A/N: I'm not really happy with this chapter, it jumps around and it just doesn't 'flow'. Still, some parts aren't too bad. Next chapter will be better, I promise...

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
Tucker

Tucker sat at his computer very late that Monday night, idly clicking through techno news groups, not really reading anything. His room was dark, his curtains were drawn and his face was lit only by his computer screen, making him look almost pale. He sighed and leaned backwards in his swivel chair, letting his left arm dangling beside him while his right hand was resting on his keyboard. Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom. And he knew. Or he was supposed to know. Danny and Sam had told him how it had happened, how Danny had stepped into his parents portal and had been electrocuted, infused with a huge amount of ectoplasm when it accidentally turned on.

And then they had hunted ghosts, the three of them, capturing them in what they called the 'Fenton Thermos'. They had told him the stories and he had smiled at them, because some were pretty funny like the one about the purple back gorilla. They had also mentioned something about an 'evil future self' but Danny hadn't wanted to expand on that. Instead, he had formed three glowing green ecto balls and had started juggling with them, throwing them high up and catching them with amazing skill, showing off a little.

Sam had frowned a that and had whispered to Danny to stop doing that, what if his parents walked in. Danny had just smiled that cocky smile of his and had shrugged, but he had stopped anyway. Instead, he had started telling Tucker about the amazing things he could do, fly, go invisible, walk through things, shooting ecto rays. And again Sam had looked at him strangely, worriedly even, as if something was wrong.

Something was wrong with Danny, Tucker thought as he read through the specifications of the newest PDA. Danny had become very closemouthed all of a sudden when Tucker had started to ask questions about Danny's 'changing back'. He had said not to worry about it, he was fine, had no problems so stop asking questions. And he had placed the wristbands back on his wrists, as if closing the subject. But Tucker trusted Sam and Sam didn't trust Danny.

They had dinner at the Fentons and Danny's dad had been thrilled with the idea of going fishing with his son, to do some 'Father Son Bonding'. Danny had smiled wistfully at that and had looked sad for a moment. In general, the mood had been happy and optimistic and Danny had cracked jokes about the food not eating them back, making Tucker suspiciously eying his meat.

Tucker sighed, looked at his alarm clock and seeing that it was already past midnight, decided to call it a day. He put his glasses next to his computer, turned off the screen, closed his eyes and dreamed of flying cars.

The next morning he met Sam and Danny at their lockers, which were next to each other. Since Danny no longer had to hide his identity from them, he simply phased his hand trough the door and retrieved his books that way, smirking at Tucker. Sam looked worriedly up and down the hallway and gave him a puzzled look. There was something going on, Tucker thought, but he couldn't think of what it could be.

At lunch, Sam wanted to discuss the ectoplasmic signature change again but Danny waved it away, saying he had in under control and changed the subject. Tucker seriously doubted that, with the worried looks that Sam was giving Danny. She had been comparing present Danny to past Danny to Tucker during study hall earlier. He was way to aggressive, she had said and he was never that much of a show off with is powers. And he used to be nice.

"Come on Tuck," Danny said while examining the food at his plate, trying to figure out which was which, "Come on a ghost patrol with us, just like old times. Maybe you'll remember then."

Sam looked up from her salad. "That's your plan? Take Tucker on a ghost patrol so he'll remember?"

"Sure, why not. Be my sidekick again. Carry the thermos and all," he smirked.

Sam slammed her fork on her tray, picked it up and stomped out of the cafeteria, stared after by not only Danny and Tucker but everybody else there too. Tucker was to busy being angry at Danny to notice the brief flash of pain on his face. It was gone in an instant and he got up as well, threw his uneaten lunch in the trash and walked after her, saying "I'll talk to her."

He must have succeeded to placate her because that evening the three of them met at the park, Danny as Phantom and Sam and Tucker both carrying thermoses and ecto blasters Danny had 'borrowed' from the weapons vault at his house. He also handed them the tiny ear plugs he called 'Fenton Phones' and set off to find ghosts.

It didn't take him long.

