A/N: I'm sorry this took so long, life happened. If I got anything about the mezuzah wrong, I apologize in advance. From what I can tell, the number of mezuzah required is open to interpretation.

Chapter Three

"We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die."

-W.H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety

Danielle sighed as she shut off the computer and the projector and leaned back in her chair, staring out at her "cousin" and the others surrounding her. They were all looking at her she realized. She understood why. Out of all of them, she was the one with the encyclopedic knowledge of history. If anyone could confirm the implications about her family, if anyone could find some way to figure out how to reach him, it was her. It was…daunting to say the least.

Suddenly, part of her really wished that she hadn't politely (and somewhat reluctantly) turned down Cervantes' offer to stay longer in the forest especially after they'd already gone much further than she initially intended. If she'd done just that, she never would have found that boy, or found out what his father was going to do. And Danny, Valerie, and Tucker would probably be dead right now. She thought of the manila folder she'd left in the office of the FBI Special Agent-in-Charge at the Memphis field office, and the man who'd given it to her. And she didn't know what to think.

One flaw she shared with Danny was a weakness for the opposite sex. Assuming his relationship with Sam ever ended, his hesitation and lack of self-confidence regarding the ironically called "fairer sex" would almost certainly be a thing of the past.

On that same note, the genes of her biological mother, and there had to be one as there was no way she could be a female clone of Danny were having a similar effect on her development. She was five foot ten, leggy, and far from flat-chested. Add to that the toned athletic body years of fighting in the mud and the blood with the worst humanity had to offer, and it was obvious that attracting men on a purely physical level was never going to be an issue for her. Which is why Cervantes had her flustered. She'd been…developed for awhile, and even if he had been respecting her age, he could have at least hinted at it before today.

"All right," Danny said, catching her attention, and snapping her out of her reverie "Valerie and I will take on looking for our friend out there. See where he's gone. You and Tucker do the background research. Find out, if you can, whether or not my family really is involved."

Danielle leaned back in her chair, "That's a tall order. Confirming whether or not your great-great-great grandfather served in the Confederate Army shouldn't be too hard. It shouldn't be too hard, even, to determine whether or not he served with Forrest's Cavalry Corps. But determining whether or not he was at Fort Pillow…I don't know."

Danny nodded, his face unreadable. "Well…confirm what you can."

"I will," she said. She turned to the monitor. "Do you know whether or not he survived the war?"

"I believe so," Maddie said softly before shaking her head and grabbed the roster of available speeder pilots. "I'm coming back down. I shouldn't be topside during this.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Danny said, "we don't know how much this ghost knows about us. We don't know if he's waiting near the shuttleport for you to come out. You should stay topside until we know more."

Maddie Fenton closed her eyes for a long moment. "Fine. Fine I'll stay here. Just, stay safe, Danny. I love you."

"I love you too, Mom," he said. "I've been doing this for years, I'll be fine."

"I know," she said. "Fenton, out." And the monitor cleared.

God help us, she thought to herself. Aloud she said, "Let's go Tucker."

Danny sighed as he watched Danielle and Tucker walk out of the room, chatting softly about where they had to go. He and Valerie were alone in the conference room. He gave his friend, who incidentally happened to be his ex, an appraising look. The solidly-muscled, very dark-skinned woman standing across the table from him had a faraway look in her dark brown eyes. Everything that had happened, everything she'd just learned, had deeply affected her, that much was clear. But what could he do about it? He didn't know what to say. He'd just learned his grandfather may or may not have helped to murder hundreds of people. Hundreds of her people; he shied away from the term "race." As the son of a biologist, he knew it didn't actually exist. That the racial categories society clung too so fiercely didn't track with actual human variation, indeed were themselves artificial. Regardless of their lack of reality though, the effects they'd had on society were all too real and had drenched the world in blood. Now, that dark bloody reality had come home to roost in their lives.

