Sorry for taking so long to update. School's been hectic. Anyways, on with the story!

"You must be my cousin Danny."

Danny laughed and said, "Uh, yeah. My name's Danny."

They shook hands and the girl introduced herself. "My name is Jazz. Nice to meet you."

There was an awkward silence until Danny thought of something and sighed lightly, which Jazz caught.

"Something wrong?"

Danny looked at her and gave her a slightly tired look and said, "I got homework I barely understand."

Jazz smiled and offered to help him, which he was more than happy to accept, getting his homework from downstairs and going back up to the guest bedroom where Jazz was waiting, a smile on her face as she began to help her cousin do his homework.

Hours passed and finally the two finished. Both felt exhausted, Danny having to get caught up almost completely.

"Sometimes I dislike that teacher," Jazz said with a sigh. Mr. Lancer wasn't only an overweight teacher who used lame phrases from the '80s or earlier, still thinking they were cool and kids today used them, which no one does anymore—not even those from those time periods—but Mr. Lancer had a tendency to make sure his students kept their grades up, including making new students catch up with the curricular faster than most other teachers.

This meant that even though Danny had a couple of weeks to catch up on most of the subjects, he had only about a week at the most to catch up in English, which just so happened to not be one of Danny's strongest subjects.

The two sighed and Danny got up to put his finished homework away and thanked Jazz for her help. Jazz smiled and right before she left to go downstairs, she heard her mom yell up to them about dinner being ready.

"Oh, perfect timing. Dinner's ready," Jazz grumbled with a hint of sarcasm. Danny wasn't sure why his cousin seemed a bit down at the idea of dinner. Little did he know that he was going to find out what made dinner so unappealing to Jazz.

DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP

"Uh, is the food supposed to glow?" Danny asked quizzically. He studied it and had a feeling it wasn't, by the look of disgust on Jazz's face. She was leaning away from her plate with her arms crossed, trying to look tough as she stuck her nose up and away from the food, obviously refusing to eat it.

Danny was about to tell her something, when she fell off her chair. She had been leaning so far over that she was on the edge of her seat and inching closer and closer to the edge where she would fall off. Just as she had now.

"Um, I was going to say something like, 'Jazz, you're about to fall off your chair,' but it seems I was too late." Danny snickered and Jazz glared at him as she got up, brushing herself off, and sat down on the chair. This time, however, instead of scooting away from the glowing food, that didn't naturally glow, she pushed the plate away from her and sat there for a few minutes before sighing.

She got up and went to the refrigerator to fix herself a snack or maybe even dinner. Danny watched Jazz as she got up and went to the refrigerator, then turned back to look at his glowing food. It was glowing green, which didn't look like it was supposed to, and with Jazz's reaction, he wasn't sure if he wanted to try it.

"Aw, come on, Danny. At least try it!" Maddie said, hoping Danny would at least try it first before he said he didn't like it, unlike Jazz who assumed it wasn't good and didn't try it at all. Danny sighed and gulped. The least he could do was try it, and if it tasted bad, then he could honestly say he didn't like it.

Maddie watched as Danny took the fork and hesitantly dug it into the chicken-like food, took a small glowing piece on the fork, and put it into his mouth.

At first Danny expected it to taste horrible, something to spit out in a hurry, to wash it down with something to get the taste out his mouth...but it didn't. In fact, his face lit up as he savored the taste of the glowing chicken. He finished that bite and went for more, taking more small pieces and finishing them.

Finally he felt full, though overall he didn't eat much, unlike Jack who ate almost all of it, but he liked the dinner because it tasted like something from home.

Danny's expression turned from happy to sad in all about two seconds. He missed his home, his friends, and the small amount of family he had, but soon a small amount of hate could be seen in his eyes as he was reminded of his father, the reason he fled to stay with his aunt and uncle.

Maddie noticed this and asked with a slight tint of worry in her tone, "Is everything okay, Danny?" He looked up, barely able to hide his hate, and nodded, making his mad expression look sad.

He sighed and got up and walked over to his aunt. He came up from behind and gave her a friendly hug and whispered in her ear, "Thanks for taking me in."

Maddie smiled and said, "No problem, Danny. Glad to have you with us. You're always welcome here."

Danny smiled and decided to go up to bed, pondering on whether he would be safe out here. There was no doubt his father would send someone to look for him. Heck, he may even send a bunch of his employees to search for him. But for now, Danny wanted to relax while he could, deciding to worry about that if and when the time came.

Please RxR!