The Soul Sepulchre Chapter 11: Be Yourself, a danny phantom fanfic

Hiya!

Righty, for those wondering what happened to me for the past two months, well, I've been away (still am, actually, ha). But for a while I didn't have access to the internet, which put a damper on the updating scheme. All I can say is that lapses like this will happen from time to time in my updating, just know that I will ALWAYS come back. I've got big plans for this story and am not going to abandon them anytime soon. Thanks for your patience guys!

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom, and all related characters do not belong to me. I do however own the plot, Legion, and various other minions that may or may not make an appearance. Do with that information as you will, but please do not steal.

Enjoy!

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The Soul Sepulcher

-By Sholay

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Chapter 11—Be Yourself

"Bye Cathy! Bye Sheliza! I'll see you guys tomorrow!" Jasmine Fenton waved goodbye to her friends then turned to walk down the school's parking lot to her car. As she broke away from her social circle and the comfort of human interaction, the amicable smile slid off her face.

Running a hand through her waist length hair, she pulled it back into a high ponytail before unlocking the door to her cherry red convertible. She laid one hand on the handle of the door then paused.

It was so typical of human behaviour, she thought with vexation, to act with such immaturity and callousness toward other people's feelings. Sure, everyone was all simpering and sympathetic to the victim, sending well wishes left, right and centre; but the second their back was turned people would spread vile rumours and gossip endlessly.

Jazz let out a sigh and opened the car door. The bitter feel of having to deal with countless self-absorbed people for too many hours on end was heavy and viscous on her mind, annoying her highly. Placing her heavy backpack carefully under the seat in the back—she didn't want any of her books to get accidentally scratched or banged up around the corners—Jazz slid into the driver's seat, tugging the edges of her knee length white and lavender patterned skirt after her. Methodically, she strapped on her seatbelt and checked her mirrors before starting the car and exiting the school.

Popularity was the dream of every high school student. Whether prep or jock, geek or goth, everyone had their own vision of their desired popularity. Some merely wished for a close-knit group of friends, to whom they could rant all their problems. Some wished to be admired from afar as a role model to others. And some… wished for it all: to be the veritable King of the school.

Jazz, as a proud high school sophomore, had already established her status in the social hierarchy. To a sophomore—stuck in the painful phase of being not quite on top of the ladder, like a senior, but desperate to avoid being grouped with the underlings, the juniors and freshman—it was critical to have absolutely no fraternization with the freshmen.

Odd then, that this year's freshmen would have hogged so much of the grapevine this year.

Jazz stopped at a red light. Some of her shorter hair had teased itself out from under her turquoise headband and she tucked it back idly.

Casper High was a pitiful school; Jazz knew. Filled with unmotivated students and weary teachers, the school had only one dubious claim to fame: its junior football team.

It was no secret that Dash was a good football player. Even Jazz—who had an underlying distaste for such an ultimately desultory sport—could acknowledge the freshman's talent. Just being allowed to play on the junior team was indicative enough of that; for him to have become star quarterback was even more impressive. The team had been doing extraordinarily well, especially this season, and with the championship game coming up in just a couple of weeks, they needed every one of their players prepped and fit for the game.

Naturally, it would not do for their star player to be failing history and math.

Nor would it do to have that same player suspended from the game for having started a fight on school campus.

Jazz, of course, being one of the only smart and popular people in the school had been the natural choice to be Dash Baxter's private tutor.

Now, sure, she did volunteer tutoring after school; and sure, she found it fun. But did she ask to tutor the one boy who terrorized her little brother on a daily basis? Did she like the predatory looks Dash sent Danny whenever they were in the same room… that Danny usually had to flee the room, and the house, lest the jock decided on a whim to beat him up? Did she like the disgusting come-ons that Dash continuously dolled out?

No.

Did she have a choice in the matter?

No.

Not if she wanted to keep her painfully earned spot on the social ladder.

In high school, short of good grades, popularity was everything. If you were popular you were in the good graces of the teachers. You could get into any event, any club. You could get good references and even better marks. Jazz had once seen an honest, hard-working student turned down for a retest, regardless of his reason, just by the teacher's fancy—even though many jocks gotten had extensions or even exclusions from that very same teacher, because of an upcoming game.

Jazz had been young and idealistic when she'd entered high school. In junior high and elementary school, she had been popular merely because she was smart. Teachers liked her because she gave thoughtful answers and she had been encouraged to succeed.

In her first class of high school she had answered a single Math question right—x was equal to 67, even now she remembered—and for weeks she had been ostracized by the student population, called hurtful names like 'grade grubber' or 'teacher's pet'.

After that, Jazz had learned to keep her mouth shut during class and let her answers come out on paper. Participation was for the geeks, dweebs and nerds, so it seemed.

Another red light stopped her and Jazz put her arm across the open windowsill, leaning her head on her hand. Another car drove up next to her and stopped. Blaring music assaulted her ears and she looked over in mild disdain at the teens grinning talking and laughing raucously in the car.

Popularity had not come easy to Jazz.

She had had to fight for it, learning every ingress and egress of how these shallow, petty teens worked. She had made plastic friends, the kind to whom you could whine about boys or hard tests, but God forbid you actually needed them to do something for you. Jazz learned what to say and when to say it. She learned how to use her smarts to her advantage and was not proud of the many homework assignments she had completed for other students to become their friends.

That was something Danny didn't know. Jazz's lips quirked upward at the thought of her little brother. Poor, little, innocent Danny thought he knew so much about the world, yet knew nothing about the way people worked and what truly did make the Earth turn on its axis.

He thought she was a steady, upstanding person who followed her ideals to a fault, never faltering…

Indeed, that was the impression she strove to give him.

As the older sister, Jazz wanted to set a good example for Danny; and what would he say if he knew she'd spent much of her freshman year doing six different sets of homework just to further her popularity?

He would be disappointed.

'Ah, Danny. You think the world is so simple that if you always do what your heart tells you, you'll succeed.'

Jazz drummed her fingers on the side of the car. Danny always did what he thought was the right thing. Always. It was admirable, Jazz thought, to have the courage to be so consistent in one's beliefs. In a way Jazz never wanted Danny to change, but in another, she knew that the world would waste no time in destroying someone as soft-hearted as him.

It was one of the reasons why she'd become so close to Danny, why she was thinking about attending community college in Amity Park, come two years. She needed to be around for Danny, protect him from the things which sought to ruin such honest, pure goodness.

Popularity was one of those things. It had a way of warping the mind: changing priorities and skewing right and wrong.

Take yesterday for instance.

The news of Danny and Dash's fight had spread all over the school, spanning even the gaps between the grades. Jazz had been more than a little surprised when even some seniors had come up to her asking 'Hey, was that your brother who beat up Dash Baxter yesterday?'

In the span of one day, Danny had earned himself a bad-boy reputation many teens spent years trying to achieve—shooting him sky high into the social hierarchy. Everyone wanted to know who he was, how he learned to fight; was he on any school teams, how old he was… and—to Jazz's mortification—if he had a girlfriend.

Jazz wondered how Danny would take the irony. For so long he had desired popularity, now he'd gotten it in the one way he never would've wanted it.

Then there was the incident with Dash's cat.

