The necklace glittered in his palm.

What should he do with it?

It was worn by a dragon. A ghost dragon. Did that make it a ghost necklace? It emanated an odd feeling.

Cautiously, he flew out of the lab, not wanting to be there any longer than the had to, the atmosphere felt oppressive after everything which just happened. He stared at the necklace weaving between his fingers the whole time. When he was in the kitchen he transformed back to human and, after a moment, shoved the heavy golden jewelry in his pants pocket. It was a deep pocket and the item disappeared completely from vision. Wondering what his sister thought of the horrendous noise that had come from the basement, he nearly sprinted to the living room, where he'd seen her last.

She was sitting on the couch, headphones over her ears, listening to an audio textbook, most likely on psychology or something along those lines. She wanted to be a psychiatrist and apparently not even a physical battle happening below her feet could stop her ambition. She seemed to sense his presence and looked up at him.

"Oh, hey." She said.

Danny stood there awkwardly. He stumbled past her, mentally reeling from the fact she didn't know, going up the staircase to his bedroom. He thought he heard her sigh, akin to how she had earlier when he'd been rude with her.

Maddie parked the tank-car in the FentonWorks garage.

Getting out the vehicle, Maddie waited for her husband to exit before locking it.

"We're home." She raised her voice slightly once inside the house.

"Hi, Mom!" She heard her daughter answer back from the living room, "Danny's upstairs."

Of course he was. He'd been strangely tight-lipped when she and Jack brought him home the day before and asked them to explain as much about what they'd seen as they could. He glanced off to the side quite a bit while he said things like, "Uh...it was crazy," and, "I didn't see that much," which completely contradicted how he'd been outside precisely in the area where the main commotion occurred, which still unnerved Maddie to think about. She chalked it up to denial of reality. She couldn't blame him. It was one of the handful of logical responses a person could have to something like seeing a ghost for the first time.

"How've you been while we were gone?" She asked.

"We've been alright," Jasmine answered matter-of-factly, "Danny disappeared in the kitchen for a long time. I think we're missing some leftovers."

"I hope he didn't ruin his dinner." Maddie said honestly.

Bringing the necklace out of his pocket and placing it in his backpack alongside the thermos device, Danny was exhausted. Finding he liked the dark better for some reason, he shut off all the lights in his bedroom. He pushed off his shoes and crawled into bed. Someone would come wake him when it was dinnertime.

Hours later he woke, indeed stirred by his mother who stood in the doorway of his room, "Danny, dinner's ready. You must have been tired."

"Yeah." He said drowsily, "I'll be down."

She went away and almost put on his shoes again, before realizing he didn't really need them. No one would raise a fuss if he went to the kitchen sock-footed. He eyed his backpack before traveling downstairs.

He went a little slowly; strangely hyper-aware of his own heartbeat and...something else. He stopped mid-step.

What was that feeling?

That cool pulsation which he'd noticed before...

It was there. Stronger than it had been.

He puzzled over it. It was in his chest, almost in the center. A hand came up to press against his torso, where he thought the sensation was originating. He felt his heartbeat, of course. And...

Whum. Whum. Whum.

Something else.

Jack settled into his seat. His wife had reheated a meal she'd prepared quickly that morning, knowing they'd be out all day and that she wouldn't have time for cooking something by the time they returned home.

"Jazzy," he said to his daughter, "I noticed you had some audiobooks out when we came home."

"I got them from the library."

"Oh. I thought they were something you'd bought with your allowance."

"I'm trying to save up."

"Good thinking!"

Danny entered the kitchen then, taking his usual place at the dining table. He looked unusually pale.

"You okay there, Danny-boy?"

The dark-haired teen raised his blue eyes to meet his father's gray-blue ones, "I'm—fine."

A bit quick of a response, but it was a response. Sometimes guys didn't like to talk about what was going on in their head. Being married to Maddie Fenton was enough to turn any dumb man into a good one—his Mads was just that great a communicator—Jack knew that personally, but he remembered what young men were like typically, and he didn't ignore the possibility that his own son would probably end up constricted by those urges to keep to himself now and again. It could wait. There was never a bad time for a good old father-son talk. There just needed to be a right time for it.

Jazz said, "So what did you find at the school?"

That caught Danny's attention, who'd been gazing into space.

"Nowhere near as much as we would have liked." Maddie said, "But then, we don't know everything about what we should expect."

The conversation evolved into Jack and Maddie sharing their thoughts about the whole thing and Jazz bringing up intelligent points. As if Jack expected anything less from his bright minded princess.

Danny was silent the whole time.

"What do you think, Danny?" The father directed at his son.

"I don't know!"

The frustration in Daniel's visage and voice was clear. Everyone looked at him.

Danny grimaced at himself.

"Sorry," he amended, "Never mind."

Now Jack was concerned. What was troubling his son this much?

Danny hadn't meant to snap. He just did. Now, food eaten, sitting at his desk in his room, he swallowed knots in his throat repeatedly. They weren't tears, he wasn't that upset. But, he was kind of...upset. Looking back on everything he'd done, it all felt unnatural to him now. That, coupled with the thing in his chest, he didn't know what to think or feel. What was going on with him?

"Danny?"

He started at his dad's voice in the entrance to his room.

He turned in his seat, "Hey."

"I just wanted to ask, is something wrong?"

Danny paused.

"No, I just lost it at dinner. I'm sorry." He repeated the apology he'd said.

"Well, people don't just 'lose it' for no reason. If something's bothering you, your mom and I are always here."

Danny couldn't persuade him otherwise. "Okay."

"Thanks for listening to me, son. Another thing, you'll be returning to school tomorrow. They were cleaning up the meat while we were there and we got a phone call from the school."

So soon? "Alright."

Jack left.

"If anything out-of-the-ordinary at all happens, call us." Maddie had commanded before Danny stepped out the door that morning to catch the bus.

There were considerably fewer people on it than usual. Tucker was there, though, and Danny sat beside him without a word.

Once at campus, the daily announcements revealed something unexpected. The school was holding a dance, freshmen and sophomores only. It was a Sadie Hawkins dance. That boggled Danny. Why would they do something like this so fast after such a shocking event? Were they trying to make them forget? It wasn't happening. However, it did muster some chatting in the students, like everything was coming back to normal. Maybe it was forced, but it was working.

A dance, thought Danny, Am I going?

He looked around, for no real reason, it wasn't like he expected the girl he'd end up taking to the dance to be in the same class as him. He caught the eye of Paulina Sanchez by mistake and broke the shared look swiftly.

Paulina Sanchez was the school's most popular girl, though she was only a freshman. That didn't stop her from being the most beautiful girl as well as a talented cheerleader. She worked her way up the social ladder quickly. She'd gone to the same middle school as Danny, though they'd never had the same class. Maybe they'd gone to the same elementary school, too? Danny couldn't remember that far back. Anyway, there was no way he was going to be asked out by her, of all people. Keep dreaming, Fenton.