"Danny's grades were slipping. He'd noticed it before, but it just hadn't seemed all that important with everything else that was going on. Failing had only been an abstract thought in the back of his mind before, but now with that big test not far off he was worried.
Now the algebra scribbled on the board was giving him a headache, he had no idea what he was supposed to do with those numbers. He sat and staring at them, hoping he'd somehow remember the lecture he hadn't been paying attention to. Tucker was pretty good at math, maybe he could explain it, if only the other boy weren't sitting so far away.
Tucker wasn't the tutoring type anyway, he just get distracted and they'd end up playing video games for the rest of the day. Sam was his next best bet, but lately she'd been zoning out even more than Danny. He suppressed a groan and looked back at the board, an answer still no closer to springing onto his page.
At the rate he was going he was considering something drastic, like asking Jazz to help him. Then he'd have to sit through hours of her psychoanalyzing him and he'd never be able to focus.
"Mister Reed!" The teacher growled out, and Danny's attention was drawn to the ghost who'd once again fallen asleep. Most of the class laughed Red sitting looking up at the teacher with half lidded eyes. She gave Red her chalk and the ghost grumpily got up to scrawl the solution on the board, not even taking his left hand out of his pocket.
Danny had never seen a teacher more angry at a right answer in all the horror movies he'd ever watched. Danny still hadn't figured out a way to help the ghost reconcile with his brother. Neither of them seemed to mind though and things just carried on as usual. If only they'd slow down enough for Danny to get enough study time in.
Afterschool Danny did wind up asking Tucker for help with his math, and the they both wound up at the arcade, even dragging Sam along with them. The three of them spent almost two hours with plastic guns in their hands trying to beat the ridiculous high score on a shooter game. Just when they were about to leave Tucker caught of a new machine that mainly consisted of two metal bars and a counter. "No way." He said. "I've always wanted to try one of these." He rubbed his hands together and grinned.
"Why, what is it?" Danny looked the machine over, it didn't even look like a game.
"It shocks you when you hold on to the metal bars." Sam said. "It's dumb Tucker, why would you even want to do that?"
"It also spits out tickets every second you hold on." Tucker shrugged. "How hard can it be." The boy straightened his beret and squared his shoulders. He took a deep breath while Danny and Sam watched closely. For a moment Danny wondered if standing back and watching while is friend electrocuted himself was something normal people did.
Tucker grabbed hold of the bars and immediately jerked back with a yelp. Danny and Sam both doubled over with laughter. Tucker groaned and hung his head low. "Man, I hope there weren't any babes watching that."
"I wouldn't count on it." Danny pointed at a group of girls giggling at the bespectacled boy.
"Let's get outta here before he embarrasses himself even worse." Sam laughed.
All it took to get Tucker back in high spirits was a trip to the Nasty Burger and the promise of a huge piece of meat in front of him.
"Feels like it's been forever since we've been here." Danny said, sinking into his seat. He looked around the familiar diner, half expecting something to pop up and force them to leave. They were almost done eating when one of the employees moved towards their table. "Chill Danny, it's just a waiter." Tucker said.
A very familiar waiter. His nametag read RICHARD in neat print. "Can I get you kids anything else?" The man smiled.
"Is there anywhere you don't work?" Danny blurted out, he'd seen Richard at both the ice-cream parlor and some fancy restaurant around the block.
"Guy's gotta make a living." Richard shrugged and Danny was a little unsettled by how familiar he was, it was almost like the guy was being over shadowed by one of Danny's more common ghosts.
"I think were good." Sam said. "Just the check."
"Aw, no desert?" The man shook his head like he was really disappointed. "You spent all your money at an arcade, didn't you?" A second later he was smiling again. "I'll be right back."
"He's way too peppy for minimum wage." Tucker said, watching the waiter leave.
"I bet it's his first day." Sam said, her eyes were also on the waiter but much lower than the back pf his head. "The system hasn't had a chance to grind him down yet."