All of a sudden the rumours had grown malicious. In front of Dash, everyone was all apologetic faces and condolences. But in the background, suddenly everyone was leaning over to gossip, as though there were some delicious secret to tell.

'Hey, you heard about that fight yesterday right?'

'Yeah, yeah! I heard that one guy took on Dash Baxter all on his own and won!'

'What was his name?'

'His name?'

'Daniel? Damon?'

'Danny, Danny Fenton!'

'Danny Fenton? As in… Jazz Fenton?'

'Yeah, he's her younger brother. He's a freshman.'

'Ooh, a freshman huh?'

'I hear he's kind of cute, actually.'

'Yeah, yeah, but what about that cat, you think he did it?'

'Well, I hear that Danny has all sorts of behavioural problems: gets into trouble with his teachers ALL the time.'

'I hear he hated his chem labs, so he'd break all the glassware.'

'I hear he skips class and no one knows where he goes!'

'Really? You think he does drugs or something?'

'Naw, he doesn't look like no junkie. Didn't you see that right hook he laid on Dash? And that kick? I bet half our boxing team couldn't move that fast, let alone some burnout freak.'

'And he's not on any school teams?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'No?'

'Wow. So what is he?'

'I dunno, never heard of him before yesterday.'

'Huh, maybe he's part of some weird, street fighting gang or something.'

'Or maybe he has a girlfriend in college!'

'What does that have to do with anything?'

'Hah ha. So you think he did it then: hang Dash's cat huh?'

'Of course!'

'That's… hard core, man.'

It was unbelievable! Just short of outright condoning the hanging of Dash's cat, the students were practically acting like nothing was wrong with it. If anything, Danny had become even more popular!

Jazz was so upset at having to reiterate over and over that Danny did not—could not—have hung Dash's cat that when the police had come and asked her about it she'd…

…She'd lied.

Jazz narrowed her eyes, watching the street passing in front of her with a dark frown.

She'd told the police that she had seen Danny asleep during the time when Dash's cat had been killed.

Btu the only time she'd checked on Danny was when she'd woken him up… several hours after the estimated time of death.

Jazz pulled into the FentonWorks driveway and parked the car. She sat there then, just thinking. After a few moments she shook her head. It didn't matter. It didn't matter! So what if she hadn't actually seen Danny in bed. She knew he was in bed; the only time he woke up in the middle of the night was to chase a ghost, and there hadn't been any ghosts around for weeks. So Danny had been in bed. And that was that.

Besides, it was inconceivable that Danny could have done such a thing. The possibility never even registered in her mind.

With this resolved, Jazz nodded to herself and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Jingling the metal against the shiny cherry ornament on the chain, she placed them in her pocket before exiting the car. Then, reaching into the back of the car, she carefully extracted her backpack from under the seat.

Whistling a nameless tune, she made her way up the driveway, mindful of her new high heeled shoes and avoiding the grass. At the foot of the threshold she paused, something odd catching her attention. The whistle died away on her lips.

Around the corner of the house, a huge hole was gouged into the Earth. From the angled she'd walked up, it had been invisible. But now she could clearly see the amount of damage done to the lawn: a ragged chuck of the ground had been pulverized, matting down grass and soil into a shallow semicircle that stretched several feet. Jazz sucked on her teeth, a twinge of unease prickling at her mind. There had been a fight here; what happened? Was it a ghost—was Danny okay? Gnawing at her lower lip in worry, her eyes trailed the ground, searching for any clue to what had happened.

Her breath caught suddenly as her eyes spotted a figure prone on the ground. Though nearly hidden among the long grass and weeds, there was absolutely no mistaking that mop of dark, messy hair.

The book bag fell to the ground with a loud thump, forgotten, as Jazz ran with frenzied abandon through the grass.

"DANNY!"

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Danny groaned lowly as he came back to consciousness with the feeling of a hundred bricks being dumped on his head.

With a grimace of pain, he pressed both heels of his hands into the bone above the hollows of his eyes and rubbed. He squeezed his eyes closed, then let out a breath of air and tried to open them.

The world spun in violent, nauseating circles and Danny recoiled with a sharp wince, shutting his eyes quickly. The awful spinning sensation continued, even behind his closed eyes and another deep groan made its way up his throat.

"Danny, Danny! You're awake!"

Danny grit his teeth as Jazz's voice pierced straight through his eardrums into his skull—and his hands shifted to cover his ears. There was a soft wall on his side and instinctively, Danny rolled to press his back into it and pulling his knees to his chest. A small whine escaped between his teeth.

Again the urge to vomit hit him, but his stomach muscles had no strength and could only contract in weak bursts.

Danny forced himself to swallow. Then, with painstaking slowness, uncurled himself—taking long deep breaths as he did.

A few minutes of silence passed—Jazz must have realized that making noise was bad right now—while Danny just lay there, his eyes closed, breathing slowly. Finally, the nausea passed and he chanced opening his eyes slowly.

The light in the room was mild: no artificial lights were turned on, which made Danny grateful. The room spun for a second but, though Danny squinted, he resolutely kept his eyes open until the dizziness faded. He was in the family room, he saw. Jazz must have been worried sick, to have risked the possibility of their parents coming home and seeing him unconscious. Usually when this sort of thing happened, Sam, Tucker or Jazz would carry him to his room. He wasn't that heavy, he knew, but for Jazz to have forgone secrecy for expediency… how bad did he look?

'…Wait… what happened again?... Oh yeah, Skulker, the fight, that light and those voices… Huhn… Weird. I didn't get hit all that hard. Why'd I collapse?'

By now, Danny had managed to orient himself into a sitting position. He could feel Jazz's presence hovering over him, but though she reached out—prepared to catch him should he fall—she did not touch him, for fear of aggravating some unseen wound. Still squinting, Danny pulled his eyes open to the point where he could see Jazz. She gave him a silent, questioning look. He nodded before letting his head hang with a sigh, bangs falling over his eyes. Strength was slowly returning to his limbs and his arms tensed at his sides, fingers curling around the seat of his chair on both sides of his legs.

"Danny…" Jazz's voice was low and soft; apparently she was still worried about irritating his ears. "What happened?"

"First…" Danny's voice was even quieter than Jazz's and she had to lean closer to hear him. "Tell me. Why'm I in the family room?"

Jazz understood, but didn't answer immediately. Danny looked up at her, watching her expression curiously. She seemed agitated. "Danny," she fiddled with her fingers. "You weren't breathing."

A beat passed.

"Oh…" Danny's voice was so low the word was nearly a puff of air. 'That is pretty bad.'

"I was so worried!" Jazz suddenly burst out. Speaking quickly, her voice got high and jerky, like it usually did whenever she was greatly unsettled by something. "I thought—I thought… I don't know what I thought! I just brought you in here as fast as I could. Then I couldn't decide what to do, I checked your pulse, it was there but really slow… But I don't even know if that's normal! I didn't know what to do! I was thinking if I should give you mouth-to-mouth, but what if I did it wrong? I was gonna call 911, but what could they do? I was gonna call Sam and Tucker… but… but…" Jazz took a deep shuddering breath. Danny was going to tell her to stop, that she needn't continue, but she started talking before he could say anything. "Just as I was about to call the hospital you took this big gulp of air… like a diver coming out of the water or something.

