A/N: Sorry about the late update. I had every intention of getting it up last night (which I know isn't that much earlier, but still...) but I kinda fell asleep while doing my final edit of the chatper before posting it. Now, don't start thinking that it's boring or anything, it was just a combination of me having a horrible day and being sick, so I totally crashed.

Anywho, starting this chapter there's going to be lots of information regarding Danny's disappearance and the events surrounding it being thrown at you. I just wanted to let you know that if you ever have any questions or are confused on something to please ask me and I'll try to explain it as best I can without giving too much away.

I also want to thank everyone for their amazingly awesome comments and support of this story! Again, I just want to let you guys know that your reviews and comments just brighten my day (and they did yesterday too) so thank you so so much!

Chapter Eight
Back to the Beginning

They started heading down to Danny's house while Tucker and Sam pointed out different sites, remarking on how they'd changed or in some cases remained the same while Kimberly, Noelle, and Jacob commented on places they walked past or asked the others questions about what certain things were like in their time.

Danny, however, remained silent behind them. Kimberly didn't blame him, since she figured he had a lot on his mind and it looked like her friends had gotten the hint that they shouldn't bother him with their hero worship. He looked like he was deep in thought and was probably contemplating what they were supposed to do while at his house. She fell back and started walking next to him.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked.

"What?" Danny asked, finally acknowledging her presence. "Oh, yeah, I guess." Kimberly glared at him. "Well, considering the situation, yeah, I'm fine. It's just, everything, it's so much to grasp. I mean, how would you feel if you all of a sudden found out that when you grew up you would be respected the world over not just once, but twice? Right now I'm not even respected in school! My teachers never give me a break and I get shoved into a locker everyday, and yet, all this is going to happen later. And not only that, but I'm married to my best friend, my parents are dead, I have a child somewhere, and my sister is married with kids! And on top of all that I'm also missing and quite possibly dead if we don't figure this out soon enough." He sighed. "It's just a lot to digest."

"Yeah, I guess it would be." This whole situation felt so surreal. She was walking next to Danny Fenton, listening to him talk about his life's story that she and the rest of the population had grown up hearing about. She felt awestruck as she walked beside him, the boy who would grow up to continuously save the town, and on some occasions the world, but she also was starting to see that he was just like anybody else. He smiled, joked, got worried, felt nervous and embarrassed, and generally was just a normal teenage boy.

"But what about you? How are you dealing? I know that it's really hard to find out that you're in reality half dead. Heck, it took me the better part of a year to finally come to terms with it, so are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm actually surprisingly fine. I had always had these, suspicions, about being a ghost, but my friends kept convincing me that I wasn't. I mean, I had always found all these similarities between the ghosts we'd learn about and myself, especially with, well, you. But they kept pointing out that I had a heartbeat and that I was very much alive, so I just pushed the possibility out of my mind. I guess that while I may not have put the pieces together, something inside me did. So it's like I always knew. If that makes any sense."

"No, not really. But then again, I'm a C student, so that doesn't surprise me."

Kimberly smiled. Sure she already knew that he wasn't a good student, but she felt amused hearing him say it.

"But I bet you already knew that right?" Danny asked.

"Yeah. Everyone knows almost everything about you, except for you also being Danny Phantom. Instead of hearing fantastical bedtime stories about princesses and dragons, children in this town are put to bed with stories about what either you or…you did for the town."

"Wow. That's just…weird." Then Danny's face lit up, realizing the horde of information he could receive from Kimberly. "Hey, do my grades get any better?"

Kimberly laughed. "Unfortunately no. You were…are?... oh whatever, a straight C student through high school, with the exception of Lancer's classes."

"Lancer? Are you serious?"

"Yeah. All of a sudden you just started doing really well in his classes and the two of you got really close. He still gets really depressed when he thinks about you, and it's been fifteen years."

"You know him?"

"Yeah, he's my teacher. He still teaches at the school, but only English now."

"Wow. We always knew he'd teach forever. Does he still yell out book titles?"

Kimberly giggled. "Yeah. He did that then too?"

"Oh yeah. 'Gullivers Travels Mr. Fenton! What's going on here?'" he mimicked, sending both of them into a fit of giggles. "Does he still favor the popular kids?"

