There are a couple of things I need to clarify before I start this arc.

First of all, I've decided that the current story takes place somewhere around modern day. Danny and his friends are about 17 - going on 18 - years old and are at the beginning of their senior year of high school. That means Jazz is about 20 years old and in community college now (she was supposed to be going to Harvard or Yale, but after Danny's accident, switched to closer to home), so Jack and Maddie Fenton would have graduated from college roughly 20+ years ago. That also lands Jack, Maddie, and Vlad in their mid-to-late-40s.

Also, according to a few hints online, Amity Park is somewhere in Minnesota, so that is the current location of the story.

(As you can see, I did a whole lot of important math and research, lol) Please take this all with a grain of salt and remember that this fix-it-fic is my own little world I'm creating within the DP universe.

Once again, thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing - and for your patience! For all you guest reviewers, I can't thank you through messaging, so I'm thanking you here!

-Song


Danny's family hadn't known what to make of him when he'd stumbled home after the fire at Breckerman's Farms. They hadn't heard about the blaze - the Mansons hadn't thought to call them, of course - and as soon as he walked through the front door, his parents were on him like ectoplasm on a ghost.

"Danny!?" they'd cried.

He pushed them gently away and lied in the most mundane way he could. He told them he'd fallen and gotten scraped up in the fire. They wanted to whisk him to the hospital for Dr. Helsing to check him out, but he begged them not to.

How could he explain that the wounds were already healing? That the cuts were getting thinner, and the bleeding had already stopped?

"It just stained my shirt, but it doesn't hurt that bad. I promise," he told them.

His parents seemed almost hysterical - a common reaction to anything involving his health after 'the accident' - but surprisingly, Jazz stepped in.

She placed her cool hands on his face and brushed his dusty black hair out of his blue eyes. In his eyes, she could see the pain there. Not physical, but something worse. She hugged him once and then turned on her parents.

"Let him wash up and we'll assess the damage after that. He seems okay. There's no need to drag him back to the hospital. You remember the hospital, don't you?"

Danny's mother winced, and his father rubbed the back of his neck.

"Alright, but take it easy and come right back down for assessment, young man!" Maddie Fenton shooed Danny upstairs for a shower, and he escaped.

In the shower, he let the hot water flow over him for a while, grateful to be alone. The water turned pink as it mixed with his blood.

Danny couldn't get Tucker's angry expression out of his mind. He couldn't unhear the things Tucker had said.

"If he had a tenth of what I have…" Danny whispered to himself. He cried a little - a short, dark sob - and his tears mixed with the bloody water and down the drain below. "If he did, he'd probably have done everything right."

Sam would get mad at him for that kind of thinking. But clearly, the universe had chosen the wrong kid to go into the Fenton portal that day and get zapped into a half-ghost superhero. Tucker was right. Danny had gotten people hurt tonight. He should have spoken up right when he'd noticed the ghost had been following him.

He should have just left entirely. If he hadn't been around, none of this would have happened. He should have just been on his own.

He should just disappear.

Danny caught himself before his feelings totally spiraled out of control.

"Stop," he scolded himself. "You were the one to get zapped, and you are learning how to do this. You didn't mean for it to happen. It just did."

He could admit that he hadn't made the right calls tonight, but he shouldn't have told Sam it was all his fault. He shouldn't be putting all the blame on his own shoulders.

There was no way he could have known that a ghost like Skulker would appear! He was the worst ghost he had faced yet - dangerous, calculating, intelligent - and Danny was still debating to himself about releasing Skulker back to the Ghost Zone.

Don't you know that is how you get enemies? Predators?

Should he just destroy the thermos and, hopefully, Skulker, who lay dormant inside? How would he even do that? He'd never tried before, and if his mother's inventions were anything to go by, it would be impossible to destroy the thermos without some serious equipment.

But if he let Skulker go, wouldn't he just come back?

A light knock on the bathroom door pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Danny?" called Jazz. "You okay?"

Danny turned off the shower. He raised his arms and twisted to get a better look at his body. The cuts on his arm and shoulder were almost closed up. They stung, though, and he felt sore in his muscles where the arrows had torn them. Yet he knew he would come out of this without any scars.

Would Tucker have scars?

With a towel around his waist, Danny opened the door a crack.

"They're just cuts. Nothing serious, just some bleeding," he told her.

Jazz's face was a mix of concern and suspicion. He didn't like how shrewd his older sister could be. Sure, his parents were geniuses, but a lot of their children's lies went right over their heads. Not Jazz's, though. Somehow she could always tell.