"I was so glad." Jazz's head rose and Danny was taken aback when she looked at him with wide, shimmering eyes. "So glad when you took that breath. A couple of minutes after that you woke up, but… but… for those few seconds, I thought… I thought…" Her voice failed her and Jazz bit her lip, lowering her eyes.

"Hey… Hey…" Danny said, ducking his head to catch her eyes. When he did, he brought his head up, bringing her gaze with him. "I'm okay. I'm okay, really!" His strength was returning now, enough for him to give her a reassuring grin, which seems to relax her. "I'm just a little bruised, 's all. I guess all those weeks of no ghost hunting has really made me soft, huh?" Danny let out a small chuckle, but Jazz didn't join in. "Hey, look, I'm alright, okay? It'll take more than some old, recycled, tin can stalker to take me down. Besides, think about it this way, if I look this bad, imagine how the other guy looks, huh, huh?" Danny gave her an encouraging look, spreading his arms wide.

He was rewarded with a small, watery smile. "So that's all then? Just a regular ghost fight?"

"A regular as it can be, fighting a guy who wants your pelt at the foot of his bed." Danny smiled. It wasn't a lie. Besides, the whole truth right now would only hurt her more, and he didn't want that.

Jazz wrinkled her nose. "You mean that nasty Ghost-X still hasn't given up yet?"

"Skulker, Jazz. Skulker." Danny gave a mock, dramatic sigh. "Will you never get it right?"

" 'What's in a name?' " She grinned while Danny rolled his eyes. Of course, only his sister could be perked up by quoting Shakespeare. "Besides, how do you know it's not me who's been right all this time? Maybe you're the one who's got it wrong."

Danny put a speculative finger to his chin. "Oh, I don't know whatever gave me the idea his name was Skulker… hm, maybe it was the fact that he told me?!"

"But his name couldn't have ALWAYS been Skulker, right?" Jazz reasoned.

"Huh?" Danny frowned.

"Well, he was alive once, right? So he couldn't have always been called Skulker. I mean, bad names are one thing, but no parent would curse their child with an awful name like Skulker. Right?"

"… I guess…" Danny was thoughtful, soaking this new perceptive in. "You're right."

"Oh when will you learn, little brother?" Jazz sniffed then, leftover residue of having gotten so close to tears. Danny shot her a concerned look, but she didn't see it as she rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. "I'm always right." Jazz then looked up straight into Danny's eyes and struck by the sudden fierceness of her expression he leaned back into the couch. "And if you EVER, and I mean EVER, scare me like that again, I will make SURE you regret it for the rest of your life!"

"Uh…" Danny raised a finger, prepping for a smart comeback.

"THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!" She reiterated and Danny's finger curled back in, not daring to make any comment.

"And that's a promise." Jazz smirked then and poked her index finger into Danny's chest. "And remember, I'm always right."

"Riiiight…" Danny eyed his sister warily, rubbing at the spot she'd prodded. "Next time I fall unconscious, I'll make sure to do it on the other side of town…" His comment trailed off miserably at the look Jazz was giving him and he effused a nervous chuckle.

"Eh heh he heh… Eh heh… Just joking?" He grinned and raised his hands in a surrendering motion.

"You'd better be." Jazz stood. She looked down at Danny and he stared up at her. "Are you sure you're ok?"

"Yup, yup. It's always weird waking up, but once you get over that it's ok, y'know?" Danny looked himself over, then flexed his hands into fists. Indeed, he was almost back to normal—it was like nothing had ever happened.

"I can't say I do know, actually." Jazz was giving him an enigmatic stare which Danny recognized as her 'I'm going to psychoanalyze you' look, so he quickly searched for another topic.

"Hey, um… I guess, from the lack of yelling and random explosions that Mom and Dad haven't come back yet?" He raised an eyebrow.

Jazz shook her head, an annoyed look crossing her face. "No, they're out acting as unofficial 'council' to the police." She put sarcastic air quotes around the word 'council'. "See, the police basically want Mom and Dad to admit that there's nothing ghostly about the weird things that have been going on recently. They don't want any official help because they want to hog all the glory to themselves." Jazz pulled her lips to one side, making a displeased face. "But Mom and Dad being… well, Mom and Dad, obviously had some wordsto say about that."

"Obviously," Danny echoed, wondering where this was going.

"So, in the end, Mom and Dad agreed that the vandalism couldn't have been caused by ghosts… albeit grudgingly. The only reason they did so was because it was physically… or metaphysically, impossible for a ghost to have sneaked by their sensors and traps… even if they'd had extended knowledge of the devices, there were still some places that nothing but a human could have gotten through."

"Right…" Danny nodded. "So the police are happy so far. Then what? What about the incident with Dash's cat at Casper High?"

"Oh…" Jazz suddenly sent Danny a sly look and he realized his verbal faux pas. "Someone snuck out of their grounding and went to school, didn't they?"

"I didn't say that!" Danny burst out in defense. "I… I heard about it on TV…"

"Uh huh…" Jazz gave an evil little grin. "Little brother, I know you too well."

"Aww… c'mon Jazz! You're not gonna tell!" Danny abandoned his weak defense and fell into pitiful begging. "Please? They never said what happened on the news and I just had to see if you, Sam and Tucker were ok. I had to come and check! Sam and Tucker told me what happened and I came right back, honestly! You can't tell Mom and Dad that I snuck out!"

"Hmmmm…" Jazz hummed thoughtfully and Danny put on the best pitiful look he could manage. It didn't take his sister long to cave. "Ok, ok, fine." She grinned easily. "I keep enough secrets for you already, so one more shouldn't be so hard."

Somehow, this last, simple sentence seemed to strike Danny. He leaned back with a startled look.

'I keep enough secrets for you already.' Her words echoed in his head, washing him in a surge of guilt. Danny looked down. It was his secret, his damnable secret that had turned his friends, and his own sister—Jazz, the one who never hid anything—into liars. He'd turned them all into liars, just for his own benefit.

Jazz seemed to sense Danny's drop in mood; she looked at him for a long moment before suddenly speaking up loudly, as though trying to shock him out of his dark thoughts. "Well, anyway! Mom and Dad refused to say that the cat's hanging wasn't ghost-related."

This caught the halfa's attention and he looked back up. "Why?"

Jazz, happy she'd distracted her brother, threw herself into the explanation. "Well, first, the police managed to close off the area before many students could trample over it. Then, they found no evidence of the cat having been lured or carried to the school. There's also no evidence of anyone having arrived or left in the specific time frame. No footprints around the pole, no car tracks, nothing. So really, it appears as though the cat just appeared there tied to the flagpole from thin air. Next, there were no fingerprints on the rope or the pole."

"The guy coulda worn gloves." Danny pointed out.

"Yes, but, even gloves leave behind some imprint. The pole was grimy, so was the rope. Any area used to hang the cat would have been smudged or wiped clean by the gloves. Gloves leave behind marks; they're just too indefinite to lift a fingerprint off of."

"Sooo…" Danny drew the word out, knowing his sister would finish the sentence for him.

"So! Only a ghost would leave such obvious evidence that is completely lacking any obvious evidence! Don't you see?"

"…Actually, I do. Which makes me wonder if I've been spending too much time with you recently." Danny sent Jazz a cheeky grin.

