AN: My chapters are severely catching up to me, so I can't promise the next one will be on time. This one doesn't have a lot of action *coughnonecough*, but there will be at least one chapter in the future which will have only action. Hope you enjoy~

Four hours.

That's how long they had been going at it with how much progress? Oh, that's right. Zero. Jazz had thought she was making a bad decision in waiting to test her particular hypothesis, but never thought it would take this long for the other route. She had gotten out two sentences when her mother first began objecting, unwilling to accept the truth being shoved into her mind. This was supposed to be the easiest truth, yet she refused it. Her son's obsession was to protect. She completely understands that ghosts have obsessions with Danny being no exception, but point blank refused to believe his was protecting, bringing up every single instance which caused her to believe otherwise. At the moment, she's going on about another one of them.

"-remember that as well as I do, Jasmine! How can you say his obsession is protecting when Valerie could've been in that suit? How could he have known she wasn't until he actually saw her? I mean-"

"Mom..."

"-and was careless ab-"

"Mom!"

"-can't be his obse-"

"MOM!" Her mother huffs at being interrupted, but does stop her rant. "Thank you. Now, I need you to listen to me and believe it, okay? For that particular example, he knew for a fact she wasn't because she had been talking to Technus, the ghost who was taking over the suit at the time, before he was able to change and start fighting the suit. You two have obviously never seen him when a bystander gets hurt while he's fighting. He flips out and starts fighting even harder but safer. He's the type who's willing to take a kill shot for a complete stranger. Now, I didn't want to do this until you two understood what his obsession is, but I have no other choice. I have to tell you about... the times he's tried to split his ghost and human halves." Jazz knew she had said the ending in a slight rush, but it was theatrics time. She wouldn't lie or even bend the stories. The way she told them didn't have to be normal though.

Her sentence gives the reaction she suspected and hoped for. Her mother's eyes flew wide, and her dad (who had been falling asleep since his wife was saying everything he had thought of worthy of mention) straightened up.

"What do you mean? He can't have tried to do that on his own. It would've been far too dangerous to even attempt it!" The elder red-head did not look as sure as she sounded.

"Fine, I won't tell you, then since you won't believe them to be true. Actually, why am I even wasting my breath at all on you two? You've run your only son out of the house because you're so biased!" Silence followed her outburst as Jazz let some of the emotion she had been somewhat bottling spill out. Just enough for them to see it. It worked. Her mother automatically extended her arms toward her to comfort her then looked at her own hands and pulled back, following it with a sigh. Jazz smiled inside. Her psychology was working better than she expected it could on her intelligent mother.

"Alright. I promise neither of us will interrupt you from now on. Tell us the stories you think are necessary to understand... even if you don't think we'll believe them to be true." Jazz did let a small smile on her face this time then launched into the story of Danny splitting himself with the Fenton-Catcher. The re-telling took a small while, but the confusion on her mother's face throughout it told Jazz she took more of it in store than Maddie had thought she would.

"So... neither part of him was right? Well... how do we not know it wasn't just a fluke, Sweetie? Maybe it would be possible the Catcher short-circuited."

"Ah, ah, ah, I said the stories of the times. He's had similar things happen more than once. One of the other times you were actually the only one with him and involved Vlad-" This re-telling took even longer despite the story being shorter. Her mother interrupted this one a lot, but Jazz had expected this as she was mainly wondering how she had not noticed all of this occurring. Jazz could see a hidden layer of pride in her mother and her oddly silent father when they reached the part where Danny made his clever plan. That sliver of positive emotion assured Jazz of how her plan was working. It almost was. If the last story didn't do it, though, Jazz wasn't sure what she could do. She hoped Danny wouldn't be upset with her for telling it, though. It was a banned subject that Jazz had only learned entirely of the event when Danny needed to tell someone about it after a month of constant nightmares. She fruitlessly hoped she wouldn't have to tell the story, but it seemed it would be the only way to convince them.

She finally wrapped up the tale of Danny outsmarting Vlad and let them stew for a few moments, waiting for a telling response on where they stood.

"I- I guess that all makes sense, when you think about it..."

"But?" Jazz pressed. She could sense there was one coming and didn't like it.

"Well, you said Vlad could still use some of his powers while under the influence of the belt. What if neither weapon caused any change mentally, even if a ghost were to be melded in?" she questioned. Jazz groaned and drooped over across her lap, allowing herself this sign of emotion this time.

"Mom! The Plasmius Maximus shorted out powers completely! Danny told me he couldn't even touch his ghost core under its effects! That was the only time he couldn't even touch it while it was still inside him, ever!"

"What do you mean "touch his ghost core", Jazzerincess?" her dad asked, finally speaking after his long silence.

