When Danny's mother and father finally came home – with Jazz who had been doing extra for some project after school and wished to save fuel – Danny had by then managed to convince Sam and Tucker to go home after much fussing and bargaining. He had promised to update them if anything unusual at all happened and despite his annoyance at their insistence with making sure he was alright, he was glad they did fuss. It showed they cared.

Before his family got to the house, Danny had been just lying down, trying to adjust to what had happened. He hardly believed it did, but there was an unusual sensation in his back and his emotions seemed strange, heightened, giving evidence to the fact it did. Worry and confusion was taking a stand in his mind.

His back had seemed to grow in its aching once more since lying down, and it had started to become more acute, nearly to the levels it was at previously, after it had happened. Two spots – or was it lines? – ached the most, the width being around a fist wide and maybe two fists in height (Danny had had to try to figure it out once Sam and Tucker had gone, to avoid worrying them), and the spots were a few centimeters apart and started just under his shoulder blades. While it seemed those two spots weren't centered on muscles, it seemed any other general aches on his back must have been, as the pain increased whenever Danny dared move his arm in any direction or tried to pull up his upper body. It wasn't excruciating yet, but it still felt as if Dash had used his back as a punching bag, and Danny wasn't entirely knowledgeable about how that felt. It also felt like he had pulled a muscle – a large amount of muscle.

His emotions too, they felt wrong, if wrongness was something that could be felt. They felt too strong and suffocating. Anger seemed to be lingering in the back of his subconscious, and yet he somehow felt empty at the same time. And at the forefront of his thoughts was panic.

'Would his parents find out? What was wrong with him? Should he tell them?'

And though no answers came to him, when he heard his father's loud booming voice and the slamming of the car doors, he decided to do nothing until he could consult Sam and Tucker; he didn't seem to be able to do anything anyway, to his annoyance. Perhaps they could search it on the internet or something.

After dinner – luckily his parents decided to bring pizza home from a nearby take-away, so there wasn't any ecto-food incidences – Danny went to rush to his room. His parents, it seemed, were too occupied about talking about the now turned-on portal to notice anything other than his 'teenage emotions'; they had put off eating food for over half an hour as they inspected every inch - though excluding the inside, of course - of the portal. They were planning on spending the next week preparing for going inside, they had said to their children.
"Those horrible ghosts will kill us if we don't destroy them now!" boasted Jack, to which his wife continued;
"Yes- that's why we need to get samples from them, dissect them if we can; so we can improve our weapons and defend ourselves from them. They would kill us all if we let them, like your father said," and while Jazz had waved them off, murmuring something angrily about ghosts not being real, Danny had mulled their words over in his mind, consciously but reluctantly connecting the happenings earlier - concerning the flickering of his body, and the lower temperature - to ghosts, now that his parents had brought it up. It was a ghost portal, after all. Danny had swallowed his panic, and then pushed his dinner away before slowly going up the stairs. The stress of what had happened lay upon his shoulders, and there was fear pulsing in his body making his hands slightly shake.

Even when Danny was younger, and his parents did not have the same technology as they did now, there was still a few ghosts in his childhood. The first memory he could remember was when he was around four – or was it five? – and he was playing with a long green and black, moving worm that glowed. His younger self was amazed; he had never seen such a long worm, or one with eyes! And this one also had two sharp teeth and a weird circular extension over its neck – like someone had dragged the skin and stretched it to two semicircles on it's neck - and the young boy pulled them, laughing. It also made strange hissing sounds that Danny had heard from cats before. Eventually, the worm had moved backwards then bit Danny who screamed until his parents had found him in the basement which had its door wide open and they caught the worm and put it in a cage.

Recalling that memory as Danny went up the stairs, he realized that the worm was actually a snake. And though Jazz had firmly repeated that Danny, being as young as he was, probably imagined the glow, could Danny be blamed he had a slight fear of ghosts? No. Not to mention that ghosts seemed to occupy more of his parents mind then their children, as much as they loved Danny and Jazz.

He had glowed while in front of the mirror, hadn't he? And flickered, like his parents had told him that ghosts sometimes did when they were under pressure, or weak. But he was normal now, and it was ludicrous that he was part ghost.

And denial made his thoughts backtrack to how he couldn't be a ghost, things that weren't ever described as a ghost having. His eyes had white outlining the pupil, and that wasn't typical of any ghost his parents had described. And that white-ness wasn't something that could be missed, as it glowed with a tint of blue against the outside ring of toxic green.

The stair creaked, and Danny turned around, jittery from nerves and his eyes were wide; and then he bit his lip as, once again, pain flared in his back as he tensed his muscles in preparation for… something. It was Jazz, and squinted teal eyes showed concern and suspicion in equal measure.
"I'm not as oblivious as our parents Danny; something's wrong. There's no plate in the sink, meaning you didn't have dinner when we were out, and you don't eat much when something's wrong," she tailed off, staring at Danny to encourage him to tell her what it was. As the pain faded again, he gulped, but that blankness of emotion that was hiding in his mind since the incident came to the front of his thoughts and cleared them, and for once he told a none-obvious lie.
"I went out with Sam and Tucker as soon as I got in from school; we had dinner at The Nasty Burger – don't tell mum and dad?" unfortunately, whatever had 'gifted' him with the ability to come up with quick lies didn't gift him with the ability to act, but he tried his best. Large eyes would do it, right? Jazz still looked suspicious, and tilted her head to the side as if a different perspective would reveal his secrets. Then, with a sigh, she gave up and leaned backwards slightly.
"Fine," she stated, and Danny gave a huff of relief which in turn made Jazz tense again, "but I'll be talking to you about this later." She then promptly turned away to go back downstairs, presumably to go and eat. Danny also walked away, but went upstairs, muttering about 'nosy sisters'.

~
AN: Erm, Merry Christmas?
If it's horrible and disjointed I'm sure you can guess why (given that it has been a year and a half since the last update, but hey, who's counting?)