"Nope. Just a while after you graduated he made a promise that he'd treat everyone equally, so that no one would get picked on unfairly again. Needless to say, I think it was inspired by you. Now, especially after you've gone missing, Lancer will do everything short of kill someone who so much as looks like he wants to shove another student in a locker."

"What? Oh that is so not fair! Why didn't he put that into effect while I was still in school instead of after I left? It would have saved a lot of time, and backaches."

"But, couldn't you just phase through the door?"

"Well yeah, when no one was around, but that still didn't prevent the pain that came from actually being shoved in it."

"Sorry, didn't think about that."

"Don't worry about it. Just a daily event in the life of Danny Fenton."

They rounded the corner and Tucker, Sam, and Danny stopped dead as they looked down their street. They started walking, amazed at how deserted the place seemed.

"What happened here?" Danny asked as they looked down at the familiar houses of their street that looked vacant for years.

"People just couldn't stand living so close to your house, too many memories…and tourists. Once you and your family went missing a few people moved because they couldn't get over it while near your house, especially since your parents still seemed to have hope that you were going to come back. Obviously it's because they knew you were Danny Phantom and that you would fight back."

"Well, good theory, except that my parents don't know that I'm part ghost."

"Really?" Noelle asked. "You never told them?"

"No. They're ghost hunters, and I'm Public Ghost Enemy Number One: not a good combination."

"I guess you're right," Kimberly stated. She had never put that connection together. All the time the Fentons were hunting the Ghost Boy they were really hunting their own son. It must've been hard on him, knowing that his own parents were hunting him.

"So, some people moved?" Sam asked. "It looks like a lot of people moved."

"Well, after you were pronounced dead and your parents went missing almost everyone packed up and left, including my parents. They say it's because they wanted to move on, but they couldn't when there were constant reminders all around them. So they moved to England."

Tucker stopped, gazing at the house in front of him. "That's my house…" Tucker stated in awe. In front of the lawn there was a plaque and a sign, the plaque commemorating that Tucker Foley lived in this house, and the sign warning of the highly powerful electrical shield that surrounded the house.

"Yeah, you moved almost immediately after Sam and Danny were officially pronounced dead, but your parents still lived here. However, after you invented Foley you bought them a house somewhere else," Kimberly explained.

"I'm really starting to get weirded out how everyone knows so much about us," Sam stated as she dragged Tucker away from his house and continued moving. "I mean, it's not like there's any real reason to know any of this information."

"Well, why do you think people know everything about movie stars?" Noelle asked.

"Good point," Sam conceded.

They finally reached Sam's house and noticed a plaque and a sign in front of her house too.

"What happened to my parents?" Sam asked in a slightly teary voice, like she was afraid to ask.

"No one really knows. Like my parents they couldn't handle it here any more and moved to…"

"France," Sam finished with a slight smile, though she had a tear in her eye. "That's good. They've always wanted to move to France." She continued walking and Danny ran to catch up to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, imparting soothing words to her while the remaining four smiled from behind.

"So they really end up together?" Tucker asked.

"Yup," Noelle answered.

"When?"

"Your junior year."

"Thank God, it's about time."

They turned the corner and all of them stopped when they finally reached Danny's house. In the front yard rested a huge plaque graced by two smaller ones, all in memoriam of the three Fentons that had mysteriously vanished. Danny stared at the house. It looked so strange, so lifeless. The FentonWorks sign no longer emitted its neon glow and no light shined through the windows like it always did in his time period. He started drifting towards the house, amazed and yet frightened of what he saw.

"Danny, don't go near the house!" Kimberly warned.

Danny snapped out of his magnetic trance and turned to look at her. "Why not? It's my house, and it's what we're here for."

"Yes, but there's an electric shield surrounding the house," Kimberly informed him. "They put it up so people would stay out; they didn't want them desecrating the house."

Danny took a stick and threw it towards the door. It stopped at the entrance to the walkway as the area around it glowed a mixture of purple and blue before the stick fell to the ground, smoking. "You've got to be kidding me. This is unbelievably insane."

"At least it's not a museum," Sam stated. The three stared at the floor. "Wait, it wasn't a museum, was it?"