A thought occurred to him and he pulled out of his seat and walked into the hallway and looked at the case carrying a mezuzah that hung over the room.. As per tradition, each mezuzah, a scroll bearing Deuteronomy 6:9 and Deuteronomy 11:20, now hung above the entrance to every room in the house except closets and bathrooms…His mind flashed back to when she'd first put up them up…

Danny rolled over softly in the large king-sized bed, feeling warm and sated in the brand new big bed in what used to be his parent's room. Part of him still couldn't believe it. It felt like, even though he would almost certainly be wrong, that the war was at last over. Vlad, it seems, had at last been defeated, and he had saved at least seven billion lives, and that was counting the human population. That was the best part, Sam had moved in with him! His hand reached out to feel where she'd lain with him last night, in more ways than one. Only to find her gone, where her warm body would be, there was only a lukewarm spot in the bed. His eyes flew open, confirming what his hand had felt. He relaxed, somewhat. Sam hadn't gone back home in the middle of the night, of course. She was probably in the bathroom or something.

He was drifting off to sleep again when he heard the rustling and thumping sound in the hallway outside. The loud thumping that forced his eyes back open and sent him throwing back the comforter, and throwing on a shirt. He stepped out into the hallway to see Sam in front of the door to the room that had once been his, placing a black cylinder with a green Star of David so that the top of it slanted to face the doorway. She held it to the spot above the doorframe and bowed her head. He'd seen similar ones at her house, but something or ever had always come up before he could remember to ask what they were.

"Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, asher qideshanu bemitzvotav vetzivanu liqbo'a mezuzah."

"Sam?"

She turned to him and favored him with one of those beautiful glowing smiles that made him want to melt into a twitching puddle on the floor. "Oh, hey Danny. I'm just hanging a mezuzah."

"A what?"

"A mezuzah," she repeated. "It's a piece of parchment that contains the Shema Yisrael, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21. Usually it's hung only next to the doors to the outside, but in some Jewish households it's hung outside every room except bathrooms and storage closets. That was the interpretation in my family's house, and the interpretation I follow here." He heard the note of bitterness when she said the word family. Despite her disagreement with her parents, they were still her parents, particularly her mother, and she loved them deeply, and not having them at her back was a far deeper wound then she'd let on to most people.

"I'm sorry your family," and by family I mean mother, "was less than approving of your emancipation. Or pretty much every decision you've made to date."

"They're convinced I'm just some stupid kid," she said bitterly without a trace of irony despite her tender age, "like nothing I, we, accomplished, meant anything. I've laid my life on the line for every living human being including my parents, dozens of times, hell I've literally laid it down. And does that count for anything from them? No!"

"Your grandmother understands," Danny said pointedly. "She's always supported us when your parents have gotten too overbearing."

"My grandmother, has been a fighter literally her entire life," Sam said, pride in her eyes. "By the time she was my age, she had been slogging in the Polish countryside with the Armia Krajowa, sniping at Wehrmacht and SS soldiers for two years. If anyone could understand my need to fight, it would be her. I doubt she likes the idea of me fighting, she came to this country after the war to start a new life in peace, one that I'm sure didn't involve her granddaughter taking up arms herself along her half-ghost boyfriend, but if anyone could understand why I'd feel the need to, one soldier to another, it's her. I guess that's what hurts. Along with my love for you, it was the faith and values that my family instilled in me, my whole family, which kept me going through our long years of war against Vlad. And those very same parents continue to barely tolerate you and act like everything I've done fills them with shame." There were tears glistening in her eyes now, and without thinking Danny dragged her into his arms, and held her close.

"Your parents love you. And I love you." Danny whispered in her ear as he pressed a soft kiss to her. "They will remember that before the end. And even if they don't, I will never forget you. Or abandon you."

"I know," Sam said softly, as she clung to him more fiercely.

Danny sighed. The fact remained that the rot of anti-Semitism had persisted in human society far longer than any other form of bigotry. The Ghost Zone had a very long memory, and if a victim of such evil could come out looking for vengenace, somewhere in that vast dimension must be a perpetrator of such evil of the type Ida Manson fought in her day, ready to return and carry on doing right what he'd done in life. He shuddered and reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased photo. It was a picture of him and Sam at the spot where he'd given her the ring inscribed with her name on the hill. Has it really only been a few months? He kissed her photo. And wondered just how much of the past was waiting in the wings to bite them.