"We still on for Dead Teacher tonight?" Tucker asked before shoveling a mountain of fries into his mouth.
Danny groaned and slapped himself, knotting the hand in his air. "I completely forgot to study today."
"Don't sweat it." Tucker said. "You can do that tomorrow. I can come over and…"
"No thanks." Danny cut him off. "I can't get off track again. I'll have to keep at it all day if want to be done in time for the movie.
"But you will be there?" Sam pressed, both her and Tucker looking a little more serious than usual.
"As long as a…"
"Don't say it!" Both Sam and Tucker covered his mouth, preventing him from finishing his sentence. "You'll jinx it!" Tucker said, suffocating Danny with his tight hold.
"Okay, okay." The halfa pushed his friends away. "I won't say it, now get off me."
Danny had only managed to free himself from Tucker when the waiter got back.
"Young love." Richard sighed and shook his head fondly.
"Were not in love!" Danny and Sam pulled away from each other. Seriously, how many times could people make that mistake?
"Don't worry, I believe you." Richard collected the filled check and set four to go pudding cups in front of them. "On the house" He said. "Pink one's vegan for lady." He looked at Danny, his smile softening. "And you'll give the yellow one to Little Wing, wont you?" Danny almost choked on the last sip of his soda, and Richard chuckled as he moved on to another table.
What was that about?" Tucker asked, a frown on his face.
"One of Red's friends." Danny tossed the extra pudding in his backpack while the three of them got up to leave. There was something written on his napkin and he hid it before Sam and Tucker could see.
"Red has friends?" Sam asked, her eyes widening.
"Who d'ya think he skips school with? The box ghost?" Tucker said, a spoonful of the desert in his mouth before they were even out the door. "Where ever it's from, Tucker Foley doesn't say no to perfectly good free food."
Danny only got a chance to read Richards message when he got home that night. "In case of emergency" And a phone number signed with a smiley face. Danny had a feeling he'd be needing it soon.

Spending your entire Saturday at a library wasn't something most teens would choose. It was, however, fairly common for Jazz Fenton. Soon she'd have college to think about, sometimes she was worried that it was all she ever thought about. When she was a successful psychologist she'd have all the time she wanted to have fun, well that was what she told herself.
She yawned and stretched, her back straightening with some satisfying pops. For one day, she'd done enough, all she had to do was finish off her book report and she'd be ready to leave, maybe get some lunch. A few minutes later she'd finished packing up and was on her way to check out some new psych books that had come in.
As she neared that section of the library she caught sight of a very familiar, if unexpected head of black hair at another table. His lips moving as he read.
"Danny?" She called, just to be sure. He looked up and quickly slammed shut the book he'd been reading, throwing his arms over it for good measure. "What are you doing here?"
"Jeez, Jazz is it a crime to spend some time studying?" He glared at her as though daring her to make a big deal out of it.
"Whoa, Danny. You don't have to get so defensive." She waved her hands and read the cover of his book. "I didn't know trauma and memory loss was something they were covering in freshmen year. What's going on?"
He tensed up, and she had the feeling he really wanted her to leave. "It's for a friend."
The same one he'd asked her for help with before, she guessed. At the time she'd thought he was talking about himself, and had given him advice that she'd hoped would help him finally tell her about his ghostly activities. Since then he'd only gotten more secretive though, and she'd been worried that she'd given too much away.
Then she saw Danny's new friend at her family's idea of a weekend vacation, and the boy clearly wasn't as human as he pretended to be. It was a good start anyway, him asking her for help with a ghostly friend. Normally she'd have told Danny to get his friend into therapy, but the one ghost therapist she'd seen wasn't exactly encouraging.
"So, now your friend can't remember things?" She asked pulling out some similar books from the shelves. She just had to show that she could help without being pushy. His body language was a little more open now.
There were more books scattered around the table, books that were actually on subjects he had at school. Danny really had been trying to study. Jazz was so proud to see that her little brother was working so hard, even with all the ghost fighting he did.
