*An: Hello Lovely Readers! This one's a bit shorter and it comes with a little heads-up that school is starting soon for me, so I won't be able to keep up with this schedule for much longer. I cherish all the support I get on this, I've really grown to love plotting, writing, posting, and hearing from you wonderful folks, and I'll try to keep that going even as my life gets a little more full. Welp, that's all with that, on with the drama!

Daniel's first thought was how sore he was. He wasn't used to sleeping on something quite this hard. Second came the awareness that they were slowing down. He was drawn into further consciousness when whatever momentum they had stopped. He grumbled as he sat upright again, blinking wearily. There was a clicking sound and he could see a traffic light was there before them, displaying a red hue.

"Good, I was about to wake you up," a conversational voice was on the other side of the car. Its owner, unsurprisingly, was the older readhead. She didn't look over at him, but watched the light expectantly. "I'm stopping at a gas station to refuel, and..." Daniel could see a frown forming on her face. "You have to tell me what happened in Wisconsin while we're stopped." Her tone left no room for argument.

Right... what happened. Daniel's thoughts groggily caught up with him and he sighed. He hadn't noticed he was human before, so he must have changed while he was sleeping. It was the form he liked better anyways; he had control over it, and it came so naturally. His ghost form reverted to the same disheveled appearance every time he shifted.

Echoes of the earlier day whispered in his memory, casting long shadows in the form of swirling green, tall metal pods, and empty forms of clones.

Clone. Finally the revalation caught up to him, unheeded but ever-present. He was here because he ran away. He was here because he was pretending to be something he wasn't. He was a fake and he had lied to this concerned friend/relative of the original's. He bit his lip and spared another glance at her. Had she looked that deeply disturbed before his nap? Daniel braced on the armrest as the rv made a turn. It slowed to a halt and the girl looked at him seriously.

"Before I do anything, I need to know. Did Vlad hurt you?" The question was so sudden, and Daniel's uncertainty must have shown, because she continued. "Just, what happened to make you all... weird?" she gestured to him.

"Weird," Daniel repeated, a question in his voice as he looked down to his own appearance. What was weird about him? His suit wasn't wrinkled, his tie was mostly flawless, what was wrong? "What do you mean by that?"

"For Pete's sake, Danny, you're wearing a tux! Your hair has... GEL in it! Gel! And we can barely get you to brush most days... Not to mention," she looked at him more somberly, "You've barely said a thing since I found you. Either you really needed that nap, or something happened."

Daniel's face fell. So apparently looking nice just... wasn't normal? He had to talk to her, to just tell her that he wasn't really the person she was close to. But the promise of Amity being so close, the needy urge to see what kind of life his counterpart lived, was powerful. It begged him to push aside logic, to keep going like this until he at least had the chance to see. Unfortunately, to do that, he had to come up with a lie and fast. Once again his stomach was spinning uneasily.

"I was... going undercover," he waved his hand dismissively, mind grasping for what he remembered from the notes. He'd been too caught up in the whole not being a real person thing to remember details, but he was sure he could come up with something. Wasn't there something that kept coming up about trying to convince the original to be his son? Ew. "Vlad made his speech about adopting me again and I thought... it would be easier to take him down if I went along with it?" Yes, for once he got something out that made sense!

The girl's grip loosened on the wheel, and Daniel wondered when it had gotten so tight. "How did that go?" Her voice was back to the gentle questioning, but it held a heavy protectiveness behind that.

"Didn't turn up anything," Daniel muttered hastily in response. His grip tightened on the armrest and he glanced away. "Don't you have to get gas or something?" He hoped she wouldn't notice how anxious he was to avoid the topic. At least if she did catch it, he prayed she would let it slide and fill the car. He was just flat out lying to her at this point and he hated it.

For a terrifying moment, there was silence. Daniel didn't receive a reply save for a defeated sigh and the opening of a car door. It was better than forcing Daniel to lie again, but the silence still stung. It was fine, this was something he had to do. ...right? It was necessary for him to get to Amity park safely. Just a bit longer and this would all be cleared up. He just wanted to see Amity, get a taste of what it was like. The original was apparently not there, but that was all the more reason for him to go! If he could get more information, then he could even stage a rescue and no one would be the wiser. Hey, he didn't even need to tell anyone he was a fake if he played his cards right! He just needed information first.

~••~

The rest of the ride was silent, which was fine by Daniel. Talking meant questions that he didn't have the answers to, and now he was determined to learn as much as he could about the old Daniel and how he disappeared. He'd be able to get some real answers this way without telling everyone that he was... not the Real Daniel. Something about the whole ordeal, now that he had the foundations of a plan, was exhilarating to him. There were so many unanswered questions about this life, so many things he could learn.