She huffed. "Well! I'll remember that the next time you ask me for help on your English assignments!"

"Oh Jazz! That hurts!" Danny fell back, clutching at his heart. "Surely you wouldn't leave your poor, little, defenseless brother to the face the violent, scary evils of the Capulets and Montagues all on his lonesome, would you?"

"HA!" Jazz let out a bark of laughter. "You? Defenseless? Hah ha. Little? Yes. Innocent? Yes. Gullible? Most certainly. But the one thing you are NOT is defenseless."

"Err… thanks?" Danny sounded bemused. "That was a compliment… right?"

Jazz just grinned. "At any rate," She said at length. "Mom and Dad have basically decided to start their own investigation and will probably be out late trying to find the ghost that hung Dash's cat."

"Oh… Okay…How do you know this anyway?" Danny raised an eyebrow.

"They left a message on the answering machine; I heard it record while you were out on the couch." Jazz answered.

"Ah…" Danny said. "I see."

The conversation seemed to dwindle from there. There was nothing else to say on the subject and Jazz fidgeted after a few seconds, wondering if she should leave.

Danny though, looked lost in thought, as though he were trying to decide something. Finally, Danny spoke up. "Hey Jazz…" He said slowly. "What… does… the word… 'ethos' mean?" He spoke very hesitantly, seemingly unsure of whether he should be asking her this or not.

Jazz raised an eyebrow, looking down at Danny still seated on the couch. "Huh? Why? Where did you come across that word?"

"It… was something I heard someone say recently." Danny waved the question away. "It's not important. What does it mean?"

"Well, what was the sentence it was in? The context sometimes changes the definition." Jazz probed.

"I don't remember, isn't there some general definition or something?" Danny raised his eyebrows.

"Well… generally, I guess… and this is a very vague definition…" Jazz was clearly disgruntled with the lack of precision she was being forced to give. "But basically it means a socially acceptable way of thinking."

"Huh?" Danny looked baffled, "That doesn't make any sense."

Jazz let out an irritated puff of air through her nose. "Well, clearly you have a specific context in mind. If you just told me where you heard that word it would—"

"No, no…" Danny recanted. "Your definition was fine, I just don't understand. Just, can you give me an example or something?"

Jazz gave her brother a suspicious glance; she'd thought her definition had been pretty easy to understand. Nonetheless, she searched her mind for an example. "Ok, well, you know about the Salem witch trials, right?"

For some reason Danny gave a sharp shudder at this, rubbing his hands over his arms in a quick motion. "Yeah… yeah, I know them." He said it like he knew them personally, Jazz filed it away as something to ask him about later.

"Well, during that time it was seen as right and just to burn witches at the stake. It was the belief of the community that this was God's will. So one could say that it was old Salem ethos to burn witches at the stake." Jazz thought her sentence over in her mind as she said it. Yes, it seemed correct.

"Ok…" Danny appeared to be thinking hard. "So… ethos is like a normal behaviour pattern among a specific group of people."

"More like the specific customs and spirit which make the group act in certain ways," Jazz corrected. "But essentially, yes."

"I see." Danny was clearly trying to figure something out in his head.

"Hey, Danny," Jazz figured she should just ask. "How do you know about the Salem witch trials anyway?"

"Oh, that. Well, it's a funny story actually, heh he…" Danny grinned in a way that did not reassure Jazz one bit.

"Go on." She crossed her arms.

"Ah well, Sam, Tucker and I found this map which would take us anywhere in the ghost zone and we used it to find a time portal." Danny said quickly, preparing himself for the inevitable explosion. He wasn't disappointed.

"You WHAT?! Danny, how many times do I have to tell you! You don't use strange, ghostly items. Especially if you don't know where they're from and especially if you don't know how they work!"

"Well a friend gave it—ok fine, we kinda took it—by accident!" He raised a hand, looking like he was telling the truth… but Jazz was skeptical: she didn't know how someone could accidentally take something. "… And we were just going to have a little fun. I was going to return it as soon as we checked out a little of the Ghost Zone!"

"This was your brilliant plan, wasn't it?" Jazz was not amused. Only Danny would come up with something that was so obviously going to fail horribly.

"Hey… Well, it was not big deal. We ended up in 17th century Salem…"

"Oh you didn't Danny." Jazz groaned, rubbing a hand over one eye.

"Yeah, well, we all got out ok in the end so it was fine!" Danny insisted.

"Please tell me none of you got branded as a witch." Jazz said lowly.

"Er… well…" Danny paused.

"Who?"

"Sam."

"What happened?" When Danny didn't answer right away, Jazz asked again. "What happened, Danny?" Her tone left no room for argument.

"Ah… She was going to be burned at the stake when Vlad—"

"VLAD?!"

"Yeah, he'd kinda bugged the house and knew where we were. So he followed—"

"VLAD BUGGED THE HOUSE?!" Jazz's head shot up as she yelled incredulously. "WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS ALREADY?! WHAT ROOMS DID HE BUG? WHEN? HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN WATCHING US?!"

"Oh don't worry," Danny waved a hand at Jazz to calm down. "He bugged the lab and a couple of other rooms, but not yours… or Mom and Dad's." He laughed here. "He probably couldn't stand seeing them together. Hah. Besides I found all the cameras and destroyed them, so no worries."

But Jazz didn't fail to notice that Danny hadn't mentioned his own room. She opened her mouth to ask, but then decided she'd rather not know. Besides, if Danny had destroyed all the cameras it didn't matter anyway.

At least she hoped it didn't. Jazz shivered. Vlad Masters was a lunatic.

"Go back to your story then." Jazz urged. When Danny looked confused, she explained. "You were saying about Sam nearly… burning… at the stake and Vlad appearing, what happened then?"

"Ah… you won't let it go, will ya?" Danny gave his older sister a sheepish grin and she snorted.

"Not that easily." She said.

"Well, Vlad basically said I was an evil spirit, set the villagers against us, grabbed the map and flew off into the portal. Then this 1600's version of Dad popped out of nowhere—"

"Dad?" Jazz's lips quirked at the corner. "You're not serious."

"Oh I am." Danny nodded vigorously, looking at Jazz with wide eyes. " 'John Fenton Nightingale, Salem's Greatest Witchwacker!' " Danny intoned passionately, shaking a fist in the air and doing a fairly good job of imitating their father. "Complete with orange trench coat and all!"

Jazz couldn't help the small giggle that escaped her. She covered her mouth, sitting back down on the couch. "Oh my, so he looked exactly like Dad?"

Danny nodded again. "Except the long wavy hair, he was a carbon copy of Dad."

"So what happened then?" Jazz was getting into the story, she always liked hearing about her little brother's adventures, it was like reading a storybook, so out-there and fantastical.

"Well, he had these Blood Blossom thingies with him and sprinkled them around Sam…"

"Blood Blossoms? Not the ancient anti-ghost remedy? Like the modern day Specter Deflector?" Jazz's eagerness gave way to worry. "Were you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah." Danny grinned easily. "I couldn't touch them, but Tucker came and saved the day by eating up all the flowers. It was like, the first vegetable he'd ever eaten." He laughed. "I grabbed Sam and Tucker and we escaped after that, eventually tracking down Vlad and getting back the map."

"You returned the map then." Jazz gave Danny a look.