"I thought it was just because…" Danny cut himself off and changed his sentence halfway. "because he was sick, but there are other people like him who do remember."
"Sometimes trauma patients suppress their memories until they're stable enough to deal with them." Jazz said. "It's what their minds do to keep them from going crazy. The more comfortable he is the faster he'll heal, maybe you could try getting him to do something he likes.
"He doesn't like anything." Danny chuckled. "He has this hat that he really hates though, and the circus."
"Where did you meet him?" Jazz asked. She could practically see the walls being thrown up around Danny as soon as he heard that question and she mentally backtracked. "Never mind, that's not important. Just, being around something familiar might help jog his memory."
"Like his family?" Danny asked. "Would it work if I could get them to spend some time together?"
"If he has any I guess that would help." Though Jazz couldn't see how Danny would find an amnesiac ghosts family.
He looked happy for a second, then sunk into his seat again. "Jazz, what if what happened was so bad that remembering just makes things worse. I mean, what if he has a breakdown or something?"
"Everybody deals with things differently Danny." Jazz said. "But not remembering won't change what happened or how it affected him. If he never remembers then he'll never heal." She leaned over to give him a hug. "I'm so proud of you for giving psychology a try."
"Thanks." He leaned away, a feint blush creeping into his cheeks. "Could you just not do that it public?"
"Oh right, sorry." She pulled away, sparing her little brother his teenaged pride.
"I gotta meet up with Sam and Tuck soon." He swept all of his books into his bag and got up. "I'll see you later Jazz."
She smiled as she watched him leave, happy that for even a little while, she and Danny had something they shared an interest in. .

.
It was odd seeing him so still, because it was only then that Dick took note of how quiet he was. The Jason he'd seen the few times he'd visited the manor was always busy with something. Whether it was practicing flips, helping Alfred or getting into trouble. He was a little punk who always had something to prove and was always looking to prove it.
That was one of the reasons Dick had had such a hard time getting close to the boy. It had grated on his nerves that Bruce had taken Robin and given it to someone so impulsive, so rude, so very different from Dick himself. Now all Dick wanted was to see the boy do something when there weren't any glowing monsters involved. And no, he wasn't calling them ghosts, he'd seen ghosts, they were horrifying and he'd still be having nightmares for a long time before he could joke about them, something that came with having a half demon sorceress for a teammate. Dick almost hoped this world's version would try something so Jason would get off that park bench and punch something.
"I'd tell ya to take a picture." Jason said. "But try it an' I'll turn your face inside out."
Well at least he still sounded like Jason. Dick swung out of the tree he'd been hiding in and leaned over the back of the concrete bench.
"How's your arm?" He asked, smiling down at the glaring boy.
"Got chewed on." Jason only looked up with one half lidded eye. "What do you want?"
"You change the bandages yet?" Dick pressed. That was the kind of wound that got an Alfred imposed bed rest of at least a week. Spending all night on a park bench didn't count.
"What do you want?" The boy asked again, this time with a noticeable edge to his voice.
"Can I sit down?" Dick waved his fingers at the bench.
Jason growled but moved his legs aside, giving Dick space to flip over the edge and sit, but as far from the boy as he could.
"You know you don't want me to leave." Dick said.
"I don't want you near the kid behind my back." Jason said, sitting up and wincing only a little when he straitened hid shoulder. "Now tell me what you want or I'll be the one leaving."
"To know what happened to you." Dick sighed and looked up at the dusky sky. Even angry, this Jason was too passive. Dick wanted a surprise attack, a flurry of curses, anything but this.
"I died." Jason said, wrapping his arms around his midsection. "If you were looking for me in that place then you must have known that." He stood, his cheeks suspiciously wet when he turned away. "Now please, just leave me alone."
As he walked something phased through his clothes and fluttered to the ground. The white bandage Dick had wrapped around Jason's hurt shoulder was stained, not only with rust colored dried blood, but bright green as well.