"Well, they originally wanted it to be, and they actually tried, but Jazz flew down here and threatened to release all the ghosts in the Ghost Zone if they did anything of the sort," Noelle explained. "Needless to say that made them reconsider it and they just took a lot of stuff from the house and put it in the Ghost Museum. They wanted to take the Ghost Portal, but they couldn't move it."

"Ghost Museum…" Danny stated slowly.

"Maybe we got the wrong beginning. Maybe Clockwork meant like the hospital you were born in, or something like that," Tucker suggested.

"No, this has got to be the beginning. This house was the beginning of so many things; this has to be it. We just need to find some way to get inside. A stupid electric shield isn't going to stop me." Danny went ghost and turned intangible, sinking through the ground. A few seconds later he reappeared above the ground, but still on their side. "A Ghost Shield, however, will stop me."

"Argh, why would there be a Ghost Shield around your house?" Sam asked in exasperation.

"I don't know. Either my parents set it up or some stupid person put it up when they put up the electrical shield. Either way, I can't really think of a way to get in."

"Did I make this?" Tucker asked, gesturing towards the electric shield. The three of them nodded their heads. "Good," Tucker remarked as he pulled out his PDA and rolled up his sleeves with a smile "then I should know exactly how to crack it." He walked over to the security box and hooked up his PDA, trying to hack into the system.

"I knew we hung out with him for a reason," Danny remarked with a smile.

After a few minutes of patient waiting, they heard Tucker swear loudly at the security box.

"What's wrong?" Danny asked.

"The PDA's too old and has a different operating system so it can't interact with this new technology."

"In English?" Sam asked.

"My PDA's too old and I can't hack in."

Danny kicked the ground in frustration.

"Wait, I'm not done. I can't hack in, but I can reach a password screen."

"So, what good does that do?"

"Well if I set this thing up, then I would have set up the password, which means that I can possibly crack it."

"Good, then get to it."

"Right." Tucker directed his focus towards the screen while Danny started pacing. "Danny, continue doing that and you'll distract me," Tucker warned.

"Sorry." He turned invisible and continued pacing, earning a smile from the three friends and Sam and a sigh from Tucker.

"That's not what I had in mind."

"I know, but it makes both of us happy. You can keep working without distraction, and I can continue to pace," Danny's disembodied voice responded.

Finally, Tucker lowered his arms and a slight beep was heard from the security box. A dome of blue and purple veined light flashed quickly before disappearing, indicating that the shield had been shut down.

"I don't know if I should be amazed or scared," Tucker stated as he looked at his handy-work.

"What?" Danny asked, reappearing.

"Well, the password into this system is the same password I have right now."

"Really? What is it?"

"TF, too fine."

"That's dumb Tucker. Anyone who knows you would be able to guess that one eventually."

"Not if it's in Esperanto."

Danny and Sam groaned. "Well, at least it worked," Danny responded as he started walking up to the house.

Then Sam remembered. "Danny, wait!" But her warning came too late and Danny had come in contact with the Ghost Shield. It glowed green around him and shocked him before throwing him backwards into the middle of the street. He stood up and glared evilly at the house, which was putting up an extremely strong defense.

"Can I even begin to explain how much I hate these things?" he asked angrily. "Alright, Tucker, Sam, you know where the hidden key is, if it's still there. Head up to the Ops Center and turn off the Ghost Shield."

They nodded their heads in understanding and ran off towards the house, passing through the invisible Ghost Shield with no complications.

"So, you…we can't pass through a Ghost Shield?" Kimberly asked.

"Nope. Even if we're not in ghost mode, it still prevents entry, though it hurts more in ghost mode. The stupid shields can still detect the ectoplasm in our blood, so it stops us. I can't tell you how many times I got locked out of my house because one of these stupid monstrosities was up."

Suddenly a dome of green light flashed briefly, indicating that Tucker and Sam had accomplished their task.

"Thank God," Danny stated as he walked up towards his house and entered through the door into the living room in trepidation.

Kimberly and her friends stopped behind Danny as he stood in the doorway, staring at the living room. She couldn't believe it, they were actually inside Danny Fenton's house. Everyone always dreamed of entering this house, to see the atmosphere that produced the heroic philanthropist, but no one was ever allowed in. Yet, here they were, inside his house, and with Danny Fenton himself of all people.