Valerie pushed the door open to Danny's former room, to see Sam and Tucker sitting at the desks in front of the window, bathed in the green light of the SpecterShield as they sat tapping away on their laptops. Every so often the green light filling the room would pulse as the shield protecting them from their angry ghost friend changed frequencies.

"Got anything guys?"

"No," a frustrated Tucker Foley said from Danni's left. "We've been combing through seemingly every set of genealogy records libraries in the South have managed to put on the internet, but it's slow-going. The South, especially the Deep South, has lagged beyond the north economically pretty much since the end of the war, it's not as far along as it would be in the North. And Danny's maternal family is from a particularly poor Arkansas community."

"Yeah," Danni said, "We may have to go down there ourselves and start looking through microfilm. I also want to talk to a contact of mine in Fayetteville. He's on his second year of graduate work at the University of Arkansas and he's been one of my contacts since I escaped Vlad." Also more than a contact, if our forest assignation is any indication. He's not really aware of my link with Danny. I don't think they've even met more than once or twice. But he knows more about the Civil War than most of his professors. I think we require a bit more deep background on this incident than I think I can get just browsing the internet for an hour. Problem is it'll take a few days to get there car, and we don't know what our friend out there will do during that time. Also, Tucker's rated as an ECO on a Specter Speeder, not a pilot."

Valerie nodded, seeing the problem. "I'm not a pilot either though. While Danny's a good enough pilot to do in a pinch, by far the best pilot is Sam. Unfortunately she's on a suborbital flight to Hong Kong." She was still amazed that she could say that. One of the flood of new innovations stemming from the fact that all of his research, designs and prototypes were now in the hands of FentonWorks was the expansion of space travel. Whereas apart from a new generation of computers to fit in cars, the basic mechanics of cars basically remained unchanged, it was making waves in aviation, and space travel. Finally, low-cost economical space travel, at least within the confines of the solar system was on the verge of happening. Right now, more than one manned survey mission was on the moon. And while it was still expensive, the costs would only continue to go down once they managed to finish assembly lining the short-range survey vessels. She, like pretty much everyone else in their little team was energized about the possibilities inherent in this.

None of which did anything for their current situation.

"We have two choices. One, we check to see if there's a company pilot available. Two, we get Jazz. However she's in just as much danger as Danny's parents are."

"Where is Jazz?"

"On the far side of the Moon, representing FentonWorks with the survey mission."

"So we can't get her back."

"Not quickly, no." Valerie said. "However, I'll have a message sent to her as soon as she comes out of the communications shadow, get her up to speed."

"Well, then I have to go myself," Danielle said, standing up, apprehension filling her.

Cervantes Quinn sighed as he sat in his armchair at his apartment, a blissful look on his face as he thought about what had happened yesterday. The way Danielle's lips moved against his as he kissed her, the way her body felt pressed against his as he pinned her against a tree. He felt…giddy, and it hadn't really stopped in the day or so since they had parted ways. They could talk about what had happened, when she came back, and she always came back. She'd pretty much lived on his sofa between missions for the past three years, thinking back to the dirty, half-starved barely thirteen-year-old girl who his late sister had taken over to his apartment, after she'd suddenly collapsed (and reverted back to her human form) after a battle with a street gang.

Apparently even superheroes need to eat too, he'd thought to himself, as they'd fed her and allowed her to shower. After that, he'd ended up allowing her to crash on her sofa, helping with research into whatever threat she was going up against that week, all in all proving herself to be much more capable and competent then he'd been at thirteen. And it had been…apparent even then that she'd had a perfectly understandable crush on the handsome older guy who'd helped her in her hour of need. He hadn't really returned it of course, she was pretty, but she'd still clearly been a kid. Then about a year ago, she'd…stopped looking like a scrawny kid. Finally something clicked in to place, and he realized that what he felt for her…was beyond friendship, something his late sister had insisted he should tell her about before she...

