Fourth period was boring, although Danny liked to think he aced his mathematics. Fifth period P.E. had Tucker, Danny, and Sam in the gymnasium. Coach Tetslaff was a slave driver, Danny supposed that meant she was an effective teacher. She was a burly woman who strongly reminded Danny of his aunt Alicia from Arkansas. She was his mom's sister, they couldn't be more dissimilar. If she was more like Tetslaff he'd definitely dread visiting her. Sam was athletic and she wasted no time grabbing a basketball and shooting hoops. She missed some and scored some. Danny and Tucker tended to walk around talking, today they didn't. They shadowed Sam, mute. She didn't protest. Overall, life was monotonous for Danny Fenton, exactly how he liked it. Excitement for him was usually—

"Hey, Fenton!"

Detrimental.

Dash Baxter was in Danny's P..E. He forgot.

The jock had a calm smirk on his face, meandering over to the trio, "I want to know what your sister's like."

Danny froze.

The plain unexpectedness and audacity of the question was what got him first, then, the comprehension. Dash had a crush on his sister. Oh, gross. There was little else a handsome teenager like Dash could want from a...uh, beautiful girl like Jasmine. Danny was aghast. What if she liked him back? He had no idea what her taste in dating was like. For all he knew she thought Baxter was a dreamboat. For all he knew—

There was honestly no right response to something like this, "Um, can't you ask her yourself?"

Dash didn't say anything for a moment, watching Danny's freakout with amusement. He nodded once, a jerky motion, "Sure." He turned and walked away.

Oh, god. What had Danny done? Did he just give permission to some asshole to hit on his big sister?

Tucker and Sam were staring at him.

"Uhh..."

They looked away.

"That was weird," Tucker tried. Danny...didn't reply.

Spaghetti with meatballs and tomato sauce. The restaurant they went to was filled to the brim, but the waitress still found them a table. They chatted in between bites, cheerful, Jack and Maddie glowed. The memory of P.E. jolted Danny, he needed to warn her about Baxter. Maybe it wasn't the right time yet, he debated, swallowing a mouthful of noodles. She was across from him, picking at her food, seemingly troubled.

"My friends keep pestering me to date," Jasmine confessed.

Jack supplied the typical anti-boy speech all fathers were required to melodramatically spew at some point in their lives where their daughters were concerned.

"You have friends?" Danny coughed.

She huffed.

They didn't go out for things like this very often. In actuality, that occasion might have been the first time in a year. Home-cooked food wasn't from a can, Maddie cooked meals herself, from the bottom up. Shopping trips were long events. She was a multi-tasker, many things got done throughout the evening while supper was readied. On this particular Wednesday after they got home she vacuumed, took out the trash—with her son's aid—and helped her daughter...with something, all Jasmine needed to do was shoot her a meaningful look and they disappeared to converse in a different room so the men of the family wouldn't overhear.

He had no homework because he'd completed it all in his classes earlier. It was also the first week of school, homework was sparse. With a satisfied belly and a cloud of drowsiness over his head, Danny bathed, changed into pajamas, and slept. He never got around to interrogating Jazz. The desire to know what Dash wanted with her burned in him, as well as a strange protectiveness. It was her business in the end, but if that jerk did a single thing wrong by her...

He'd do what? Provoke Dash? He didn't have the guts. Then again, anger would be fueling him. It was unwise, but a logical conclusion. So was being sent to the nurse's office with a black eye.

The following morning was dull. His parents were for once in bed while he prepared for school. He assumed, anyway. They could've been in the lab.

The bus was freezing as he remembered the day previous. Tucker was animated, informing his friend he'd step off the bus with him to his house after school ended, like they'd planned.

First period flew by.

Then second. Third. Lunch. Sam and Tucker refrained from quarreling, miraculously. Fourth. Fifth...Dash had team practice. He wasn't anywhere in the gym. Sixth, then finally seventh...the final bell rang.

The bus ride home went fast. Danny thought he saw a bright white owl perching on a mailbox during the ride. It seemed to look right at him. Some minutes later Danny's feet touched the first step outside FentonWorks' front door, he unlocked it with the key he'd had since third grade when he started riding school buses in place of being dropped off or picked up. Within the house Tucker wasn't unfamiliar, Jack clapped a voluminous palm on his shoulder, "How're you doing, Tuck'?"

"Fine, sir," Tucker beamed.

"Good ta' hear!"

Waiting for Sam to arrive, the two boys passed the time flipping aimlessly through T.V. channels.

Jasmine joined them after a few minutes, surprising her brother. She was silent, sitting on the edge of the couch. She caught him ogling. He had to find a good moment to approach her with what worried him. She would understand, wouldn't she? She was always going on about how he could come to her with anything...

A knock at the door careened them out of their idleness.

Danny opened it, revealing Sam.

"Hi," she greeted.

"Hey," he said in return, "Come on in," he couldn't see a car. Her parents must have left.

"Thanks, again, Danny," Sam said, "I'm really...excited." She paused, finding the words.

"No problem, Sam."

Maddie came to check on them, seeing Sam, who she'd never met, she introduced herself. Sam was polite, Danny thought it was intriguing how different she was compared to her snarkiness at school. His mom went to retrieve Jack, who strolled into the living room soon after she disappeared, his wife next to him, "Everybody gathered?" He set his arms akimbo, he didn't wait for a response, everybody was looking at him pointedly, "Great! This is a really huge thing for Mads and I, I hope you gang will enjoy it as much as we will."