"Danny?" Kimberly asked as she noticed that he continued to block the doorway.

"It looks exactly the same as it does now. Granted the TV looks a lot more up to date and there are more pictures and there's a layer of dust an inch thick covering everything, but everything else is exactly the same." He walked deeper into the living room and lifted up a cushion on the couch, revealing a small black char mark. "I mean look, this is still the exact same couch! I just made this mark earlier today! Well, at least my today. What year is this?"

"Twenty thirty," Jacob answered.

"Thirty?" Danny asked in amazement. "Wow. That means that this couch has been here for twenty five years at least!"

He continued to wander around downstairs, picking up old photographs and smiling. "Hey look, I actually graduate!" Danny said happily as he pointed to a picture of him in his graduation gown, surrounded by his parents and sister. "Uh, guys?" he asked as he finally looked at them and saw the looks of awe on their faces. He clapped his hands and they snapped out of their trance. "Listen, I know that I'm supposedly going to be some big hero and protect the town and all this stuff, but all this gawking is getting somewhat ridiculous. I know that you're probably really excited to be in my house and that you'll probably want to steal something as a souvenir, and I'd probably do the same thing if I ever entered the house of anyone who starred in Lord of the Rings, but, for my sake, can you try to keep it to a minimum? I haven't done any of it yet, so there's no reason for any of this, okay?"

The three of them nodded their heads and looked slightly ashamed, but Danny just smiled at them.

He turned around and wandered upstairs and entered his bedroom, the other's following eagerly. Tucker and Sam were already in his room, looking at all of his stuff. Kimberly and her friends tried to keep their excitement at a minimum, but they couldn't help feel extremely excited. They were in Danny Fenton's bedroom.

"Can you believe this? Everything's the same!" Tucker remarked as he searched through the files on Danny's computer. "Even you're password's the same, which goes to show that you're about as lame as I am!"

"Tucker, this isn't the time to play on the computer," Sam scolded. "I know you want to check out the operating system you made, but Clockwork warned us about this."

"What, I'm looking to see if there's any information on the computer," he defended.

"Right…"

Danny meanwhile had moved over to his closet. He started rummaging through it, throwing out old moth eaten clothes. "God, did my parents ever throw away anything!" he asked. "I mean, these are my freshman gym shorts!"

"I think the real question is did you ever throw anything away?" Sam asked with a smile.

"Hey, I've got more important things to do. I mean, if I moved out, why wasn't my room turned into a ghost study or something? They've always wanted one."

"I don't know, but Jazz's room is still like she left it too."

"Parents," Danny muttered as he turned his arm intangible and stuck it into the wall of the closet. "Aha! It's all still here!" he remarked as he pulled out a stack of papers and two Petri dishes, one holding dried green liquid, the other red. "I hoped these would be here."

"What's that?" Kimberly asked.

"This was where I hid a bunch of information about me and other ghosts. Only a ghost would be able to get at it, so we figured it was a good hiding spot for incriminating evidence. I figure that if there's some information that needs to be found at the house, it's going to be here." He handed everyone a stack of papers. "Take a seat somewhere and tell me if you find anything interesting."

So for the next fifteen minutes the six of them searched through all of Danny's information, but didn't find anything of interest. They were mostly status reports on Danny's progression or ghost profiles that he had printed out from his computer files.

"Maybe we're looking at the wrong stuff," Sam suggested as they leafed through the last of the papers. "I mean, maybe it's something your parents made or had that we're supposed to be looking for. Any new information you had you probably hid somewhere at your…our house."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Well then, let's head down to the lab," Tucker offered. "If it's not here, then it's got to be down there."

"Alright, sounds good." They walked downstairs, but not before Danny took the opportunity to quickly "search" his parents' and sister's rooms. They headed through the kitchen and into the basement. This room, however, looked very different and showed that time had actually passed. More inventions and contraptions covered the room, and the walls were covered in blue prints and notes on new inventions.

"Please don't touch anything, especially you Kimberly," Danny warned. "This lab is not friendly to strangers or ghosts."

