always just bounced between the two? Was there ever a ghost-baby version of Phantom? Hey, Dipper, you read comic books, how come you didn't guess that they were the same person?"

Still looking dazed, Dipper hesitantly shook his head. "Because it – it's not possible."

"Dude, you just told me you've dealt with zombies and goblins before," Danny said. "Are you really in the position to be calling anything impossible?"

"No, no, it's – even with the laws of the paranormal universe being taken into account, it doesn't make sense," Dipper said, knocking his hat askew as he reached under it to run a hand through his hair. "The ghosts in Amity Park, they're technically demons, right? So you can't be both human and ghost, human and demon. You can only originate from one dimension. That's – that's just basic physics."

"You know about the ghost-demon thing?" Danny asked. "I thought Ford wasn't letting you in on any of his ghost research."

"He didn't, I looked at his lab notebook while he was sleeping."

"… So have you just, like, never even heard of privacy, or – ?"

"Look, I don't know if maybe you're thinking of just some type of possession-type deal that hasn't been thoroughly explored, or maybe there's some kind of ghost-imprinting thing that I never knew about, but bottom line is, there's no way you can be both Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom at once. It just doesn't make sense."

With a huff, Danny stood up from the desk and crossed his. "Fine, you don't believe me? Then believe this. I'm going ghost."

That familiarly powerful, icy feeling swept over Danny's body, starting at his middle and spreading over his head and feet in two thick white halos, until Phantom stood in the middle of Dipper's bedroom, arms still defiantly crossed, the snowy hair of Phantom replacing the pitch-dark of Fenton and a soft glow about him sealing the fact that this form was no longer human. Dipper's face instantly went several shades paler. Mabel squealed softly and looked about ready to explode from pure, euphoric excitement.

"Same guy. Ta-da."

"But – but how did – " Dipper spluttered. "It doesn't make sense, with the – the physics, it doesn't – how – how?"

"Dunno," Danny answered. "I'm not a scientist."

"But Ford is!" Mabel said. "Maybe he can figure out what – "

"No."

"No?"

"No. Absolutely not. I've heard the sorts of things he says about ghosts, like they're lab mice put in the world purely to satisfy his curiosity. And on top of that, he's working with my parents."

Dipper frowned. "Why is that a bad thing?" he asked. "Wouldn't your parents help make sure he's careful and tactful about the whole thing, if that's what you're worried about." And at Danny's silence, he continued, "Wait, your parents do know about this, right? Well, oh, stupid question, they're ghost experts, of course they know."

"They're ghost hunters."

Silence, and then Dipper said, "Hang on, Ford's said all this time that they're scientists, like him."

"They are," Danny replied. "They're scientists and hunters. And guess which one comes first."

"Well – well, still, this is Uncle Ford," Mabel said. "He can get a little over-eager when it comes to things he's studying, but, I mean, if we explained it all, and he met Phantom, I'm sure there wouldn't be any problems."

"He's not some sort of mad scientist," Dipper added.

"I'm not saying he is," Danny said through a sigh. "But are you going to tell me that every one of those creatures and monsters he's dealt with in the past, he's studied simply by giving them a polite interview?"

"Well, no, but – "

"And do you not think that working shoulder-to-shoulder with two scientists whose life goals are to rip every ghost they meet apart molecule by molecule may have colored his opinion of ghosts?"

"Ford's not – "

"And I'm still not sure I can even trust you to keep this wraps. So, do you honestly think that you can say with one-hundred-percent certainty that Ford would not pose any risk to keeping this information away from ghost hunters or government scientists or Ghost Zone criminals or my parents, all of whom have already tried they're damnedest to kill me?"

"I'm – I'm sure," Dipper said, although his wrinkled brow and his failure to meet Danny's gaze suggested otherwise.

"One hundred percent sure?" Danny prompted.

"… Ninety-nine."

"Not good enough."

"But what if – "

He was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door. Danny immediately transformed back into his human self before Mabel called, "Come in!"

The knob turned and Stanley leaned in through the doorway. It seemed that since Danny and Jazz had arrived, Stanley had thought to get dressed in a way befitting having company, although the suit, complete with shoulder pads and a string tie, was a bit much. "Food's ready. You two plannin' to stay for dinner?" he asked the Fentons. "Made sloppy joes."

"Sure, we'd love to," Jazz said with a nod before Danny had time to reply. "We'll be down in a minute."

"All right, but hurry it up," Stanley said. "The pig's already managed to sneak some, and I'll be damned if I waste any more quality beef by lettin' that thing have it. Plus, you know, seems too close to cannibalism for my comfort."

"We're coming," Mabel said, and Stan nodded and left the room.

"So now we're staying for dinner?" Danny asked Jazz, glaring at her.

Jazz simply nodded. "It would have been rude to say no. Besides, I'm hungry. Mediating can take a lot of energy."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever, we'll stay. And this conversation isn't over," he added to Dipper as the latter crossed in front of him to reach the door.

"Didn't think it was," Dipper answered, leaving the door open behind him as he left the room and started downstairs.