Danny glanced at his friends and sister. If Tucker was a dog his tail would be wagging. Sam had curiosity written all throughout her face, in the shine in her violet eyes, her raised brows, blonder than her dyed black hair. Jazz—was unreadable. They followed Maddie to the kitchen, the lab door and down. Bright lights illuminated the observation room where the stairs ended, ominous clear glass the sole obstacle between them all and the sleek, expensive laboratory, which was lit, not a corner hidden from view. Outfitted with equipment, metallic objects, it wasn't stereotypically white like what one saw in movies. It was an amalgamation of dark green hues. Far back in the center was a hexagonal hole in the wall; it went on deeply and disappeared into darkness.

"Cool," Tucker was awed. He'd been there before, but not with the laboratory so plain in sight. It was usually dim when Maddie took he and Danny to get a glimpse as children.

Jasmine was stony, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Danny realized Sam held an object in her hands despite her bag having been placed by the front door above. It was a camera.

The married couple looked like a million dollars. This day would make their career. Danny's chest swelled with pride, if this worked, the world would never be the same, and the world didn't even care to know it. Danny liked the thought that his parents might just be happier from then on.

The sliding door closed.

They did some things, pulled some levers, pressed buttons, typed codes into the computers. It was fascinating to Tucker due to the technology, but Danny looked on closely for far more personal reasons, they were his mom and dad, and it was an experience to see them this excited. Eventually Jack turned to face them with stride and gave a thumbs-up.

It was time.

The plug he picked up was huge, Maddie holding the opposite piece. She kissed her husband on the cheek. Nothing could describe how the lines in Jack's face melted, he looked younger. It painted an incredibly sweet picture and even Jazz smiled a bit. The two parts connected.

It appeared to start up...

Like a sad sparking engine, nothing happened.

Maddie slowly lowered her hood, the red goggles coming back with it. Danny saw her mouth move, though he couldn't hear her. I...don't understand. Jack was sluggish to respond, Me, either. They spoke some more, hushed, beleaguered, their faces turning away, Danny couldn't see their lips.

"What happened?" Tucker was the first to recover.

"It didn't work," Jazmine answered without pretense, "Just like I thought it wouldn't."

"Hey," Danny was fast to defend, "They did their best."

Jazz frowned. "Whatever. It was doomed to fail from the beginning. I love them, but they have their flaws." She left up the stairs that she had come through. Danny fumed. How could she say something like that? Jack and Maddie were silent as the grave as they came back to the group.

"Well..." Maddie said quietly after a long while, "I'm...sorry to disappoint you kids."

Then they left.

"I'm really sorry it didn't work," Sam said uncertainly, awkwardly.

"It's okay, I mean...they'll figure out what went wrong."

"Um..."

"Yeah?"

"I...really wanted a picture of you in here...is that alright?"

"Why me?"

"You're the ectologists' kid...I thought it would have some novelty then."

If they weren't friends that would have stung. Danny didn't know why, but he felt like a prop in a play when she put it that way. "Sure," he wasn't going to deny her something she obviously wanted so badly just because of this. He looked around at the surroundings and couldn't help but think that they were bland. His attention turned to the glass and his first thought was, No, I couldn't, then he said, "I've got a better idea. Why don't you take a picture in the lab?"

She looked as stricken as he'd ever seen her, "But...wouldn't that be disobeying your parents?"

"This is about the only chance Tuck' and I will ever get to go in there and not get in trouble." Tucker's crossed arms came down to his sides at the mention of his name, "I don't think you get how much this means to us."

"Uh..." Tucker searched for words. "Are you sure?"

"Why not?"

"Don't they have cameras?"

"They never check 'em," Or at least he never heard them talking about it.

Tucker was hesitant, "Okay, dude..."

"Well, that is, if the door even opens. It might not. Sorry to have gotten your hopes up if it doesn't." He took a step forward, fully expecting it to defy him. The door, that was. His parents didn't slide the card to shut it. It was anticlimactic; no alarms went off, Danny didn't feel as if he'd just broken a law. His friends followed his lead.

He turned on his heel and looked at Sam. She took the cue and a flash brightened the microscopes and magnifiers set up on the tables to the left and right. While Tucker absorbed as much as he could of his surroundings, Sam went around photographing whatever she thought seemed interesting. Danny wasted no time getting up close and personal with everything he saw. He didn't touch them, the last thing he wanted was to risk contamination. He wasn't sure his mother or father would notice, he didn't want to risk it.

It was when he found himself standing at the mouth of the defunct Portal, gazing into it contemplatively, that Sam called, holding her camera up so he could see, "Stand right there."

And suddenly he grinned. Just grinned. This was all going more smoothly than he'd imagined.

"Better idea."

Tucker knew him well, "You're not doing what I think you're doing?" Tucker said loudly. "Are you serious?"

"What? It's perfectly safe. The thing doesn't work anyway."

"...Can I get a picture in it after you?"

"Ask Sam, not me," Danny gestured to the girl.

She tilted her head as comprehension dawned on her, "I don't see why not," A jovial glint in her eye.

Danny approached the Portal, stepping inside its shape. He smiled as widely and toothily as he could, putting some real effort and emotion into it. Click, went Sam's camera. "Got it," Danny started walking out, and staggered over a cord. It made a cracking sound beneath his shoe, and something began.

A rising hum, the tang of electric potential in the air...and a swift, crushing foreboding, the product of instinct faster than thought. He tried to run.

Everything around Danny lit up–white light, intense–it consumed Danny's vision. His friends were enveloped in the light in an instant, he was blinded. For what must have been a fraction of a second time froze as he understood what he'd done. He'd done something very, very stupid. He saw the electricity traveling up his body before the actual agony started to register. His world transformed into nothing but pain in every nerve and fiber of his—he stopped thinking. His throat became raw with ear-splitting screams. Everything lurched as his heart crashed, and his brain forced a blackout to preserve itself.