They walked slowly into the lab, standing mostly in the center, observing the things around them while Danny, Tucker, and Sam started rummaging through the clutter of the lab.

Danny headed towards the door to the Ghost Zone and opened it as glowing green light filled the room. Kimberly, Noelle, and Jacob stared at it, mesmerized by the beauty of the swirling green gaseous liquid.

"Why did you do that?" Sam asked. "What if a ghost comes out?"

"Well I've got to put Skultech back in," he responded in a matter of fact tone. "And plus, what if we were supposed to find the information inside the Ghost Zone?"

"I don't think so Danny. Now just put Skultech back in and close it before another ghost decides to make an appearance."

Danny obeyed Sam's wishes and shut the Ghost Portal.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Jacob asked.

"I don't know. Clockwork said we were looking for information about what happened. Although he never really said where to look for it."

"Sure he did. He said something about reading a book written by a clock if you want to know about clocks," Sam responded.

"Alright, he didn't say anything that made sense," Danny corrected.

"Now there I agree with you."

"Alright, we just need to sit and figure this out," Jacob suggested, always being the logical thinker. "I don't think it's doing us any good to continue searching if we don't know what we're searching for. So, let's list what we know."

"Well we know that Sam, me, and our now sixteen year old child are missing and quite possibly dead and we know that it was a ghost that kidnapped us," Danny supplied as he paced around the room.

"So we know one piece of information we need is the name of the ghost that attacked you and the location of where he's hiding," Jacob remarked as Noelle took notes. "Continue."

"We know that there's a specific reason for why we were sent forward to this time and not the night of the disappearance," Tucker added.

"Which could either mean that you needed to find us for some reason or we have yet to find the reason."

"I don't know if this Clockwork specifically hinted to this, but I think it might be important to find out why the ghost wanted to kidnap Danny in the first place," Kimberly pointed out.

"Because I'm generally considered a pain in a ghosts' butt," Danny remarked,

"But why keep you for fifteen years? Why not kill you and be done with you?"

"Well, we're still not sure whether or not Danny can be killed, since he's half ghost, but he's still part human," Sam informed her. "He probably wanted Danny out of his way."

"Okay, but then why wait fifteen years to execute your plan to take over the world. It just doesn't make sense. Something tells me that there's a more important reason for why Danny was taken in the first place."

"Then we'll add it to the list," Noelle stated.

"We also know that all the information we'll need is located somewhere in this time frame," Danny continued.

"And we can assume that the information is hidden, but hidden in plain sight," Sam added as she closed her eyes in concentration, trying to remember what Clockwork had told them.

"Oh, and something about people holding onto common objects!" Tucker yelled happily as he remembered more.

"So the information is located in or on something common and in plain sight," Jacob summarized as Noelle took notes.

"And then the cryptic message about finding something written by a clock when you want information on a clock."

"Who'd want information on a clock?" Tucker asked.

"It's a metaphor Tucker," Sam remarked exasperatedly, rubbing her temples. "It's Clockwork's way of saying that, in your terms, if you want information about a computer, find something written by a computer."

"That still doesn't make sense."

"I know, but all I know is that he's trying to say that if you want to know about a ghost invention, find something written by a ghost invention, or if you…"

"If you want to know what happened to Danny, find something written by Danny," Danny stated as he ran over to a table.

"Come again," Kimberly requested.

"If you want information, go to the source, that's what he's trying to say," Danny explained as he ruffled through some papers, throwing photographs on the floor. "Aha!" he shouted as he turned happily around, holding a piece of paper.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"This is a letter, written by me, and dated a year before I went missing. Written by the source, in plain sight, a common object, this has to be it. Plus, who writes letters anymore?" He brought it over to them and they all stared expectantly at it.

"Well read it!" Tucker urged.

January 29, 2014

Mom and Dad,

How are you? Hope you're not too lonely, just joking. You know that I just live right down the street. Sorry that I haven't seen you in a while, but things have been really busy, namely business, and Sam's getting a little testy and very demanding, but I guess most pregnant women are, right?

I hope you're enjoying this. I remembered that you were complaining a few weeks ago about how no one sends letters anymore, so I decided that this would be a welcome surprise.

