Well, so much for faster updates. But I have a good reason! My apartment flooded this week and then I was slammed with homework. I barely had time to eat let alone try and update!

Oh well, we're here now! The next installment of Crashing and Burning. Enjoy!

Chapter 8

Jack watched his daughter from the bottom step. Jazz tore through the lab, ripping through boxes and dumping their equipment all over the floor. Jack didn't bother to warn her about being careful. A manic desperation had seized the young woman, a kind of rawness Jack had never seen. Jazz was always so composed, the opposite of the rest of them. It was disconcerting to see her so wild now, upending boxes and throwing things behind her without any regard for where it went.

"Uh, Jazz? What are you looking for?" he finally asked.

"The Boo-merang!" she yelled. She yanked open a closet and shoved things to the side, rifling through each shelf.

"The Boo-merang?" Jack repeated, putting a hand to his chin in thought. "Danny said it was broken, so he threw it out. I grounded him for not asking me first."

Jazz froze. "He wouldn't," she said, staring resolutely at the closet. "He knows we need that to find him sometimes."

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked. "The Boo-merang is designed to find ghosts."

"It locked onto Danny the first time you used it," Jazz explained. "And ever since, it only ever tracked him. It's come in handy when he goes missing, so I can't imagine he would get rid of it, no matter how annoying he finds it…"

"When has Danny gone missing?" Jack asked. "And why would it track him? He's not a ghost."

Jazz didn't answer, too busy trying to think of what to do. Danny wouldn't have thrown it out, but it would make sense if he had taken it to prevent his parents from using it.

Her eyes widened, and she bolted for the stairs, weaving around Jack and running back through the kitchen. He followed at her heels, all the way to Danny's room.

"He wouldn't have wanted you guys to use it accidentally and question why it tracked him, so he would have kept it away from you guys." She tore through Danny's room the same way she had the lab, dumping his belongings all over the floor in her search. She held no regard for his privacy, opening every drawer and searching every cranny. Books crashed to the ground, and one of his favorite model rockets shattered when she accidentally knocked it over.

Jack stood safely in the doorway, his jumbled thoughts forming together. "Is Danny missing right now?"

"Yes, which is why I need to find the Boo-merang!"

Maddie joined Jack in the doorway, still wearing her pajamas. She clutched a pink binder to her chest like it was a life line. "What's going on?"

"Jazz thinks the Boo-merang can find Danny, even though he's not a ghost," Jack said.

Maddie didn't bother trying to explain it to Jack right now. She was still trying to wrap her own head around everything. What she could focus on though was the fact that Danny had taken the Boo-merang.

"Was he really that paranoid?" Maddie asked, glancing at her whirlwind daughter. Taking their inventions, especially old ones that they hardly used, seemed like an extreme way to keep his secret.

Jazz paused and looked at her mother. "Considering how you reacted yesterday, can you blame him?"

Maddie bit her cheek, guilt twisting her insides.

"Jasmine!" her father scolded.

Jazz took a deep breath. "Right, not helping. Sorry, Mom, I'm just really worried." She went back to tearing through Danny's room. "Danny already gets really guilty whenever something is damaged or someone gets hurt, and last night was really bad. If someone doesn't talk some sense into him soon, he's probably going to do something really stupid."

"What kind of stupid?" Maddie asked. She crossed her arms tightly, glancing at the picture again.

"Disappear into the ghost zone, try and become full ghost, fly into space again…"

"Hold on," Jack said. "What are you saying?"

Jazz froze and glanced at her mother. Maddie looked up at Jack and then at her daughter. Her arms tightened around the scrapbook, and she took a deep breath.

"Our son is apparently more invested in the family business than we thought," she said.

"Really? He wants to fight ghosts?" Jack's eyes brightened. "Why didn't he ever say so?"

"It's not that simple Dad," Jazz said, walking closer to him. "He has been fighting them, for the last two years actually. But he doesn't fight them the way you do."

"What do you mean?"

Maddie handed him the scrapbook. "You might want to sit down."

Jack leafed through the book. "This is all about that punk Phantom."

Both women winced. "Dad, the thing about Phantom…he's not all ghost. He's part human too."

"Really? How do you know? How is that even possible?"

"I don't know the science of it," Jazz said, but I know he's part human because I know his human half."

