Danny ran a hand through his hair in frustration again. It was dusk and he was sitting at his computer desk, pouring over at least three open books. He would write something down now and then before putting his pen down and running his hands through his hair or rubbing his temples. There was so much work to catch up on, and he just couldn't seem to focus. The information seemed to be swimming around in his head, but in a disorderly jumble, so he couldn't use it. He couldn't concentrate on what he was reading either. He would read a line over and over and still not manage to comprehend it's meaning.

He couldn't afford this, he had to get this work done, and it had to be done right, or Lancer would fail him. He desperately did not want to repeat a year. But the stressing out about it made it even harder… and what was more, he always had that distracting niggling anxiety somewhere at the back of his brain. It was driving him mad. He tried once more to read the second paragraph in his History book, but sighed and gave up in failure. He rested his elbows on the table and stuck his face in his palms, eyes closed. He put pressure on his temples with his forefingers. It also didn't help that he had a nagging little headache he couldn't seem to shake off.

Danny's thoughts began to drift. He had a horrible vision of Lancer failing him. Tuck and Sam where in the grade above him, they didn't want to hang with him as much. No one in the year below who he had joined respected him. He was a laughing stock, and now Dash's prime target. He was running down a hallway, and Dash was chasing him with a Lasso. It got around his neck and Danny struggled, choking. Dash cackled like Sylvester Screech. Danny looked up; his mother was standing over him. He was strapped to one of Screech's test tables. Danny called for his mother's help, but she merely smiled and held something up in her hand. Danny saw it was one of the remotes for the collar and cuffs. She pressed the button…

"Danny?"

Danny Jerked out of his sleep, breathing hard and drenched in cold sweat. He had fallen asleep… that had been a dream… or more, a confused replay of memories, mixed up in his head like the work he was trying to do.

"Danny? Are you ok?" it was Jazz. She came into the room and peered at him anxiously. Danny looked around quickly, running a still bandaged hand through his totally messed up hair distractedly. "Yea, I'm fine… just fell asleep… bad dream…"

He said shortly, trying to compose himself.

"Oh, ok… well, Mom told me to come get you, dinner's ready… I'll tell her you're coming." Jazz said, peering at him with concern.

"Thanks". Danny said. She left the room; seemingly satisfied he didn't have a fever or something.

Danny was not as phased by the dream as he might have been otherwise. He had been having similarly themed nightmares every night now. He didn't get much peaceful or restful sleep. Which was probably also not helping him with his work. Danny stood, wiping the sweat off his face with his sleeve. He limped over to his dresser and picked up a brush. He ran it hurriedly and un-attentively through his hair, ignoring the pangs of pain when he came across knots. He glanced in his mirror and frowned slightly. He looked sickly, there were bags under his eyes and he needed a haircut. He sighed and put his brush down. He would have to try and get an early night. But if he had insomnia like he had last night, it wouldn't do him much good.

He sighed heavily and limped over to the door. He could smell meatballs as he made his way towards the kitchen, and sure enough, when he got there that's what his mother was dishing out onto the five plates arranged around the table… wait, five?

"Err, mom, why are there-"

"Hello Daniel. Good to see you're back. And I hear you've been keen to catch up on your study." Danny turned around to see none other than Mr. Lancer enter the kitchen from the Living room, led by Jack. He was smiling in the stern way only a teacher can, but his expression seemed to change and soften slightly when he saw Danny's face and noticed how ill he seemed. All Danny could do was blink in bewilderment.

"Sorry sweetie, I forgot to tell you, we invited Mr. Lancer over for dinner to discuss helping you catch up." His mother explained kindly as she finished dishing up Dinner and they all sat down. "Yea, and we have to discuss the kinds of Ghost protection we'll be sending you back to school with, and the stuff we're going to install at the school, to guard against any more spectral kidnappings!" Jack exclaimed jovially as he sat at his usual place and started his dinner. Danny plonked himself down in a chair next to Jazz and exchanged a glance with her. She gave him a cautiously optimistic grin and knowing look. Mr. Lancer sat down on Danny's other side. Danny felt awkward and was very conscious of trying to eat neatly. It was hard, because he was hungry, and would have liked nothing more than to wolf down the delicious meal before disappearing to his room again. Apart from anything, he had been craving red meat since he got back, and he was torn between keeping track of the conversation, savouring the meal, but also eating without looking stupid doing it.