"Yes, Mother," Danny rolled his eyes. "I gave the map back."

"Good." Jazz nodded. "And—"

"And I'll never use any questionable or remotely fun-looking ghostly objects again." Danny recited with his eyes closed, already knowing what Jazz was going to ask. Then he looked at his sister and smirked."At least, not without checking with Mrs. Worrywart here first."

"Hey, that's Ms. Worrywart, thank you very much." Jazz pointed a finger at Danny.

Danny laughed. "So, she admits!"

"You better believe it! And I'm proud of it too!"

Much later that evening...

Danny wandered restlessly through the house in ghost form. Already invisible to the naked eye, he didn't bother with intangibility. He knew each sensor and trap in the house so well he was able to avoid each one with ease, even in his preoccupied state of mind.

He'd had another nightmare.

It had started out in a dark place, so dark it was suffocating. His senses had been cut off completely: he couldn't see, he couldn't hear, nothing. Then he'd stumbled across this odd ridge in the ground and found a hidden trapdoor. Passed the door was a fiery pit which had seemed irresistibly inviting. Danny had jumped in, but as soon as he did, the fire roared to life around him and swallowed him whole.

That was when Danny had woken up.

Danny glided into the kitchen, passing the dinner table and moving on to the family room.

He had the vague feeling of déjà vu. As though he'd seen and experienced that very same dream before… No, not the very same… but similar. But it was like grasping air, it was there right in front of his face, but he couldn't get a hold on it. He just couldn't remember clearly what had happened in the first dream. It was unsettling.

After waking up, Danny had been startled into a sense of false-awareness that left him feeling bone-weary and sluggish. He couldn't get back to sleep, nor could he just lie in his bed doing nothing, so instead he was wandering around the house like a zombie, trying to get his thoughts in order.

Sam and Tucker had called the house earlier. Since his parents hadn't been home, he'd taken the call—in spite of his grounding—telling Jazz he'd only be a couple of minutes.

Danny wished he'd just stuck to his parent's rules.

Sam and Tucker had told him their plan. A plan they had created and designed, without him, and only thought it prudent to tell him his rather large role in the entire thing after they'd decided the entire thing between themselves.

The first objective, they'd said, was to figure out what killed Dash's cat… fine, fine, Danny could agree with this. Next, conduct research… 'On what?' had been Danny's unasked question. Then, sneak out… but he was grounded. At night, of course… easier said than done. Then go back to the museum… and that was all Danny heard.

A resolute 'No' had passed his lips before Sam had even completed her sentence. A dead silence had come after that.

What followed had been an ugly battle of wills between Danny and Sam, Tucker staying more or less out of it. It was not often that Danny and Sam fought… The raven-haired boy usually conceded to her reasonable views without much argument. But when Danny dug his feet in, he went deep; and the resulting fight had been long and painful.

Prideful and stubborn, Sam had taken Danny's refusal as a personal shot at her own idea, launching into a defensive repost of bringing up his own old, hackneyed plans and how she had followed then without question. Was he beating down her plan because he didn't trust her?

Equally stubborn and hypersensitive, Danny had returned with an inflamed remark about their lack of support and obvious disinterest in his opinion. Did they really care about his input, or was he just the muscle in their little plan?

The conversation had taken a frightening, deteriorative turn after that, leading to Sam eventually hanging up in a spiteful rage.

Danny had been in a foul mood after that, retreating permanently to his room and skipping dinner completely. A persistent flicker of sickly yellow in the corner of his vision had been his constant companion since the mention of the museum and it was maddening. A splitting headache had formed during the fight and with a scowl, Danny had thrown himself onto his bed, burying his head in the pillows and pressing against his temples with his hands. The yellow in his vision faded, at least, when he closed his eyes.

After many minutes of just lying there—stewing in his rage—guilt began to creep into Danny's consciousness.

Why had he gotten so mad? He never got so upset that easily…

It had been a good idea, to go back to the museum. And it was normal—smart, even—of Sam to have come up with the potential connection between the museum and the incidents around town.

Worse and worse… The guilt came in heavy waves now and Danny grimaced in shame. He had been so caught up in his petty anger that he never even told Sam and Tucker the real reason why he didn't want them… especially not Sam and Tucker… to go back to the museum.

It was dangerous. Horribly dangerous.

And it scared him.

Scared! Him? Such a selfish emotion should not rule him like this! What sort of a hero cowers in a corner when the bad guy brings out a scary mask? Sam and Tucker were never scared… at least it never seemed like they were scared…

'But they've always had you to hide behind…'

He had gotten angry, sidetracked and angry. Sam was not one to forgive and forget overnight. She would be upset with him for days.

What had he done?

Danny paused in the middle of his aimless stroll. Even now, thinking about the argument made him feel sick. He was an awful person: selfish, insecure, petty.

After the argument—when reason had returned to Danny as he sat in his darkened room—Danny had immediately wanted to fly off to Sam's house and apologize for his insensitive words. If he hadn't known for certain that Sam equated speedy apologies with insincerity, Danny would have said he was sorry long ago. Instead, he had lain listlessly in his bed for hours until passing into an uneasy, fitful sleep.

Then he'd had that dream.

Passing the family room couch in another round of his pacing, Danny ambled over to the couch and dropped onto it like a sack of flour. Still invisible, he placed his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers under his nose, staring blankly at nothing.

He'd probably had that dream as a cruel karmic kick for his failure to curb his recent boughts of anger.

This rage: it was not normal. Usually he had at least some control over his temper, but now he was flying off the handle at the slightest of things—it had happened a few times now: with Dash as well as Sam and Tucker. Friend or foe, no one was safe from Danny's uncontrollable ire.

Danny's gloved hands clenched around each other.

He would not allow this to continue. He had to control his anger, He would do it. Even if it meant staying silent. Even if it meant agreeing to things he wouldn't normally agree with. Keeping Sam and Tucker happy was a priority; he did not want to hurt them with his thoughtless words. If he wanted to do something they didn't agree with, he could always do it while in his own company. If he didn't agree with something they were saying… well, he was entitled to his own opinion. That didn't mean he always had to verbally express that opinion.

It would work out better for everyone if Danny just took a step back and shaped his words to Sam and Tucker's expectations.

And yes, Danny knew this was not the way one should go about a friendship—goodness knows he'd seen enough of those 'be yourself' teen movies—but he did not live in the idealistic, perfect world of a scripted movie: where the guy always gets the girl and the hero always defeats the bad guy. This was real life, and in Danny's life, his anger was dangerous. His self-control was the only thing standing between him and the monsters he fought every day. If he could not control himself while with his best friends, then what would happen when he faced his enemies?

Danny did not dare finish that thought.

'There is no need to. I will never let it get that far.'

With that decided, the next question was:

How should he apologize to Sam?

He hated it when she was angry. There had to be a way to make her feel better. But after having had two arguments with her in just as many days, Danny was already on thin ice with his best friend. The delivery of this apology was absolutely critical. He had to do it in a way that would she would not only forgive him, but abandon this silly idea of hers to go to the museum.

… After several minutes of thinking Danny still couldn't think of a way he could get Sam to forget about going to the museum without getting into another argument with her.

Danny wondered, briefly, if he should just suck it up, say he was sorry, and go along with her plan.