Although to tell you the truth, I've always found letters kinda strange. I mean, if I want to tell you something, I can just come over or call you, so I'm trying to think of something fun and interesting to say that would be worthy of going through the pains of writing a letter, but nothing seems to come to mind. So, we'll stick to the ordinary.

I ran into Lancer at the bookstore the other day when I was picking up a book for Sam and we started talking. After like two hours of catching up that was only stopped by the store closing, we decided that we should all get together and catch up on old times, and he wanted to invite you as well. I told him that we'd be delighted and that I'd extend the invitation to you, so I'm extending it. If you're interested, we're meeting Thursday night at seven at (where else?) PF Changs. Hope to see you there!

So, I received a call from Jazz the other day and she started complaining about some gift that you sent her. It seems that she wasn't too happy about receiving your new and improved versions of lemon juice, olive oil, and soy sauce. She seems to believe that the infusion of ectoplasm wouldn't be healthy to eat, and frankly I agree with her. What was the purpose? I really don't understand it. Was it just to see that you could do it in the first place? It doesn't really make sense, but she wanted me to tell you that she never plans on using it unless she finds a purpose for it, which I can say I'm at a loss to find. But, feel free to educate us.

Well, here's wishing you the best and I hope to see you on Thursday, or possibly sooner depending on how much work I still have to do. Love you lots!

Danny

Danny finished reading, throwing the letter onto a nearby table.

"Okay, what's so special about this?" Tucker asked.

"I don't know. It just sounds like a regular letter," Danny agreed.

"Maybe that's the point," Kimberly suggested. "Maybe you hid the clues inside the note, making it sound general to throw people off."

"That does make sense, and it does sound like something you'd do," Sam remarked. "You always did like murder mysteries and stuff like that. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume that you'd apply these kind of twists to your own mystery."

"Alright, so we need to analyze the letter closer," Jacob recommended as he picked up the letter and looked closely at it. "It looks like you talk about business, Sam's pregnancy, letters in general, books, meeting Lancer for dinner, and some ectoplasm stuff. Honestly, I can't really see any hidden meanings in anything."

"There's got to be one. It makes a lot of sense and would be a good way to leave behind information. Danny probably wrote this in a hope that his parents would get the information and then figure out what was going on."

"But then that's assuming that I knew I'd be getting kidnapped," Danny stated.

"True, but since we really have nothing else to go on, I say our best option is just to assume it. I mean, it does fit Clockwork's hints," Kimberly advised.

"And why else would you write a letter?" Noelle asked.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that. To my knowledge my parents have never complained about the lack of letters. They really like e-mail, which I assume is old here, right?"

"We use VM, video messaging," Noelle explained.

"So do you think that you just made that up to throw someone who might have intercepted it off? Give them a logical explanation why you're sending a letter and throw off their suspicions?" Sam suggested.

"Possibly. Sounds like something I'd do. So then, let's look at this letter."

The six of them moved upstairs and sat around the kitchen table, the letter in the center.

"Alright, there are six paragraphs and six of us. I think each of us should take a paragraph and examine it closely, finding anything that might be important," Danny suggested.

They each started examining their respective paragraphs, looking for things out of place, hidden meanings, and possible clues.

"Alright, what did you guys find?" Danny asked after he couldn't get any more out of his paragraph and knew the others were feeling the same way.

"Well, there's not much in the first paragraph save a greeting," Jacob began. "You mention being busy, but given the nature of your business, that's not unexpected so it's probably not a hint. Sam's pregnancy might be some kind of reference to Victoria, but other than that, nothing really."

"Please stop saying that, it sounds really weird," Sam requested while Tucker smiled in amusement.

"Nothing really in the second one either," Noelle reported. "Just explaining why you sent a letter and not a VM."

Danny turned his attention towards Sam. "Well, I thought it was interesting that you said that you wanted to find something important to write in the letter but couldn't. Really, I think that was a hint that you did in reality but hid it beneath the common exterior of casual conversation."

"So then we're to assume that I knew about this beforehand?"

"I think so. I think this paragraph is proof enough."

"Well, the only thing I can figure out is that there might be something special about the bookstore. The PF Changs reference isn't that unexpected because I'd go there any chance I get."

"You own the one in Amity," Kimberly stated.

"What?"