"Human half?" Jack repeated. The gears in his head whirred, and he glanced around the room and then at the pictures in his hand. "You don't mean…"

Jazz and Maddie nodded. "Danny Phantom is also Danny Fenton, my little brother."

Jack's eyes widened and he stumbled back. "Our son is Phantom? But…he never died."

"No," Jazz agreed. "He's not dead. Believe me, I've checked dozens of times. He still has a pulse and he still needs to eat and sleep and everything, just like a regular human."

Jack visibly relaxed, his shoulders loosening and a long breath coming out of his mouth. "That's good. Oh! That explains why all my inventions go haywire around him! I knew they weren't faulty!"

"Yeah," Jazz said. "That's why."

"So how did this happen? And how long has he been hiding it? What exactly can he do?"

"One at a time Dad," Jazz said. "Do you remember the portal accident, a few years ago?"

"Yeah…oh, that makes sense. If Danny was blasted with any of the ecto-energy as it turned on, it could contaminate him enough to give him ghost-like powers."

"But enough to completely change his entire genetic make-up?" Maddie asked.

Jack put a hand to his chin. "It would probably depend on how much he was blasted with."

"Oh, he got quite a lot," Jazz muttered.

"Does he have any special powers?" Jack asked.

"A couple," Jazz said. "He can duplicate himself, but not for very long, last I heard; And he has this ghostly wail, but he tries not to use it if he can avoid it."

"Is that what destroyed the city earlier?" Maddie asked.

Jazz turned to her mother and nodded.

"I still don't understand why Danny wouldn't tell us," Jack said. "He knows he can trust us!"

"He wanted to tell you guys, he really did. But…he was scared. You always went on about how you'd 'rip him apart molecule by molecule' so he just kept quiet."

"But…we never would have done that to him! And if we had known, then we never would have made those threats!"

Jazz blew out a puff of air. The fact that he said it so confidently and easy meant so much. Jack trusted Danny wholeheartedly, even though he had just learned his son was also his greatest enemy.

"But…" Maddie started. "The fact that our son is Phantom doesn't bother you?"

"He's still our son. I couldn't hate Danny."

Maddie shook her head. Jack's childish naivety had always been endearing, but now it was just astonishing.

Jazz walked back to Danny's bed, kneeling on the floor. "You guys both need to sit down with Danny and talk with him."

"That's a great idea!" Jack said. "I can ask him all sort of questions about his powers!"

Jazz rolled her eyes. "That's fine, but you can't ask if we can't find him."

Reality crashed around the parents. Their son was missing.

Jack was checked the higher places in Danny's room, the spots Jazz couldn't reach. Maddie half-heartedly looked around, her mind still in turmoil. She didn't understand how Jack could just change his whole perception so easily. They had believed Phantom was evil for so long…and as soon as he finds out Phantom is their son he's all gung-ho about trusting him.

Maddie was easily the more cautious of the two, that was what balanced their marriage. But was he right? Should it be that easy to change her entire world-view? To just suddenly believe that Phantom wasn't evil?

She lifted a picture off the wall and checked the back of it before hanging it back on the wall. Her gaze rested on it a moment longer, and a smile curled on her face.

The photo had been taken years ago, before construction on the portal had even begun. It was of her and Danny outside the ice cream shop. She had her arm around Danny's shoulders, and he was leaning into her side, that wide innocent smile splitting his face.

They used to be so close. She had thought high school was what had caused them to drift; it was common for teenagers to distance themselves from their parents after all. But now she knew it was more than that. He had distanced himself because of fear.

Fear of her.

And now, if they couldn't find him, she might never see him again. They might never be able to close the gap that had grown between them.

Could she stand losing her son forever?

"Mom?" Jazz asked.

Jack put a model rocket down and came over to her. "Mads, he isn't just Phantom. Maybe we don't understand everything, but if we don't find him now we never will."

He isn't just Phantom.

No, he wasn't. He was a high school student, obsessed with space and video games and those scary movies. He was moody, secretive, but kind and generous.

He's a real hero. I wish you could see that.

Maybe there was more to Phantom than just being an evil ghost. Maybe there were good ghosts. Maybe, just maybe, Phantom could be trusted.

Danny could certainly be trusted.

Maddie smiled at her daughter. "Let's find that Boo-merang." She resumed the search, this time with more enthusiasm.

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