'Why do you always have to be the one who apologizes?'

This thought paused Danny for a moment. Why was he always the one who apologized? Why not Sam, or Tucker?

Danny rose from the couch and moved to the window. Brushing aside the curtains with one hand, he gazed out into the twilit night. The sun was rising; the stars were gone. Soon it would be morning.

Danny apologized because he couldn't stand arguments or misunderstandings.

He hated the mental strain it took to sustain an ongoing argument. It drained him and always left a constant, painful, constricted feeling in his chest.

Usually, after a night's sleep, the memory of an argument would become inconsequential and fuzzy to Danny. Yes, they'd fought, but today was a new day and they could go on with their lives. It took an actual conscious effort for Danny to keep an argument in the forefront of his mind; otherwise he was likely to forget about the entire thing. He'dgo and make oblivious mistakes like trying to start idle conversations with Sam and Tucker while they were still mad at him.

'Why don't they ever apologize?'

Danny assumed that it was because he always broke first. After an argument, Tucker had the tendency to withdraw into himself for an unlimited amount of time: neither talking to the outside world or interacting in it. It was like he was replaced by a lifeless dummy that had its head attached with superglue to the screen of its PDA.

Sam though had a more direct approach. She had the formidable ability to remember every detail of not only last night's argument, but an argument they'd had three years ago on a similar issue. Sam used old memories to bring back old, festered feelings of hurt and anger and used them against Danny until he would either admit he was wrong or get angry himself.

Sometimes Danny wished he had the ability to remember things like that. He had a tendency to let things slip in one ear, then straight out the other. He couldn't retain things like Sam and sometimes that made him feel at a disadvantage to her. Her memory really was quite amazing.

Danny supposed that Sam and Tucker would eventually get around to apologizing. It would just take awhile. Danny though, didn't like that time in between, because it allowed bad feelings to fester into something more malicious, which often led to misunderstandings or rash decisions. Even when Sam and Tucker fought between each other, Danny would needle one or the other relentlessly until they cracked and apologized to each other.

Danny should apologize; his hand curled around the curtain, gripping it tight. He should catch Sam and Tucker on the way to school today and say he was sorry.

'Why?'

It was the right thing to do.

'Why can't Sam and Tucker do it then?'

Because… he could let go of things more easily than them.

'Does it hurt?'

Danny sucked in a sharp breath when this thought to him. Did it hurt?

…Yes. Yes, it did hurt.

To be the one who always apologized…

To be the one always expected to apologize.

Always being in the wrong—always saying he was sorry, it chipped away at his esteem and left him feeling stupid and vulnerable.

Why couldn't they do it? Just this once? How often did they apologize of their own initiative? Did they care enough? Should Danny wait and see?

A sudden creaking at the top of the stairs had Danny swivelling around, dropping the curtain in his invisible hand quickly. With a jolt, Danny realized how late it had gotten. Sometime during his idle thoughts, the sun had risen fully. A short glace at the clock confirmed that it was nearly 7:30am—just the time when his mother woke up to do her morning exercise.

As the lower half of his mother's body came into view from the staircase, Danny decided there was no need for him to fly up to his room. She couldn't see him anyway… And besides… Danny sort of wanted to watch her. The last few times they had talked—when she wasn't out ghost hunting—had been tense and stressful; and Danny missed just seeing his mother happy or even calm.

Danny stood in the middle of the family room, invisible, as his mother descended the stairs toward him.

Maddie Fenton was bothered.

Nothing seemed to be going right as of late. At work, the bizarre case she and Jack were investigating was going nowhere. Someone had taken a teenager's cat and hung it from the flagpole at her children's school. There was no motive, no evidence and no clues. If a human had done it, he would've had to been able to fly. If a ghost had done it, it would left some ectoplasmic residue. Maddie was sorely tempted to tell the police to just close the case and send their condolences to the family, there was no point in prolonging their pain over a case that would never be solved. But of course, the police, having finally grabbed their time in the spotlight, were unwilling to loose it over something as insignificant as an unsolvable case. They weren't officially working with Maddie and Jack, but they knew well that whatever result the two ghost hunters got would reflect directly on the police. Maddie and Jack had to find the perpetrator. Failure was not an option.

Not to mention, the mystery she really wanted to be working on, the 'Willo' case, was not open to her. Someone had been systematically breaking into and vandalizing the most expensive stores in the city… and stealing nothing. It baffled the police to no end that someone would take all the effort of getting passed the many alarms, triggers and traps just to tear apart the store. Why?

They'd called Maddie and Jack in, but instead of allowing them to make a thorough search, had hindered them and pressured them into making a speedy decision. At first glance, it seemed like there was no way a ghost could have gotten passed the myriad of ectoplasmic sensors in the stores. That had been enough for the police and she and Jack had immediately been escorted off the perimeter with not-so-polite instructions to not return.

But Maddie was suspicious. The bizarre yet repetitious behaviour the criminal—Willo—was exhibiting was a classic textbook definition of a restless spirit. After all, what else but a ghost would have no use for jewels or money?

But the police had been final. This was their case and they were going to solve it—and rake in all the subsequent glory—themselves. Without the help of a bunch of supernatural eccentrics.

Yes, Maddie's job was a veritable mess at the moment.

And then there was her home life.

Honestly, Maddie had no idea what was going on with Danny recently. He was moody, reclusive and not acting at all like the kind, sweet boy she knew. His marks had taken a turn at the beginning of the term and had dove-tailed from there. When confronted about it, he had gotten upset and defensive… and then he'd began avoiding her. Worse, Maddie had a feeling Danny was lying to her. Danny was normally an awful liar, she could tell it clearly on his face and in his twitchiness if he was lying about something… More than that though, Danny never lied about something big. Never. And Maddie had never doubted that.

Until now.

There was something wrong in Danny's life. He was going through something huge and Maddie had a feeling that he had been lying to keep this thing a secret for a very long time. How could she have not noticed? The subtle changes in her boy: from the way he had begun avoiding her to the way he and Jazz's relationship had changed.

Jazz.

Another problem. Jazz had always been extremely bright, and Maddie had always had high expectations of her daughter. Maybe she wouldn't become a ghost hunter like her parents, but one day Jazz would make it to the top: completing her education at the most prestigious school and getting whatever job she wanted. Maddie had not doubted this either.

Now Jazz was thinking about attending community college in Amity. A literal dead end in the path of education. Every time Maddie tried to change her daughter's mind, Jazz tactfully turned away. Her mind was made up.

Why?

Why was all this happening?

What had happened to her close-knit, happy, predictable family?

Patience, time, understanding… screams, threats, anger… nothing worked. Trying to talk to her kids failed, getting angry just made them pull away further. What was she supposed to do? Why couldn't she do anything? Was she such a bad mother?

In an effort to escape this drowning, helpless depression she was feeling, Maddie had thrown herself ever further into her work. Hoping to God some miracle would come and fix her crumbling family. But that only made the distance between them greater… Jack was so painfully oblivious to the self-destructive path their kids were traveling… and he wouldn't even listen long enough for her to explain… Day in and day out, Maddie worried over her children, to the point where she couldn't sleep at night.

