Paradoxical (by timydamonkey)

Chapter Five: Screwed Up Good

Sam and Tucker turned the corner into the park, out of breath.

"Where'd… he go?" Tucker wheezed, stopping and leaning over to catch his breath and get rid of the stitch in his side.

Sam, who was more fit than Tucker, rolled her eyes at his display of vast unfitness and spent the time looking around. There was no sign of him anywhere. "There's no way that he's that… fast," Sam commented, still breathing deeply after all of the running they'd been doing when following Danny. "He has to be here somewhere."

"I think I'm going to die," Tucker whined pathetically.

Sam grinned before loudly exclaiming, "Tucker, your PDA… it's gone!"

"What?" Tucker leapt fully upright as if he'd been shot. "My baby! Daddy's coming!" He rummaged in his backpack, pulling out his PDA. "Hey, it's here! I thought I'd lost you!" He hugged it as if it was his long-lost sibling, causing a lady walking by with a pushchair to look at them strangely.

"Dying, are we?" Sam chuckled.

"Hey, what do you know, I'm cured!" Tucker exclaiming, eying his PDA as if it had been his saviour. Sam gave a long-suffering sigh before getting back to the task at hand.

In retrospect, it wasn't the greatest idea ever to shout, "DANNY! I KNOW YOU'RE HERE! WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU!" at the top of her voice. It certainly seemed to make people passing in the park steer clear of them as if they were under the influence of something.

But it all seemed worth it when a voice said very quietly from behind them, "I'm here."

Sam and Tucker grinned, turning around. There was nobody there.

"…Danny?" Tucker asked what appeared to be thin air.

"Hi." It was almost a whisper.

"And… why can't we see you now?" asked Sam. "We could before. Can we now, please?"

"But… but I don't know how. I don't know how I ended up invisible in the first place. I... I was just thinking that everything had to be over now, and that I needed to lose you and go away, and you'd all forget, and…" He trailed off.

"Well, um," Sam added into the uncomfortable silence. "Have you tried thinking that you want to be there again now? That you want us to see you?"

For a moment, there was nothing but silence, then their best friend was standing next to them, staring at the floor.

"Danny, why didn't you tell us you were a ghost?"

A sheet of emotions seemed to cross Danny's face and he started to babble. "I'm not a ghost! I-I can't be alive and be a ghost, can I? And I'm alive, look! And – and ghosts are evil, you know they're evil, they attack you like that other ghost did, and they hurt people, and I don't want to hurt people, and then you'd all hate me and tell my mom and dad and they'd kick me out and I'd be all alone…"

"Danny, not all ghosts have to be evil," Sam said gently.

"My mom and dad say they do… and they're experts. They'd have to know, right?"

"Hello, they're also ghost hunters!" exclaimed Sam, staring at Danny as if his reasoning had caused him to sprout another head.

"Besides, Danny, we were just there and you weren't trying to kill us. If that's not proof, I don't know what is. We're your friends, Danny. Considering it's not like you turn into some mad axe murderer – however much you think you do – why would we turn on you now?" Tucker demanded, sounding quite diplomatic. He spoiled it a moment later when he added, "You're obviously a ghost – I don't know what else can turn invisible and fire weird energy beams and stuff." Danny looked like he was going to cry and Sam glared at him. "…But you're a very cool ghost?" he offered, shrugging his shoulders.

"But I'm not a ghost," Danny repeated feebly. "Ghosts are dead and I'm alive."

"Well," said Sam thoughtfully, "Maybe you're half ghost."

"Is that even possible?" Tucker whispered to her.

"Just go with it," she hissed back. "Besides, it doesn't make much sense but it's the best explanation that we can come up with."

After a moment of silence, Danny nodded. "Thanks, you guys."

"Anytime," Sam replied.

"Just make sure we don't have to do this again," Tucker said, causing Sam to roll her eyes again and Danny to chuckle hollowly.

At least it was progress, Tucker mused.

Vlad was already plotting something when they flew through the ceiling.

"What do you want?" he asked the glowing green birds in an annoyed voice. He hated pointless interruptions.

"There's another half-ghost," said one of the birds, deciding that the simple way was the best way of going about it.

Vlad, who'd looked back down at the paper he'd been holding in his hand, jerked his head up almost immediately. "What?" he demanded. "How do you know this?"

"We saw him."

"He was a child," added another of the birds helpfully.

"Where?" Vlad asked, trying to think of a way to factor this new information into his plans.

"In Amity Park. We don't know who the child is."

