"Danny! Can you hear me?!" Jack held his son.

Maddie said, "I'm calling an ambulance," she had watched the gray boy-ghost with morbid fascination, intermixed bizarrely with her intense concern for her child.

Sam swallowed, not speaking. This reminded her uncomfortably of when Danny had been electrocuted by the Fenton Portal. By the paleness of Tucker's face he was thinking along the same lines.

At a swap meet less than a mile away from the school, an elderly woman dropped one of her antique bottles which were for sale and looked on in bafflement as a lustrous figure emerged from the broken shards.

"Free! Free at last!" It cried.

When Danny woke, it dawned on him slowly that there were people around him and he was inside a moving vehicle, "What's going on?"

"Don't worry," said one of the EMTs, "Your parents called 911 and you're being taken to a hospital."

Again?

"What happened?"

"They told us you'd passed out," said the same EMT, "I'm sure you'll be fine. Your mom and dad are following us in their—car." As if they didn't know how to describe the tank-vehicle.

He wished he were in the RV instead.

"Okay..." he said, even as thoughts began swirling in his brain. What had happened to Poindexter? What if the doctors could tell there was something weird about Danny? What if...

Jasmine sat in her last period class oblivious to what had happened to her brother. When the last bell rung she picked up her belongings and prepared to head for the parking lot where her pink volkswagen was. She got into it and started the engine without any trouble. She figured she'd find her parents at home, Danny arriving soon after, if Maddie and Jack didn't just decide to drive him home since they were at the school as well. She contemplated the changes in her life. Ghosts were officially proven to exist. She'd never expected that, not seriously. They kept showing up around Casper, for some reason. Perhaps it was because of the name, she mused, only half-joking. She didn't know what to think anymore in a lot of ways, but she was always good at keeping a straight head. She moved on to another subject: Spike, her 'patient.' Since the meat-specter's appearance in the outdoor commons that fateful day he'd become much more talkative and responsive when speaking to her.

She was glad for that. Maybe not everything was out of balance now that ghosts were out and about. Well, logically, just because she was only seeing them now didn't mean they hadn't been there before. But, still. She stopped her car outside FentonWorks and walked up to the front steps, unlocking the door and walking inside. She checked around to see if anyone was home and to her surprise no one was. Were her parents still at Casper? Had they actually found anything? She couldn't know unless she called them, which she did.

"Mom?" She said immediately when her mother picked up.

"Jasmine! Your brother was attacked by a ghost."

"...What?"

"He's in an ambulance on the way to the hospital right now."

Her brother was attacked?

This was all unreal. Surreal.

"Is he okay?"

"He was unconscious last we saw him, Jazz, he'll be taken care of, and nothing will ever touch him again, I swear it." There was force in her mother's tone which made Jazz believe her. Jasmine wasn't there to see it, but Jack's mouth tightened as his wife said this. He never wanted to come upon something like that again.

"I...should I wait at home for you?"

"Yes, for now, sweetheart, we'll call you if anything changes."

"Alright..."

They hung up.

"Damn it," Tucker cursed, "I don't know what's going on in my life anymore." After a few minutes of standing around he'd abruptly left Sam in the hall and practically stomped to the front steps of Casper High, sitting on the highest step and sulking, stewing in his own uselessness. He wanted to be able to help Danny, not arrive at the last minute and watch him be hurt. He knew Sam must be taking it hard, too, but what could he do for her? They barely even got along most of the time. She had opened up to him and Danny by revealing her wealthiness, and he guessed that was a step forward, but it still felt like there was a barrier there he couldn't quite get across.

How could he begin to relate to what Danny was going through? He couldn't, plain and simple.

"I wish..." he held his head in his hands, "I wish I was ghostly and everything like Danny, too."

A sultry voice weaved around him, "And your heart's desire is my command."

Tucker jolted as green mist filtered his vision, it smelled tangy. He gasped as everythingchanged.

Inside the ER, his parents met up with him.

"The doctors will be here shortly," said a nurse who quickly disappeared.

"I didn't expect to be in the ER again so soon," Danny tried to spread some humor.

Maddie wasn't amused, "Do you remember what happened, Danny?"

"Um..." he bit his lip, "The ghost...kid..." For a moment he almost felt like he was talking about himself, "The gray one, I mean," he stumbled, "It came up to me, and...I dunno what happened." He was bad at this.

"You saw the other one?"

"Yeah..."

Maddie looked as if she wanted to question him further, but seemed to decide other things were more important. "This will never happen to you again, Danny. I promise."

"Me, too," Jack echoed.

Danny gulped. "How's Jazz?"

"She's at home, she called while we were on the way here," Jack answered, "Do you want to talk to her?"

Oh, geez. What was he, five? But he figured they were only being concerned. "I'm fine."

He'd gotten rid of yet another ghost. Was this going to be a permanent trend in his life now? He hoped not. If his mom and dad were really going to do what they said they would, then eventually ghosts would stop showing up. Maybe then he'd be able to tell them that he was...a freak, and they'd fix him.