Already, Daniel had clues, pieces to a puzzle he was slowly collecting. The redhead who was jow beside him staring responsibly at the road ahead had already told him so much if only he could make sense of it. If only he'd been paying more attention to her, to all the enticing information in Vlad's lab. He'd been focusing on the wrong pieces, staring at the past like it was a cage. No, he couldn't let himself be dragged down by what Vlad had planned for him. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to leave that behind for just a short while and focus on the one that really mattered, the original.

Daniel wasn't sure how long it was until they came across a sign displaying a happy, quaint town came into view. He tried not to stare at the sign for Amity Park, but the anticipation was now oozing off of him in waves. This was it, he was somewhere completely new. He was free and this was a safe place for him to learn. There were so many possibilities. He could find out what Danny Phantom meant, what his--the original's--family was like, and of course he would get to the bottom of the mystery of why the real him was missing.

Daniel looked at the driver, wondering where she was going to stop. She was taking him to Fentonworks, right? He would get to see the real him's house? Oh no, he still had to figure out the driver's name and connection to him. He was sure he'd missed something important that she said but he couldn't put two and two together. Oh well, with any luck he would get evidence soon enough. He had to pay better attention to her, for starters!

At long last, the exceedingly bizarre building that marked the original's home came into view. It wasn't hard to pick the house out from the strict rows of suburban neighbors, and Daniel wasn't sure what to think. Half of it appeared to be a normal house with brick and long windows, but branching out of that like a mechanical tree was the strangest mesh of lights, tech, and piping he'd ever seen. And he'd seen some traumatizing things back at Vlad's. Were these people going to be just like him?

The van came to a slow halt for a second time and Daniel was quick to change into his ghost form and phase out past his seatbelt, only to be stopped by a panicked "Wait!" Daniel paused, glancing back at the girl. "Not going to go in without knowing the excuse are you?"

Daniel paused, raising an eyebrow. "What do you... what is it?"

"I told them it was a concert, nothing too complicated. After you didn't come home I told them it was a sleepover thing with friends." She spared a meaningful glance at Daniel. "Be careful. Don't let mom and dad see you yet, not until you're human and you have some normal clothes." She chuckled, smiling in a way Daniel hadn't seen before. "I know you know that, but you're going to get yourself caught with how reckless you can be sometimes. I worry about you."

That confirmed Daniel's suspicion that he was related to her, which had been growing since she was talking so naturally about going home. This meant he had a sister, and the idea sent questions flooding through him. Unfortunately he still had the whole matter of what she was talking about. He'd be able to figure out what 'normal clothes' meant if he could find the original's closet, so it didn't seem like a problem. But why human? It didn't make sense as his ghost form was generally far more efficient with most things. To be sure he would start invisible until he could find out more.

Daniel blinked out of his thoughts, earlier excitement catching up to him. "I'm gonna go now. Bye!" He waved as he floated out of the van and entered the large house invisibly and intangibly. He began by phasing through a random wall, a distance from the actual entrance. After looking around to be sure the coast was clear, he let himself turn visible again so he could focus on his surroundings without the distraction invisibility required.

It was a pretty boring kitchen, but Daniel looked over it as though it were a forest temple with hidden secrets. The other him lived here, ate here and possibly cooked here. Years of history was in the very air of the room, years that Daniel never knew. Unfortunately he didn't have time to pour over the one room. There was a lot he needed to find out, and the best place to begin was the original's place of living. He assumed and hoped his destination would be on an upper level, and headed in that direction. He landed in a hallway and almost changed to his human form, but... apparently that wasn't normal. He would figure out why, though. He just needed to blend in long enough to find the original.

His destination was marked with a helpful sign out of black cardpaper that read 'Danny'. Next to it was a rocket ship sticker that seemed slightly immature. Daniel hesitated before the door, mildly confused. So far since leaving Vlad's, no one had called him Daniel, only Danny. Did he have the name wrong? Did Vlad purposely change it to differentiate between him and the original? It seemed insignificant, though, so Daniel decided to go along with it. After playing the name over a few times in his head, he decided he didn't mind it. It would work until he could find the Real Danny.

Daniel finally found the motivation to actually open the door, and it was a completely different world. Even before he turned the lights on, he saw glow in the dark stars on the ceiling casting a thin light over the place. When the light was on, the space before him was brimming with life. The bed was a mess of sheets, as if it hadn't been made in years. Two notebooks and a pencil nestled under a lamp at the end table next to it. Posters, post-its, and pictures were plastered about the wall. There were space themes, notes, doodles, and portraits. Shelves were full of model rockets, DVDs, and figurines, and there was a pile of dirty laundry shoved to the corner of the room. In countless ways, this felt more real than his place at Vlad's. This had character, it felt lived in, and Daniel was soaking it up eagerly.