Vlad smiled. Amity Park was the easiest place to access really… Maddie, the only woman he truly loved, lived there. She lived with her ridiculously incompetent husband Jack, of course, but forgiving Jack could be his excuse for going there. Not to say that he really had to forgive the bumbling oaf – he could never do that. He knew where they lived – Fentonworks was instantly recognizable to anybody who was interested in ghosts, and Vlad was for obvious reasons. And if anything… cropped up, they'd likely have a ghost portal (Maddie was by far intelligent enough to have made one, if she had enough sense to keep her husband out of the room).

It was a win-win situation, really, he mused.

When he looked up, the birds were still there. "Thank you for the information," he said crisply, dropping his paper on the floor. It didn't matter anymore. He had a trip to make, a surprise for his old friends. He'd be there sometime within the week.

Vlad always had time for anything that would potentially benefit him, and he could see that this would. It was looking like a very promising week.

However more comfortable Danny may have seemed with them, Sam and Tucker noticed that he never seemed to cheer up. It was actually very annoying, with him walking around as if a black cloud was trailing over his head and ready to downpour on him.

They wanted to see their friend happy again. They wanted to see him smile.

That was the only reason that they'd gone to her.

Knocking at the door of the Fenton household with Sam at his heels, Tucker said, "Are you sure about this, Sam?"

"Come on, Tucker, it's not like we're going to say anything that's going to hurt him. But… I'm so tired of seeing him mope all the time, and-"

A girl with bright orange hair and cyan eyes opened the door. She blinked. "Sam and Tucker… hang on, I'll go and get Danny-"

"Don't!" Tucker said, sounding a little too panicked about it.

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Have you guys fell out or something? Why are you here?"

"Actually, Jazz, we came to see you," Sam replied, making Jazz look a little confused.

"Why would you want to-" She started, but Sam decided to interrupt before it felt too much like an interrogation… even if they might be causing somebody else to get one.

"It's about Danny," Sam replied.

Jazz stopped. "Do you two know what's up with him? He's been a little lately."

"Yeah," Tucker said. "The thing is, he's…" Tucker paused. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell her that he was half-ghost. "He's just really nervous because… because he thinks he's seeing ghosts everywhere!" Tucker pounced. And trying to not see ghosts in himself, he added as an overthought.

"Huh?" Jazz asked. "He is? I thought he wasn't into that kind of stuff… he's not taking after mom and dad, is he?"

"Um… we don't know," Sam said, not particularly wanting to get into a ghost debate with any of the Fenton's.

Jazz appeared to be thinking. "I didn't know it was that serious. Maybe he's stressed and is seeing an embodiment of his own fears…" Tucker and Sam exchanged nervous glances. It was a bit unnerving to see Jazz as Danny had once described her – in full psychologist mode. "Thank you. I'll watch out for him."

She grabbed a pencil and pad out of her pocket and started to scribble some notes down.

"Er… yeah, we'll just be going then," said Tucker. Jazz didn't seem to hear, so Tucker and Sam left.

"I hope that was the right thing to do," said Sam, in a bit of a role reversal from before.

"Well, look at it this way," replied Tucker dryly. "If anybody can make him see that it's silly to be so distressed – or that everybody seeing it is just going to make them ask questions – it's Jazz."

Author's Notes: Sorry for the wait. I've been betaing a lot, smashed my hand into a wall two weeks and watched as it progressively got worse. So now I have this whacky cream on it that makes it burn and numb at the same time... but stops it hurting when I type. I think the idea is for me NOT to type, but oh well. I had to get this out.

I didn't try the bird's accent because it's sort of like when people try and write Hagrid in the HP fandom - a bad attempt at an accent is worse than just dropping it. I probably killed their personalities too, but oh well, I tried. And they can go out of the plot for a bit anyway. :P

Won't say when the next chapter will be ready as I don't know, but on the bright side, it's already half-written. Yay.

Thanks for the reviews and the people who put this on alert or favourites or whatever. I realized that me naming how many alerts I have may seem condescending but it's mostly for my own interest and to see what sort of thing it is that seems to be picking up readers. I'm at 30 and very happy with that - as I said, alerts are great ways of knowing how many people like this, because I know that not everybody reviews.

Oh, I promised you guys a sneak-peak when I had something pre-written didn't I...

Next Chapter Preview: (as it's currently worded; is subject to change in editing)

All of a sudden, he saw an opportunity to test the boy – to try and recruit him, corrupt him, to steal the boy from Jack the same way the man had robbed half of his humanity back in college. He could come out of it with a powerful ally… and if things went wrong, he could sort it out by doing exactly what the boy wanted… and more.

See you next time.