Tucker and Sam walked together in silence for a while, leaving the park and going in the direction of the school, which was where they'd seen Danny go. The street lights were already on and it was starting to get very dark outside, so Tucker was glad they had left the park. He wondered what he was supposed to do when they found a ghost. As far as he could remember, the only way to deal with ghosts was to run away. And now they were purposely looking for one.

Tucker's ear phone crackled and he jumped when Danny suddenly shouted "Tucker, Sam, where are you, I need a thermos."

"He's in trouble," Sam cried and she ran towards the school, where she'd seen him last.

Tucker followed her with some difficulty, silently cursing his backpack that contained his life support; his PDA, his laptop computer and his cell phone. He couldn't imagine having done this before, this was just way too much exercise. He'd need a double portion of meat to make up for this.

He rounded the corner and bumped right into Sam, who had stopped dead in her tracks.

"Wha.. what?" he gasped, picking himself up from the ground and quickly checking if all his equipment in his backpack was OK.

Danny was just floating there with his arms folded, intangible, an annoyed look on his face, while a burly blue ghost threw boxes at him shouting something like 'burying him under his boxes of doom'. The boxes went right through Danny and Tucker saw that they came from a stack of boxes with waste paper standing next to the dumpster. Sheets of paper were flying around as the boxes crashed against the wall behind Danny.

Sam sighed, pointed her thermos at the Box Ghost and sucked him in while he complained about being sucked into the cylindrical shaped thermos. Danny put himself to the ground and had just started to walk towards them, grinning, when the door behind Tucker opened and an overweight, balding teacher cried out.

"Uh oh," Danny said and disappeared from sight.

"Catch 22! Miss Manson, Mr Foley! What are you two doing!" Mr Lancer exclaimed.

He proceeded to lecture them about the mess they had made and tasked them to clean it up. When he had disappeared inside again, Danny came back into view, cringing slightly under Sam's burning look.

"Um, I guess I'll finish my rounds alone then," he said and took off before one of them could say anything. Tucker wished he could disappear like that.

The rest of the week, Danny was being very annoying to Tucker. He was constantly using his powers, going invisible when Dash neared, phasing his hand into the soda machine to get one until Sam smacked him for it and teasing Tucker by turning his meat invisible at lunch. He did, however, apologize for leaving them to clean up the mess the Box Ghost had made and after they had made him grovel for a while they graciously let him back at their lunch table.

"So, did you get another look at those report cards?" Tucker asked, referring to Danny's plan to go into the office again, invisible this time.

Danny's face, which until then had a happy expression on it because they had forgiven him, fell.

"I found only Jazz'," he said curtly and changed the subject.

It must be so cool, having ghost powers, Tucker thought when he was sitting in his Math class on Friday, trying to pay attention to the teacher. Danny had hinted of what he could do with the invisibility thing and it had involved locker rooms and girls.

The night before they had been playing 'Doomed' at his house without Sam and at first it had been fun, because he didn't get his but kicked as usual. Danny was obviously out of practice and Tucker had blasted him out of the game three times before you could say 'laptop computer'. But then Danny had taken matters into is own hand and had cheated outrageously by simply transforming into his ghost self and going into the game. He was indestructible that way and used his powers to blast everybody out of the game, smirking. Tucker started to wonder why he ever hung out with him.

Danny burst into the room and halted at the door. Mr Falluca looked at him angrily.

"Do you have an explanation Mr Fenton," he said.

"Eh... bathroom?" Danny said sheepishly and he pulled out his best puppy dog look.

Mr Falluca didn't fall for it. "Because you're new, I'll let it go this time. Try to be in time next time. Please sit."

Danny sat down next to Tucker and grinned at him, pointing at the thermos that stuck out of his back pack.

"Couple of demons," he whispered to Tucker, "Piece of cake!"

There it was again, that feeling of inferiority. Tucker sunk a little deeper into his chair and glanced at Danny again.

"Man," he thought, "I wish I had ghost powers."

He was sitting in the movie theater, by himself, watching the latest 'Dead Teacher' movie. It wasn't so much fun watching it alone. In fact, the movie sucked big time if you couldn't laugh about it with your friends and throw popcorn at unsuspecting people sitting three rows in front of you. Danny had just left to fight a ghost, simply going invisible and intangible. Sam was at home, sick.