"Ghosts aren't built the way we are. They don't need physical hearts because they aren't alive. Instead, the have ghostly cores, which is the center of their powers and part of their consciousness. It's seems to just be where the purest form of their ectoplasm exists along with portions of sentience. With Danny, he has a core yet still has his heart. I think his core is actually in his heart or his heart is both of them at the same time. That's why his morph halos emanate from his chest unless he wants otherwise." There's a moment of silence as that soaks in. Jazz was honestly a bit surprised her parents didn't know about ghostly cores. Then again, they had in fact followed the philosophy of "shoot now, ask questions later". Better than Valerie's of never asking questions, but not by much.

"So.. Danny couldn't feel Phantom at all?" Jazz almost let out a frustrated noise. It wasn't working as well as she thought if her mom was still calling Danny by "Phantom".

"Danny couldn't feel his powers at all under the effects. Everything he did was his own thinking. Did he seem any different through all of that? You were the one with him." She shakes her head.

"Alright, then. Now, this last story... I don't really want to tell you guys, but I think I have to now. Because it's about... Danny's worst enemy and hardest fight." (AN: I'm not going through the entire story, so don't worry about having to read it again.)

"With who? Vlad?" asks her dad.

"No, Jack, it's got to be Pariah Dark, the Ghost King, right?" Her mom didn't seem quite so sure, though.

"No. Though that fight was really hard on Danny and almost killed him, there was one worse. In fact, the only reason any of us, you guys, me, Sam, Tucker, and Danny, are here right now is because of an intervening time ghost. You see, this fight wasn't like any other fight he's ever faced. This fight... he fought himself."

Confusion was immediately obvious, and it didn't lessen throughout the entire tale. Jazz told this one slower, taking almost two hours to explain the occurrence with a few minor breaks in between to use the restroom and get dessert as the whole session had gone late into the night with dinner intervening a while ago. They were up to a total of just under eight hours of trying to convince her parents to begin to believe in Danny's honesty.

Once the tale had ended, the silence was much longer and more prominent than before. The only noises in the house were the usual ones from the air conditioner and occasionally a louder beep from the basement as most were contained from being too loud. The louder ones were ghosts popping up from natural portals, but Jazz had asked Valerie to capture any that bothered the town for the night until Dani got to the house in the morning.

The silence finally cracked as Jazz spoke.

"So... do you guys get it, yet?" She had been analyzing their every movement and expression, but couldn't gather the conclusion even with her abilities. It takes another moment before her father responds.

"Jazz, have you thought of the possibility that Danny and Phantom can be separated because they aren't the same person?" Jazz's jaw dropped, and her mother's eyes widened then began to harden again. Jazz had been trying to play on what she knew would help her mother see the truth and not as much on her father because the large man usually went along with whatever his wife chose. Jazz never expected him to be the one who thought of anything that could undo all her work thus far. The thought was well reasoned (though still wrong), and Jazz could prevent no physical evidence it was not true. All she could do was try convincing them how she just knew her brother was in fact just her brother.

"Dad... how can you say that? How can you even think that after all you've found out?! Danny wasn't born like this. That's how they can come apart! He pretty much has ectoplasm welded onto and into his DNA, but if something not built into DNA initially shows up, there is a way to take it back off though it's not always for the better. In this case, it ISN'T! Think of it like- like- like a book! Yeah, a handmade book! You make the book, but then decide to add on more pages to the end of it. Those pages will never be part of the original, no matter what and some won't like it no matter what because the story didn't need it to stay the same. Now say you add details and pages throughout the story, changing the original a bit so the new parts can fit correctly. Then they combine to make something extremely similar to the original, but updated with hidden details from before now shining. That's what Danny is like." Jazz stopped the pacing she had begun, facing her parents to declare the end of her analogy. It wasn't very solid, but it was better than the first idea of an analogy she had which was cancer.

Her mother was looking not quite as emotionally hard as she was a few hours ago, but Jazz could tell most of her progress tonight had been lost. She groaned internally.

"You know what? Just forget everything for the night. Everything I've said, everything you've said. Even the fact that your only son has run away from home because you guys can't accept him. Just screw it all. I'm going to bed." Jazz stomped upstairs to her room, not looking back to see her parents. After slamming her bedroom door for good measure, she flopped onto her bed and picked up Bearbert. "I seriously should've considered a career in acting. I didn't even know I could pretend to be a typical teenager. I just followed what Danny used to sometimes when he had to escape and go ghost."

She sighed and got ready for the night. Tomorrow would be Friday, so Danny wouldn't miss too much, but she still would need to go around and ask his teachers for his work. It wouldn't do for everyone to find out Danny had ran away because of his parents, and Sam and Tucker made up for class time missed before school so patrol could begin without Danny (who did his after school).

Now in her pajamas, she shut off her light and curled up with Bearbert, snuggling with him for the first time in a while since she usually set him on the shelf. She stared out the window, trying to relax enough to drift off.

"I'm trying. I love you, Little Brother. Stay safe wherever you are." She slowly dropped off into a rather restless sleep.

Just to bug you guys since this isn't much of a cliffhanger, I'll let you in on a secret. Next chapter has Danny in it again~ F,F, & R!~