This morning, as she descended the stairs in a half-hearted daze to do her morning exercise, she couldn't help but spot the picture on the mantle over the fireplace: one which Jack had taken years ago of her and Danny playing together. Danny had a huge, carefree grin on his face—one she realized, with a start, that she hadn't seen on him for a very long time—and she looked young and joyful. Nothing was wrong in that picture. Life was perfect, her children were happy, safe and well; not secretive, upset and troubled.

Maddie grasped the picture in her hands, sat on the couch, hugged it to her chest—

—And cried.

Danny was physically shocked when his Mother started crying.

Wide-eyed and torn with the frightened indecisiveness of a child figuring out for the first time that they're parents weren't infallible—Danny very nearly dropped his cloak of invisibility and ran to his Mother.

But stopped himself at the last moment.

For a second, Danny just watched his Mother. Sitting there, hunched, in her worn jogging pants and t-shirt, curled protectively around that old picture of them… she looked so vulnerable and frail. Danny noticed that there were dark circles around her eyes, and as she cried, her body trembled, just slightly with exhaustion. She looked like she was running on the end of her strength— that this break down had been long in coming. When had this happened? How long had his Mother been tired and pained, and why hadn't he noticed before it got so far?

Danny shook his head. It would do no good to berate himself on things that had already happened. Right now he had to work on a way to fix it.

Sneaking away stealthily—he knew she wouldn't hear him, but was overly cautious nonetheless—Danny made his way into the kitchen. Then, hiding in a place where she wouldn't see the resulting flash of light from his power, Danny turned human. Smoothing down his pyjamas and mussing up his hair a little, Danny hoped that he looked like he'd just gotten out of bed. Then, after grabbing a glass and filling it with water, he made his way slowly back into the family room—an odd combination of guilt, dread and sadness twisting his insides.

"Mom…?" He called out, very softly. His Mother, still crying quietly, didn't seem to hear him. "Mom?" He tried again, louder.

Maddie jumped at the sudden noise and looked around with watery eyes. Upon spotting Danny at the kitchen door, looking very much like a deer in the headlights, she gasped and wiped quickly at her tears.

"Danny…" Her voice was weak and her nose was stuffed. She must look a mess.

"Here."

Danny's low voice near her made Maddie look up, she hadn't realized he'd gotten so close. Danny was holding out a tissue and the glass of water, looking at her with serious eyes. Maddie was struck by how mature Danny looked in that moment. There was no trace of childishness, or awkwardness, just a very deep feeling of understanding. Maddie stared at Danny in wonderment. When had her little boy grown up?

The water refreshed her raw throat but using the tissue to wipe at her eyes and nose didn't help much, and Maddie drew the tissue away with a small wry twitch of the mouth. Again though, she was surprised when Danny extended his hand toward her. She looked up at him questioningly.

"I thought you might wanna… er… use the washroom or something…?" Danny's confidence waned as he said this and he gave her a small, sheepish smile. "Just for… you know. Then we can talk."

Maddie was honestly surprised. It took a lot of empathy to realize another person's comfort and underlying needs. Anyone else would have offered her a tissue and demanded she tell them what was wrong immediately, regardless of how awful and stuffy she felt after just crying. But here Danny was, putting his curiosity aside, realizing that giving her some time to collect herself was ultimately better than hounding her with questions.

Maddie's heart crumbled. This was the Danny she knew; this was the Danny's she'd feared had disappeared.

How good it was to know he hadn't changed so much.

Maddie smiled and took Danny's hand—not failing to notice how he pulled her to her feet with relative ease—and walked into the bathroom to clean herself up.

As his Mother walked away, Danny's strong posture didn't fade. Instead his eyes remained on the door his Mother disappeared into, staring intensely into the wood.

It was like the second he'd walked into the room—seen his Mother look up at him in clear shock, trying desperately to hide her pain—that he'd felt unknown strength bleed into him. He'd drawn himself up—intent on being the strong one for her, for once.

Even now, he didn't allow himself to falter.

When his Mother emerged from the washroom many minutes later, Danny had changed his clothes and was bringing out two cups of steaming tea. He placed the cups on the coasters then sat down on the couch, gesturing for her to sit near him.

Maddie laughed lightly—a small hiccup breaking her voice—when she saw the teacups laid out on the table. Sitting down, she took her cup and sipped it lightly.

"Mmm," Her eyes fell halfway in pleasure, then opened wide. "This is perfect, Danny! Earl Grey, my favourite. How did you know… and how did you know how much sugar and milk to add?"

Danny laughed. "My secret." He said; an amused gleam in his eye.

Maddie couldn't help but smile. "Oh, Danny… when did you get so mature?"

The light-hearted grin slipped off Danny's face and a silence fell for awhile. "Mom…" He began slowly. "I… I've been like this for awhile… You… haven't noticed."

The tone was carefully ambiguous, but Danny's words cut deep. Maddie looked down. "You've… been avoiding me, Danny."

"I know." This admission came so quickly that Maddie looked up. "But whenever I try to talk, you don't listen."

Maddie's indignation rose like a flame in her chest, but she stifled it. "What… what do you want to say?" She asked quietly, looking into her tea.

"Mom… I… got a 98 on an English test yesterday."

Maddie's eyes shot up to look at Danny, but he was looking away to the side not meeting her eyes. She had not expected him to say that.

"I've been doing well in school recently, Mom. My average is a B now."

Maddie remembered with an ill feeling how she, only yesterday, had yelled at Danny, saying he was doing bad in school. She hadn't known. "I didn't know…" She whispered.

"Progress reports went out just a couple of days ago. I told you… You haven't had time to look at it yet."

Maddie was silent. She remembered now: Danny shyly poking his head into the lab, saying hesitantly that he'd just gotten his progress report in. Maddie had been right in the middle of an important test trial of a new ghost weapon with Jack. She had told him to keep it on the desk. She'd thought his behaviour indicative of yet another disappointing report card… She hadn't known…

"Danny…" Maddie's voice caught. "I'm—"

"Don't worry about it." Danny interrupted right in the middle of her apology, surprising Maddie. He looked up. "You didn't know, and you were busy. I understand. It wasn't your fault."

Maddie watched her son, and he gazed back intently. There was no tedium in his eyes. She had his complete, undivided attention. "Danny…" Maddie knew this was the only time she'd be able to ask Danny this question. "What happened between you and that boy?"

Instantly there was a change in Danny's expression. His eyes hardened and his lips tightened into a thin line. Maddie watched in fascination as Danny's entire countenance altered from easygoing and open, to stern and wary.

"Dash Baxter." There was a hidden emotion in his tone that Maddie couldn't identify.

"Yes…" She said. "That's him. The boy whose cat was hung—"

"I didn't do that." Danny interjected pointedly.

"I know." The blind trust in Maddie's tone seemed to throw Danny. She smiled: a small, caring curve of her lips. "Danny, I never believed for a second that you could do such an awful thing."

Danny's mouth opened, then closed. The corner of his mouth quirked upward.

"Tell me about it, Danny. That night, when I yelled at you… It wasn't the right way to deal with things. I just don't know how to get you to open up to me, I…" Maddie took a breath. "I know we didn't hear the full story that day. You refused to talk, and everyone jumped to conclusions… Now I want to know the real story. Just… tell me, Danny."

Danny was silent for a long while, but Maddie waited, patiently, for him to be ready. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak.