Daniel gently shut the door behind him and turned human. Eagerly discarding the tie and suit jacket he had on over his shirt, he dumped the two accessories on the bed with distaste. Now that he knew better, the items were just symbols of the very thing he just ran from. They seemed as distant and meaningless as Wisconsin was now, like his life so far had been a bad dream. Giving the jacket and tie a disapproving look, Daniel moved on to find their replacements from the original's closet.

Once again, Daniel was caught by surprise by just how much more authentic the Real Danny's life was. Instead of rows of the same thing like Daniel half expected, there was a fascinating chaos in the closet. There was both a dresser and hanging clothes, but most were scrunched to the side or seemed untouched. There were various jeans that all looked the same and simple tee shirts or band shirts in the dresser. Those were the least wrinkled, so he chose a light red shirt and baggy jeans from the pile and assumed that would work.

He wondered if this was stealing, and another stab of guilt corroded at his heart. This was a private space, was he doing the right thing by being here? No one told him how he was supposed to deal with this, it wasn't fair. No one seemed to care about him or know him in a real sense except... Felix. He'd forgotten to call Felix!

Daniel fumbled for the phone Felix gave him and dialed. He bit his lip in worry as it rang, the concept of Vlad finding out of the cook's betrayal playing on loop in his head. Finally the ringing stopped, and Daniel breathed out in relief. "Felix speaking," Felix's digitally distorted voice came through the phone.

"Felix! Are you okay?" Daniel sat on the bed as he spoke, smiling despite not knowing what had happened to Felix. It was just nice to hear a familiar voice.

There was a short laugh on the other end of the phone. "I should be asking you that. Did you make it to Missouri alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good. But I want to know how it went with Vlad. Did he hurt you, did he believe you, what happened after I left?"

"I got fired, but I should be set with the money I already got, at least for a few months. Don't worry about me, what's important is that you're okay."

Daniel sighed, sobering at that. Here he was playing dress-up in the Fenton house while Felix was dealing with his own struggles. "I'm sorry, you wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for me." He lifted his legs onto the bed and lazily hugged his knees with one arm, using the other to hold the phone.

"No, you're not allowed to take the blame for this. You've just been through hell and you needed to get out of there."

"I'm glad you're safe," Daniel muttered, softly directing the focus of the conversation away.

"Me too, kid. Any clues on the original yet?"

"No." Daniel sighed, leaning back and lying flat against the bed. "Turns out he's been missing here too. Don't know why, but... I found his sister while she was looking for him."

"It's a relief to know you're not entirely on your own over there. Know you're allowed to call if you need anything and I'll be down there as soon as I can."

"I appreciate it." Daniel meant it. His life had become so chaotic in such a short amount of time, he was glad Felix was still reliable. Even now he was making a silent promise that he wouldn't need to take Felix up on that offer. The older had done so much for him already, he didn't deserve Daniel's constant bothering. "Thank you for everything, Felix."

"Take care, kid."

"Bye." There was a click on the other end and then silence. Daniel sat up, lowering the phone so he could stare at it. He hadn't even got the chance to mention the whole pretending to be the original thing. Felix was the one person he needed to know all of this. He needed one person, just one person to talk to that he didn't have to lie to (and who wasn't Vlad. Who he wasn't thinking about. At all.)

And just like that he was back to reality, putting away Felix's phone and standing. He got distracted almost immediately a picture on the wall, three smiling faces from a seemingly formal event. The three looked unlikely, like misfits, and Daniel found himself tracing the image with a hovering hand as if he could soak in the carefree happiness in it.

The Real Danny was in the middle, surrounded by a warm hug on both sides. On the left was a goth girl in a black sleeved dress looking smug yet affectionate as if she just told a joke and had anticipated the positive reaction. On the right was a boy that looked Danny's age with thick chunky glasses and--was that a barrette? It didn't go with the formal suits he and Danny were wearing. Nonetheless, either seemed to be delighted by what the girl said. It was a pure scene, so innocent.

Daniel withdrew, turning to leave. He made sure no one was there to see him as he wandered into the hallway again. The upastairs bathroom door was open already, so it was no trouble finding it, and Daniel locked the door behind him after moving in.

Daniel stared a moment too long at the mirror, studying the face he now knew wasn't even his own. It unnerved him, staring at the mirror and wondering what expressions the face might make were it the real one. Then of course there was the clothes, the immaculate stylized hair. That was all he'd known, but according to his sister, it was wrong. That meant it was all Vlad. Vlad dictated his entire short existence, the small identity he was able to squeeze together in a few days. It was now that he decided past the cauldron of mixed feelings bubbling in his stomach. He decided he justifiably hated Vlad, and he never wanted to see the man again.

Yep, so much happens in this poor kid's head. I mean, he has no clue what a fucking nickname is, but here he is making deep thought about his life and identity. Slow down Daniel! Chill! Enough from me though, thanks for reading and I'll see yall next chapter!