The doctors could find nothing wrong with him, and he didn't feel as worn out as he did at that one moment when he and Sidney had switched. He was released so that they could have room for people who actually needed the ER more than he did. He was relieved.

It was around five p.m. when they got to FentonWorks.

Jazz opened the door for them. "Hey!"

"Hey, Jazz," Danny said in return. The living room was familiar and comforting. "Do you know what happened to Sam and Tucker?"

She frowned, "No, I don't."

"I can answer that, son," Jack said, "They were there when the ecto-entity did that to you. We had to leave them behind. I'm sure they're fine."

"Can I ask what exactly it did to Danny?" Jasmine asked.

"I don't remember," Danny said, irked that she was asking their parents instead of him, as if he wasn't there, "I just saw it and...then...I don't know." It felt weak to him, but all three of them looked at him, solemn.

"Why would it go after Danny?" Jazz pressed.

"Jasmine," Maddie said sternly, "You can't predict what a ghost will do."

"Isn't that what ectology is supposed to do?"

That set Maddie and Jack's lips into hard lines. "You don't understand," Maddie assured, "And it's not your fault that you don't." She seemed to be partly speaking to herself, like she was finding reasons not to chew out her daughter.

"Do you guys mind if I just go to bed?" Danny glanced at his feet.

"Of course not, sweetie," Maddie told him, "I'll get you when dinner's ready."

He nodded and went upstairs to his bedroom. He wanted to fall asleep but found he was thinking too hard on too many things.

Sam's grandmother Ida knocked on her room's door, "Sammy? May I come in?"

At the very least, her grandma had the sense to not just barge in like her parents tended to, "Yes, Nana."

On her wheelchair, the old woman came in, "Is something the matter?"

Sam didn't usually spill her feelings or worries to her family much these days, but her grandmother she could make an exception for, "I just...one of my friends is going through a hard time..." She didn't know how to put it in words. What she'd said barely scratched the surface of what was going on.

"And you're worried for them?" Ida said for her, "That's very caring of you, dear, and I wouldn't tell you to stop for the world. Tell me more, and I might be able to give advice."

That was the clincher, "He's...he keeps getting hurt and ending up in the hospital."

"Because of?"

Me, she thought desperately, I let him go in the Portal, I wasn't fast enough to stop that stupid ghost..."Different things. His life just seems to be really hectic."

"Hmm..." Ida rubbed her chin, "Is this a boy you have a crush on?"

"Nana, no," Sam hurried to deflect, "He is my friend. I'm just trying to be there for him."

A gentleness entered Ida's countenance, "Well, that's all you really need to do, Sam."

"But..."

"If he asks for anything more, then give it to him. Unless of course—"

Sam assumed what she was going to say next and was correct, "Danny's not like that."

"Had to say it, Sammy."

Sam exhaled.

The very next thing Tucker knew, he was sitting on the family couch in his house. "Wh..." He started, but couldn't form words.

He felt different. He shrugged the feeling away.

He stood up warily and looked around. He found his mom in the laundry room. "How'd I get here?"

She looked at him quizzically, "I didn't even hear you come in, Tuck'. What are you talking about?"

He shook his head, "Never mind..." he didn't like being so secretive with her, but if Danny had to endure it, then so could he.

Tucker journeyed back to the couch and laid there, eventually dozing off.

Danny wandered back downstairs to watch television although dinner wasn't ready yet. Everyone was somewhere else in the house, he was alone, so he was the only one who saw the news report detailing a green-skinned womanlike ectoplasmic entity causing mayhem around town. He didn't know what to do. Was this really something he had to do? He didn't even know where the ghost was...

"...currently the entity has been seen in the central park..."

He was chagrined.

He glanced from left to right and there really was none of his family members around.

He pulled at the coldness in his chest and turned invisible, intangibly flying through the walls of FentonWorks into the outside world.

It was different, trying to navigate a town while in the air, but it wasn't that hard. He flew for the park, where he'd been many times as a younger child and sometimes had spent time with Tucker after school hours.

When he saw the spectress, floating above the mess of transformed objects and even people (that made Danny uneasy the most; ghosts coulddo that? Well, if they could possess people...) like she was the harbinger of some holy messiah, he was taken aback by her beauty momentarily, previously unaware that ghosts could be anything but ugly. There had been that girl ghost which he'd gotten the dragon amulet from, though. It didn't matter. He flew up to her, keeping a certain distance.

"Who are you?" He demanded, "Why are you in my town?"

It wasn't the why, he corrected himself internally, it was the how do I get you out of my town?

"I am Desiree," introduced the she-ghost, "What is your wish?" She held the flat palms of her hands together before her, looking at Danny from within a frame of long black hair.

He glared, though his eyes weren't visible through the goggles, "None of your business."

"Surely there must be something you desire," she insisted. Her hand outstretched to touch him. He lurched back.

"Get away!"

His arms moved to shield him but something started happening, in his knuckles and wrists and the tips of his fingers. Ectoplasm welled around his hands and shot forward at Desiree, she shouted as she was blasted a fair distance away.

He'd done it instinctively. He stared at his hands in astonishment. A new power.