"Hey," a familiar feminine voice said from behind her. And he jolted out of her chair a though a current had passed through him.

"Dani," he said quickly, struggling to keep the goofy smile off his face, his face heating as he stared at her in her half-ghost form. "Hi." He shook his head, and remembered earlier. "Did you get the information to the Feds?"

"Yes," she said softly, phasing into her human form and collapsing into the armchair next to where he'd been sitting. "Then something else came up."

"Something else always comes up."

She gave a wan smile. "Well, this is a somewhat tall order." Her face fell. "Not as tall as what happened recently, of course. But still tall." She sighed, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears. "And if you don't want to help me with this in light of what happened earlier I understand."

Folded his arms across his chest. "You never have to say that. We all understood the risk." He walked over to her and without thinking she got out of the chair and wrapped her arms around. He held her for a long moment, before whispering. "You have to remember it was the enemy that killed her. Not you." She stared up at him, tears in her eyes, at the memory that despite what he said would haunt him for the rest of his life as well. His sister, Lisa Quinn, lying in a pool of her own blood, her right arm severed at the shoulder, begging them to help her, and all they could do was watch her bleed to death.

And leave her there.

The two held each other for a long moment, staring at each other silently. He reached out and cupped her face softly. She looked at him in surprise for a moment before leaning in to his touch. He leaned in to press a kiss to her lips only for her to put her hand on his mouth and gently push him back.

"Not yet," she said softly, "I still need to talk to you about what's going on."

"Okay," he said, and he tugged on her shoulder gently, guiding her over to the sofa behind her. "Tell me."

"Well," she said when. "You're not going to believe this. After we finished up yesterday…"

"You're right," he said, half an hour later. "I don't believe this. So…a ghost from the Civil War shows up, determined to kill your cousin for something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago."

"Is that so hard to understand? I have an overwhelming urge to hunt down the specific people responsible for Lisa's murder. And for that matter, so do you."

"Yes, but I wouldn't go after their children or their family pets!" Cervantes said hotly. "I wouldn't abandon our child to-," His mouth abruptly snapped shut, almost of its own volition when he realized what he said.

"He's been hurting for a long time," she said, "I mean to endure something that horrible effects those who survive. Someone who died because of it and then had to exist with it for a century and a half with no counseling or help whatsoever…" She shook her head. "It's why Danny doesn't want to kill him unless he leaves us no other choice."

"Do you think he'll leave him any other choice?"

"I don't know," Danielle said, "I hope so. But that leads why I came here instead of staying behind to help fight. I want to look into his allegations. I want to look into whether or not one of his ancestors rode with Forrest."

He felt a rush of nervous…something flood through him, as he tried to understand just what he was asking. "That's a lot of work you realize that, right? Determining whether or not he rode with Forrest is probably doable, but placing him at a specific battle or proving that he murdered someone at that Fort is another matter entirely."

"I know," Danielle said with a wan smile on her face, "but if anyone can help me investigate this it's you." Then a slow smile appeared on her face. "Besides," she said, running a finger down his chest. "Considering what happened earlier, I'd think you'd jump at a chance to spend more time with me. Particularly after what you said a moment ago."

His face flushed. "About that-," only to be interrupted by her mouth crashing against his. She broke the kiss before he could respond. "Let's get one thing straight, I don't regret what happened earlier, and neither do you, even if we did go farther than I intended. Two, I wouldn't have let you touch me if I didn't absolutely trust you. Three," she sighed softly. "Three, I…love you. I have for quite a while now. Yes, it may have started as a precocious crush, but I'm not a barely pubescent girl anymore. And I've wanted what happened earlier to happen for a while now."

"You mean you were-," Cervantes began.

"Yeah," she said before he could finish.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"My hymen was broken a long time ago," she said softly, "probably during a fight. As for the rest of the pain, I could deal with it. And it's not like it lasted too long," she finished with a smirk. "I regret what happened only in the sense that I could have done without the rough tree bark. Now that we're back in civilization, I know you have a nice, soft bed. What I want is to order a pizza then reconvene there for the rest of the night to...build upon what happened earlier."