Dick caught it before it could blow away on the wind. Dead people didn't bleed.

He didn't want to be there anymore, didn't want to be anywhere near that man. Away where everything wasn't too loud and too close and he could breath. So he fought down the aching of need in his chest, the lump in his throat that made it hard to breath, why couldn't he breath, he needed to breath! He focused on what he wanted, a snack, a fight, a freaking haircut. Things he could get if he went looking.
"I don't need it." He muttered to himself, he didn't need anything, he'd exist no matter what, so he didn't need anything. Mostly he didn't need the headaches, flashes of fire and steel and red lips and laughter and… He had to run to the nearest trashcan to empty his stomach. Not like he needed the food anyway, but he wondered if pain meds would get rid of the headache. Everything was suddenly too loud, and too close, how much longer until it was night already?
He wished a ghost would attack, if only to take his mind off it, he needed to take his mind off it.
"Hey look, it's Little Red Riding Hood."
He looked up – when did he even sit down? – and saw that blonde idiot jock from the high school. "Heard you've been making moves on my buddy's girl friend." The jock cracked his knuckles.
Somehow, he'd wondered all the way to the mall without noticing it. He stood and wiped the left over bile from his lips, while he was there he might as well get something to get the taste out of his mouth.
"Hey I was talking to you." Dash fisted the front of his hoody when the smaller boy walked past. "No wonder you're always wearing this thing." Dash laughed, his 'friends' following suit. "You're even freakier when I can see all of you."
He took a deep breath. You don't get into fights with civilians, you never get into fights with civilians no matter how angry they make you. Being impulsive was what had gotten him into that situation in the first place, why the 'hahahahahaha' why that laughter was still ringing in his ears even now.
He only needed one arm to break away and pull the hood back on before that hat appeared again. Walking away was harder, but it was always the better option. Someone had always said that and listening to someones deep voice drowned out the laughter. This was one of the reasons he couldn't hang around that school past lunch time. It had been better before that guy had shown up, before those questions kept creeping in on him and he was constantly looking for an outlet. It was too hard to stay calm on his own, and those freaking idiots preyed on anyone who was alone. If they didn't let up on him soon he knew he was going to snap, and when that happened he was going to make them eat their own…
"Red!"
He turned around slowly, taking the time to school his twisted features so it looked like he was just bored. "'Sup, Boss." He smiled. "Trouble?"
The kid frowned, that look he always got just before he started asking questions. "Nah. What are you doing here so late?"
"I could ask you the same thing, don't you have that big test coming up?" For some reason he had a really, really bad feeling about that test.
The halfa laughed nervously and scratched the back of his neck. "I was just at the internet café, doing, uh research." He nodded rapidly. "Yeah, lots of research about math, and history and… stuff."
"Yeah, the math of HP and the history on how many times yours hit zero." The other boy laughed, his eyes shifting to where Danny's friends appeared outside the internet café, they waved and Red waved back sloppily. "Your friends are signaling you." Danny turned to look and the ghost slipped into the crowd, leaving the mall. There were other places he could get rid of the bad taste in his mouth. Some neapolitan iced cream would work better than a soda anyway.

All it took for Red to disappear again was the few seconds Danny had turned to call Sam and Tucker over. If he hadn't seen Richard do the same a few night ago, he would have assumed the ghost really had learned how to use his invisibility. "Was that Red?" Tucker asked, peering into the crowd. "What's he late for?"
"Probably saw the clown." Sam said.
"Where?" Tucker looked around excitedly. "I didn't know the mall even had one."
Sam gave Tucker a pointed look and held up her pocket mirror.
"Oh ha ha." Tucker laughed sarcastically and pushed the mirror away. Danny only half paid attention to them. When was the last time the ghost had hung out with all three of them? Whenever they were around he was either asleep or gone seconds later. 'I'll get him tomorrow at school.' Danny told himself, knowing already that he wouldn't be seeing the ghost that night.