"You bought it because you went there so often. Now it's like a little shrine to you."

"Mental note, don't go into PF Changs while on this mission. But anyways, back to business. So I'm thinking that there's something interesting in the name or location of the bookstore or the time that the restaurant meeting was held at, or something."

"Alright, I thought this whole paragraph was a big clue. I mean, it doesn't sound very natural to be talking about stuff injected with ectoplasm," Kimberly stated.

"You don't know my parents. That's actually pretty natural. But even so, I agree with you. That jumped out at me when I first read it. While my parents may make all that stuff on a regular basis, they'd never send it to Jazz."

"So are you thinking that this stuff's important for a reason and that it was sent to Jazz to keep out of harm's way?" Sam asked.

Danny shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the pantry, which amazingly still had food in it. "This is really gross. You'd think that when they wanted to convert this place into a museum they'd at least clean all the food out." He started rummaging through the pantry while everyone stared at him.

"What are you doing?" Kimberly finally asked.

"Looking for something. Keep talking, I'm listening."

"Well, in the letter, you mentioned how neither you nor Jazz knew the purpose for the ectoplasm infused ingredients but that you were curious to find out, which I think means that while they do seem useless, they're probably important and that there really is a valuable use for them. What that is, I don't know."

"And the last paragraph is completely pointless," Tucker finished. "It's just you saying goodbye."

"Alright, it's not here."

"What isn't?"

"The ectoplasm infused stuff. My parents don't have any. They wouldn't make some and not keep some for themselves. There's a reason Jazz has them, and I think I wanted whoever's reading the letters to know."

"But what use could they possibly be?" Sam asked. "I mean, that ectoplasmic toast that your parents made that one time had no important uses, unless you wanted to be eaten."

"Yeah, but they do get it right sometimes. The portal, ghost shields, the thermos, the weapons…"

"I'm sorry. I don't want to break up the searching, but it's like six something in the morning and some of us are only running off a few hours of sleep," Jacob reminded them with a yawn.

"Oh right, sorry. Let's do one last sweep of the house and then we'll call it quits."

They nodded their heads and each took a room, searching everywhere for something Danny might have written. As Danny searched the basement, he started looking over all the post-it notes his parents had stuck to the wall above their desk. He smiled as he looked at them, reminding his parents to do a wide range of things from changing the ecto-filter to attending Danny and Sam's wedding. He found one with Jazz's address and started thinking about how it was funny that Jazz moved to Chicago. She'd always said that if she moved it would be to the East Coast somewhere. As he moved onto the next note he doubled back, realizing that the note was written in his handwriting.

"Plain sight, common object," he muttered as he looked at it. "Hey guys! I found something!" Danny yelled up the stairs. The rest of them came running down and he pointed to the post-it note.

"Now that is clever," Jacob remarked as he saw it.

"I know. It barely registered."

"That's now two references to Jazz," Kimberly informed them. "Does that mean we're supposed to go to Jazz's house?"

"Maybe eventually, but as much as I want to I don't think we should go until we have some more information, like the use for the ectoplasm stuff. I just have this feeling that there's more in Amity than just a note and Jazz's address. There's just too many questions that need answering."

"Well, we'll worry about it later. I think we should call it a night. Maybe a few hours of sleep will clear our minds, help us think a little better," Sam suggested.

"Sounds good to me, but where are you going to stay?" Noelle asked.

"We can just stay here. It looks like it's still in working order."

"No, you can't do that. People with approved access come in here all the time. It's too risky. Why don't you guys head back to my house? We have enough spare bedrooms to hide you."

"Thanks. But can we fly this time? It goes a lot faster."

Kimberly smiled and nodded her head. They activated both the shields and flew back to Kimberly's house where they settled themselves in bed and drifted into welcome sleep.

A/N: Grr... the dumb line things aren't working...

Anywho, thus begins the quest for the letters and information!

And I just wanted to give you guys a little hint. Actually, it's more of a teaser, but same difference, right? I just wanted to say that in this story, dates are very important. There's a lot of stuff that happens in the year before Danny's disappearance (which if you don't remember was on November 12, 2014) as well as the year after. So when I give you a date, like say, I dunno, the date the letter was written, it'll be important later.