"So, Daniel. Your Mother and Father have told me about your ordeal. How many of these ghosts exactly did you say kidnapped you?" Lancer asked him, trying to be casual. Danny hastily swallowed his mouthful of mashed potato. He frowned slightly, "Uh… well… I didn't get much time to count… but, I'd say there was about 20."

"U-huh… that seems like an awful lot of ghosts just to capture one person." Lancer said, again trying to sound more casual and less skeptical.

Maddie looked nervously to Jazz and they both looked expectantly at Danny, who was still frowning. "It's not like I didn't try and fight them. And they're ghosts, I don't know how great they are at math. It didn't take them long to knock me out." Danny replied, a little annoyed, but his voice had dropped a little on the last few words. There was a pause as everyone continued eating politely… except Jack… who was eating as eagerly as ever, blissfully unaware of the tension around him. Danny continued to eat daintily, having the distinct impression he was under interrogation.

Lancer continued to enjoy his meal like any polite guest would before he suddenly shot another question at Danny, this time with a blatantly suspicious air.

"What was it like in this… 'Ghost zone'?"

Danny put down his knife, resigned to explaining himself to Lancer. "Its Cold, dark, there are lots of doors hanging in the middle of nowhere, chunks of debris from I don't know where just floating around, and buildings and stuff… ghost dwellings... "

"Right. And how did you find all this out if you were knocked out?" Lancer asked crisply with a smile, as though he had caught Danny out.

"I saw it all when I escaped and I was finding my way back." Danny replied calmly before he took a mouthful of sliced carrot and ate it calmly.

So Lancer thought he was lying, and he was trying to catch Danny out by making him slip up in his story. Danny wasn't surprised, nor was he worried, but he was annoyed. He hoped Lancer was not going to dig too deep, because there were some questions he just didn't want to answer… like

"Why exactly did they kidnap you, did they mention what their intentions were?"

Danny groaned internally. Here we go.

"They wanted to do tests on me." Danny said shortly, playing with his mashed potato distractedly. "They were scientists, these ghosts. The leader… his name was Sylvester Screech. He said something about me being important to his research. And they had kidnapped others… but the others were ghosts. We were locked up. I didn't know the others were there until Danny Phantom broke us out. We all split up and when I got out, I hid until the guards at the scientist's lab stopped looking near where I was. Then I made my way back…"

"But you were knocked out when they took you there, how did you know the way back?" Lancer asked smoothly, again determined to trip Danny up. Danny merely forced himself not to roll his eyes and replied "I didn't, but one of the ghosts who had been imprisoned by the scientists too helped me. We ran into each other. His name was Wulf." Danny finished his sentence resolutely with a mouthful of beans, which he chewed with great determination. Lancer was silent for a moment, but Danny was aware that he was staring at him. Probably trying to think of another means to catch Danny out. Just as he seemed to happen upon an idea and opened his mouth, Maddie cut him off. "Mr. Lancer, if you think Danny is lying, you should just come out and say it."

Jack finally looked up, bewildered. "He thinks Danny is lying?" He said, sounding non-plused and a little incredulous. Lancer put on a gracious demeanor. "Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, I know you are particularly specialized in the field of the Paranormal, but seriously… a 'Ghost Zone'? Ghost scientists kidnapping a 14-year-old boy for some kind of ghost research? And Daniels apparent ability to return to us so suddenly from another dimension… I'm sorry, but this all seems a bit far-fetched to me. And as you know, Daniel has been struggling at school. Some teenagers cannot handle the pressure of high school if they are not mature enough for the year grade they are learning at. It's a common occurrence that such teens will simply run away from these problems, and in many cases they regret it and try to make wild stories and excuses to cover their mistake and avoid trouble." Lancer said coolly. Danny was now frowning at him, knife and fork down and half eaten dinner forgotten.