The doorbell rang.

Danny had been so close. So very close to telling his Mother exactly what had happened between him and Dash: what kind of a person Dash was, how he had completely snapped, and how he'd taken down the strongest football player at Casper High.

And if he'd said that, who knows what his mother would have asked next… about him, about his fighting ability… about anything at all… She could have asked, and he would have answered. He would have answered. So tired was he of all the secrets, he had been ready to tell everything…

A cheery 'ding-dong' rang out again as the doorbell was pressed for the second time.

Danny's eyes trailed over to the door and his Mother followed his gaze.

"I…" Danny trailed off.

His Mother sighed. "I guess… we should get that… Could you?" She gave a rueful look to her wrinkled jogging clothes, then smiled at Danny. He nodded and rose, walking to the door.

Placing a hand on the doorknob, Danny pulled open the door and looked up.

Danny grew very still.

"Well, well, Daniel. How very good to see you again, my little badger."

Vlad.

I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I

End Chapter 11

To Be Continued…

I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I-I¤I

I hope you enjoyed the introspective look into how Danny's psyche works. Vlad has finally made his entrance! Ooh, I wonder what Danny's gonna do? (Evil grin)

xXAnimeKittenXx: Heya! Thanks for reviewing! Uh huh… I can't really say if anything is controlling Danny or not, but there's definitely something fishy going on… ;P

Anonymous Shadow: Hey! Yup, another long chapter. Not much plot advancement here, mostly character interaction, but Danny is really being affected by what's going on, isn't he?

pearl84: Yay for super-long awesome reviews! Wow, you got out of school the same time I did? That's cool, if I may ask, what are you studying? I'm doing International Business, with my area of study being France. It's kind of scary because in a year I'm going to be going to France for a semester to study there, but it's also very exciting at the same time. Yeah, you know, summer holidays kinda imply more time to write, don't they? Odd then that I seem to have even less time than before… how does THAT work out? XD Anyway, this was another long chapter, but I'm kind of worried about the reactions and stuff to it, because there wasn't much action in it. What do you think?

I'm glad you like my Valerie. After Danny and Jazz, she's my favourite character in Danny Phantom. (I was a secret DannyxValerie shipper, don't tell anyone! XD) I always had this impression that she had deeper feelings than came out in the anime. After loosing all her popularity, going from having everything to having nothing, she experienced a huge shift in her basic fundamental values. And then she met Danny's group. First there was Sam, who is Valerie's view, is very much trying to be something she is not (by changing her hair and eye colour, and by pretending she isn't rich). Then there's Tucker… who's a pervert. And then there's Danny… who isn't really weird at all, just unique. I guess Valerie sees Danny as a genuinely nice person, and she's seen so little of that that it amazes her.

If you enjoyed the peek into Danny's thoughts in the last chapter, I really hope you enjoyed this one! XD I just love writing inner monologues and dissecting exactly what it is about a person that makes them act in a certain way. Danny, especially, is a lot of fun to take apart :3 In spite of how he might act, there IS a lot of stuff going on in his head… While watching the show, I once wondered 'Why does Danny always have to be the one who apologizes to Sam and Tucker?' and so the entire spiel in this chapter was born! You might have noticed small areas of 'out of characterness' in Danny's thoughts… hm… strange, huh? XD

You know, Skulker and Danny's fight in the last chapter was very difficult to choreograph. I would have them on the ground then think to myself 'Oh wait… they can fly!' then I would have them shooting ectoplasm at each other and think 'Oh wait they can go intangible!' They just have WAY TOO MANY POWERS! ARGH! XD It's fun to watch them go at it on TV, but choreographingit is something altogether different. I didn't realize until I had to do it. Does this problem ever happen to you?

Err… ok… I guess if you were excited by the Vlad scene in the last chapter, then I should probably be running from you right now! XD I promise though, there WILL be lots of Vlad in the next chapter. I'm already excited just thinking about it! Honestly I've been waiting for him to show up for a long time! Really, I thought he was going to come sooner, but he just kept delaying it, over and over (it's like, I wanted to write him in earlier, but it just didn't happen that way, you know what I mean? XP). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Wishes for Wings: Hey! How'd your exams go? I didn't update for awhile, mainly cause I was in Montréal without any internet… which was awful. I had to do things like GO OUTSIDE! (Ooh, what's an OUTSIDE? XDD). But anyway, I love your description of my dividers 'jellyfishes eating starfishes' LOL! I think I actually cracked up when I read that. I never thought about it at ALL, but now whenever I see them that's what I think. Congrats! You've officially changed my view on my dividers!! XD I'm very glad you liked the character analysis of Valerie in the last chapter. Picking apart characters and finding out how they tick is something I adore doing. I really, really hope you liked the different introspective parts in this chapter! As for the action, there wasn't much in this chapter, but Vlad has finally entered the picture! You can bet that sparks are going to fly come next chapter! And yes! Why DOES Skulker hunt? Hmmm… XD

MutantLover09: Hiya! Yup Vlad's made an appearance, albeit at the end of the chapter… again! But at least you have something to look forward to… right? (Debating whether or not I should be running away now XD). At any rate, I seriously DO like it when you point out spelling mistakes I made (manly large ones that ruin the flow of the story or something) because they really bug me! XD I mean, no matter how many times I read a chapter over, once I post it I always find a mistake. But I don't want to inconvenience you by making you take a lot of extra time to check my story, just… if you notice any glaring mistakes then I would love it if you could tell me… Is that fine? At any rate… It's awesome that you like my Valerie! She's actually one of my favourite characters; and writing Clueless Danny is just so much FUN! XD

Velvet Star: Heya! Thanks for reviewing! Yup, lots and lots of questions galore, and it's only going to get worse (evil grin). But at least, I can tell you that they'll ALL be answered… eventually! Besides, a little suspense is always fun… right? :P Hope you liked the chapter!

TexasDreamer01: Hello! Of course I don't mind that you didn't review the other chapters! I'm just happy you reviewed! XD Hm, you know it's interesting that you should bring up the Egyptian Myth about Anubis and the Feather of Maat, as it was one of the things I was thinking about when I came up with the idea of Legion… I'm not gonna say any more though! XD Oh, but if you want to use my dividers for a story you're writing then go ahead! I don't mind at all :P

Thunderstorm101: Heh, heh, yup Pookie the dog was too camera shy to show up, so they got a replacement double: Pookie the cat, to play the part… Poor guy, look what he gets for all his effort! XD

Risika135: Hiya! Thanks so much for reviewing! I can't answer any of your questions… except I do think Vlad returned the Packer's mascot uniform XD. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Nylah: Hey! Glad you liked the insight on Skulker, I also hope you enjoyed the insight on Jazz and Danny in this chapter. There wasn't a lot of action, but you can bet sparkswill fly now that Danny and Vlad have met! XP

sciencefreak330: Hah ha, I hope you did well on your English paper! Yup, the thing with Skulker was weird, you know, I have absolutely NO idea what's going on! ;P

xheartkreuzx: Heya! Yeah, FFdotnet deleted my dividers because they stopped supporting long lines of repeated dashes… yet another thing to add to the growing list of things FF doesn't support… sigh…

Plain English: Hi! Thanks for reviewing, I'm glad you like the fic so far, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Adio!

Sholay