This is NOT up for adoption.
Danny awoke suddenly when he fell off the comfortable surface he had been sleeping on and onto something much harder and less comfortable. After some disorientation, Danny realized that he had been sleeping on the couch and not his bed and had rolled of, nearly hitting the coffee table. As he realized this, the remote control that had been sitting on the edge of the couch fell off and onto the back of his head, rebounding onto the floor and causing the channel to change. The device was, like many things in his house, surrounded by a slight greenish glow from the ectoplasm that worked its way everywhere.
Thinking about the ectoplasm-tainted items in his house reminded Danny of the ghost toast incident and made him chuckle. The toaster had been blasted accidently with ectoplasm one day and when they tried to make toast a few hours later, the Jack-shaped bread slices leapt from the toaster and started flying around.
Like a delayed reaction, Danny noticed that has hands were white, his arms were black, and then that he was in ghost form, which caused him to jump up off the floor in surprise. Usually going unconscious automatically transformed him back, so why didn't he do it this time?
Jazz came downstairs to see Danny Phantom with rumpled white hair and sleepy-looking green eyes. "Danny!? What are you doing in ghost form? Mom and dad will be back soon!"
Something about that struck Danny as odd. Why would his sister's statement be odd? His parents had left a few days ago to go to a ghost convention and they were returning today around ten o'clock. It was nine o'clock now, and Danny almost wondered why he was up so early. The odd feeling was more important to him at the moment though, enough for Danny to not bother transforming back to human form.
Jazz rolled her eyes as Danny ignored her and walked lazily into the kitchen for breakfast. She followed him and pestered him about why he was even in ghost form. Had there been a fight early this morning?
"Not that I can remember. I just woke up, and I was in ghost form."
"But don't you usually transform back when you're unconscious?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe you were shocked by something really big."
"Like what?"
"Well, whatever would really shock you. What were you doing before you fell asleep?"
"I was..." Danny couldn't really remember, but he was in ghost form, so maybe he'd been ghost fighting? That didn't seem right. He remembered the green landscape of the Ghost Zone. "I was in the Ghost Zone."
"Why?"
"Exploring?"
"You say that like you don't know."
"I don't remember what I was doing."
"Whatever happened must have been a bigger shock than we thought if you repressed the memory like this."
Danny had a bad feeling about whatever had happened, but he also felt that he needed to know. He hated having holes in his memory.
"We have some time before mom and dad get back. Why don't we go to the Ghost Zone and see if that jogs any memories?"
There was a small twist inside Danny at the mention of his parents, but it wasn't associated with anything.
Jazz and Phantom went down to the Specter Speeder and into the Ghost Zone.
"Where were you?"
Danny started to pilot, just following a feeling without really remembering his previous path. Eventually he came to a stop in a rather distant area that had very few lair doors. "I think I was here."
"And why were you here?"
"I was exploring some of the more distant areas of the Ghost Zone, just to see what was around."
"Nothing seems to be here now. So what did you find?"
A cube of glowing ghost fudge floated by outside the window while Danny sat in silence, trying to think. His eyes caught the fudge and he knew that it was important for some reason.
"Is that fudge?" Jazz asked curious. She didn't come into the Ghost Zone much, but she didn't usually expect to see something so normal as a piece of fudge in the Ghost Zone, even if it were floating by. "I wonder what dad would say."
"Look, Maddie, ghost fudge!"
Jazz looked over at Phantom. "Yeah, he'd probably say that. When did you get so good at mimicking dad's voice?"
But Danny was staring out the window over Jazz's shoulder. His face was even whiter than usual as Phantom and he said quietly, "I remember what happened." His voice betrayed a deep level of sadness.
Jazz was alarmed by Danny's tone and twisted around to look.
There were Jack and Maddie, floating a short distance away from the Specter Speeder. They were using no apparent means to float, like how Jazz needed the Specter Speeder and how Valerie, when ghost fighting, needed her jet board. Jack was holding a cube of fudge that was glowing like the much smaller piece that had floated by and Maddie had an expression of patience, amusement, and affection on her face. Their skin color was off, as were the colors of their jumpsuits, and their eyes seemed to glow slightly. They were surrounded by a glowing haze.
His parents were ghosts.
Jazz screamed.