"Mr. Lancer, the existence of the ghost zone is quite irrefutable and far from a 'wild story'. If you'll remember when the ghost king attacked Amity Park the entire town was taken into the ghost zone." Maddie said, unable to hide the fact that she was slightly riled herself.

"Be that as it may," Lancer continued, unfazed, "Daniel could easily be using it as an excuse, the perfect means of covering up his absence… a trip to the ghost zone where he was conveniently locked away by ghosts who wanted to use him as an experiment. A few bandages and a poor appearance, many parents would be so distraught they might not want to believe it was only an act to stay out of trouble."

That was it. Danny had had enough. Lancer was reminding him forcefully of Maddie in his last interrogation, unwilling to believe what was true without irrefutable proof. And Danny was going to have to give it to him.

"Mr. Lancer, look at this, and you tell me I'm lying. Tell me they didn't do it to me, because I'd like to believe you…" Danny said frustratedly, roughly pulling the bandages off his left wrist, exposing the still very raw looking, painful burns the cuffs had left on him. Lancer stared at it with a look of total shock. The silence stretched on until Danny, whose expression was unrestrainedly surly, re-wrapped the bandage over his wrist. Lancer it seemed was totally lost for words. And personally, Danny hoped he was squirming with embarrassment, he found a vindictive pleasure in Lancer's discomfort. He had dug himself quite a hole to lie in, and Danny wasn't about to throw him a lifeline.

Jazz went back to eating pleasantly as though nothing had happened, also pleased with Danny's having shut Lancer up. She was certainly not impressed with his approach to the situation. He would make a terrible guidance counselor.

Eventually, Jack saved Lancer from his pit of shame by bringing up the topic of ghost defense in the school. Lancer talked sheepishly the rest of the night and carefully didn't look at Danny, who ignored him and concentrated wholeheartedly on his dinner. Ignoring Jazz and his Mother's attempts to make eye contact with him, Danny finished his Dinner. But before he could disappear upstairs the way he had planned, his mother brought up a topic he had actually been meaning to ask himself before he had even known Lancer had come.

"So, Mr. Lancer, when do you think it would be ok for Danny to go back to school?"

Danny was scraping his scraps into the bin, but he stopped to listen.

"Well, Mrs. Fenton, I think that's up to you and Daniel. When he feels well enough to come back, that will be just fine. He won't have to worry about any of the missed assessments, I'll schedule some extra lesson time and give him work equivalent to what he's missed." Lancer replied politely, apparently still trying to make up for his earlier false accusations. Danny stayed for desert, only to hear what kind of protection exactly his father was planning on sending him to school with. Most of it was standard… specter deflector, Fenton Fisher, Fenton Flares (a new invention designed to blind and disorientate ghosts for about five minutes so they could be captured… something Danny had made a mental note not to use unless he wanted to incapacitate himself) and of course an ecto-gun, which Mr. Lancer was a little more concerned about. It wasn't too long before Lancer left. He seemed a lot less keen now to hang around long, which Danny was not sorry for.

Danny retreated to his room. So he could go back to school whenever he felt well enough… that would be as soon as possible, he decided. He closed his door and limped across his dark room to his window. The only source of light in his room was his computer screen, the Fenton-works sign outside and the slim sickle moon. Danny went to close his window against the slight chill breeze blowing in. He looked up at the feint moon on the horizon. A sudden, violent pain stabbed his insides. Danny grasped his stomach with a small gasp of pain. But as soon as it had come, the pain receded.

What was that about? Danny wondered. But as the pain did not return, he shrugged it off as his body telling him it was tired of red meat.

Danny tried again to do some History work, but his mind still refused to be forthcoming with information, so he gave up and turned to bed early. He got to sleep surprisingly fast, and although it was long lasting sleep, it was anything but peaceful.