He was envious of Danny and his ghost powers. There were just no drawbacks, Danny could pretty much do as he pleased and the girls loved his ghost form. Tucker didn't understand why Danny didn't use it more to get Paulina.

"I wish I had ghost powers," he said out loud.

At that moment, he seemed to hear a voice, saying "And as you have wished it, so it shall be!," but he couldn't see anyone. He didn't think anything of it until he sank through his seat.

Everyone was staring at him. He noticed he was standing up, staring at Danny, feeling weak in the knees.

"Something wrong Mr Foley," Mr Falluca asked him.

"N-no..no, may I be excused?"

He practically ran from the classroom before Mr Falluca could answer, dashed into the boys restroom and threw up in the toilet. He felt dizzy and sick, so he let himself sink to the floor and sat next to the toilet, with his back against the cold, tiled wall. The memories hit him like a shock wave, one overflowing the other, sending his head spinning. Was this what it was like for Sam? He smiled a little and held on to the thought that Sam's head was probably spinning for another reason at the time.

Slowly he dragged himself to his feet, flushed the toilet and stumbled to the sink to throw some water into his face. He was staring at himself in the mirror when he heard someone enter the restroom.

"You OK Tuck?" Danny asked hesitantly.

Tucker turned. Danny was rubbing the back of his neck and looking at the floor.

"You...," Tucker said, taking a step forward and pointing his finger at him, "You did that on purpose, didn't you! Showing off your ghost powers! Making me... jealous! Gah! I could kill you!"

Danny grinned. "I take it it worked?" he asked and added an "Ouch!" when Tucker grabbed him.

He quickly let go. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Danny shrugged. "It wasn't really a piece of cake," he said lightly, "Come on, lets get back to class. And Tucker, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I didn't like doing that to you, you know..."

They sat out the remainder of their classes and met up with Sam after school, feeling as if they were let out of prison. Tucker had been lost in memory during the rest of his classes and had barely avoided detention a number of times. He couldn't believe he forgot about Danny, his best friend for, like, forever. Since kindergarten they had shared everything, except for the ghost powers of course. Tucker remembered all too well now the incident that gave him ghost powers and knew it was a good thing he didn't have them. Which made him sort of admire his friend, who didn't (well, mostly didn't) abuse his powers, but used them only to protect people.

"So that's what you were doing," Sam said to Danny as they were walking away from the school.

Most of the other kids had left in their cars, were picked up by their parents or rode the bus, but they needed to talk and walking gave them some privacy.

"Yeah," Danny said, "I'm sorry. I was being a total jerk, I know. But if you guys knew about it, it wouldn't have worked."

Tucker looked at Sam and then at Danny.

"We thought...you had changed" he said, "We were worried you would never be the same again."

Danny stopped in his tracks. "I'm always me! I'm trying OK!"

He seemed upset for some reason and Tucker thought he knew what it was. Danny had to do something to himself to be able to escape from Vlad and had had trouble changing back. A lot of trouble, because he wouldn't talk about it.

"Now we need to get to Jazz and your dad!" Tucker said in an attempt to change the subject.

They were silent for a while, each of them pondering the possibilities. They passed the park, which was mostly deserted as a cold wind made being out in the open very uncomfortable. Most people were just hurrying along, trying to get inside again as fast as they could. The three friends walked slowly, ignoring the weather conditions, lost in thought.

"Maybe we need to tell Jazz about you," Sam said pensively as she kicked a stone. It bounced on the sidewalk and tumbled into the grass.

"What? Why?" Danny said, "She worries enough as it is and...oh."

Jazz was always worrying about her brother. What if they managed to get her to worry about him again, now a complete stranger? Although she seemed to accept him more and more the last week, she still didn't remember him and Danny sometimes caught her staring at him intently, as if she was trying to will herself to remember.

"That might work for your dad too," Tucker grinned, "His obsession is ghosts after all."

Danny looked at him, horrified. "Yeah right like I'm gonna let myself be dissected by him so he'll remember? No way!"

"Well that or turn into a giant cookie.."