Danny remembered the time when he'd snuck out in ninth grade with Tucker. They were planning to wait outside the GameStop at the Amity Mall for the midnight release of the latest Doomed expansion. He'd made it halfway down the Fenton fire escape before he realized Jazz was sitting at the bottom of it, sipping herbal tea and tapping her foot.

Let's just say he never made it to GameStop.

"You'd better be okay," she now snapped from the hallway. She narrowed her eyes at his cuts, which were very thin and only slightly red now. "I need you to be more careful. I can't sit and watch you lay in a hospital bed again."

Danny felt queasy at the thought of another round at the Amity Park E.R.

"You won't," he assured her. "I promise."

"Promises only matter if you keep them."

"I know," he said. "I will."

Jazz sighed. She looked a little more relieved.

"Good. Now go show Mom and Dad. They're really freaking out."

"Great," Danny groaned. "I'll be right down."

Even though his parents agreed he looked alright, they made him stay home from school on Monday, just in case.

Instead of heading off to school, he listened to his parents bicker about how to handle emergency situations at home - particularly a fire. There were a lot of flammable liquids in the lab, of course, not to mention that Fenton Works was built out of a 1912 boarding house. Maddie was furious it still wasn't up to code, especially since Jack kept insisting that he "would get to it eventually."

Jazz, who didn't have university classes on Mondays, ground her teeth as she tried to drink her orange juice in peace.

"I've got to get my own place," she snapped. Danny couldn't argue with her there. If only the two of them could earn an income, but both Fenton's parents declared that education and knowledge always came first.

"There will be plenty of time to get a job after college," Jack Fenton had always insisted. Danny wondered if he understood that most jobs required 5 years of experience.

Now, he stared down at his phone and sighed. Sam had left several texts that he had only half-answered. She was going to be so mad at him.

S: I can't believe u both ghosted me this weekend.

D: Ha Ha

S: Not what I meant!

D: Tucker 2?

S: Just explain plz.

S: Danny?

S: This isn't like you…

He didn't know what to do. Sam was so worried and confused - but he couldn't text her about ghosts! What if someone saw? They'd all agreed not to leave a record of their ghost hunting through messaging, and Danny's parents weren't letting him out of their sight until tomorrow.

Sam would just have to wait.

As for Tucker…

Tucker was angrier than he'd ever been, and though he'd been shocked before, Danny was starting to slowly put together the pieces.

Tucker had always made small quips about Danny's powers, and sure, he'd seemed a little jealous, but who didn't secretly wish they could fly or have super strength? Danny hadn't thought all that much about it before, but now… Well, now Tucker wasn't texting him back.

And Danny had tried.

D: dude, I'm sorry

D: I kno I messed up…

D: Can't we talk?

Nothing.

Well, Danny wasn't going to beg. That ghost had been hunting him after all, and even if Danny had said something earlier, there was no way they could've prevented Skulker's attack for long. Danny tried not to beat himself up too much, but Tucker's silent treatment made him feel like crap.

Fine, he thought. He'll text when he's ready and not before. I'll just wait.

So Danny clicked the lock button on his phone and set it face down on the kitchen table. He looked up at his parents, who had finally stopped bickering.

They were staring at him.

"Uh, what?" he asked.

"What do you think about a family weekend trip?" Jack Fenton asked.

"A weekend away?"

"Sheesh, didn't you hear anything?" Jazz asked. "He was loud enough about it."

"Jasmine, don't sass your father," Maddie Fenton scolded.

"What do you mean a 'family weekend trip'?" Danny asked.

"A trip out of town," Danny's mother continued. "Jasmine is determined that we do something as a family that doesn't involve ghost hunting."

Danny raised an eyebrow skeptically. His parents were literally wearing their ghost-hunting gear right now at the breakfast table. They had plans to be in the basement lab all day, perfecting some invention or other. The only things in this house that didn't involve ghost hunting were eating, sleeping, and showering.

The Fentons didn't do family weekends away.

"Where… would we even go?" Danny asked.

"Wisconsin!" His dad blurted out.

"Wisconsin?" the other three asked in unison.

"Well sure, Vladdie sent that invite for our college reunion. He's having it at his place."

Maddie Fenton blanched. "Vlad Masters? When did we get an invite like that?"

Jack scratched his chin. "Months ago. I swore I put it on the fridge."

Jazz stood up and started peeling away grocery store coupons and newspaper clippings regarding ghost sightings from the surface of the fridge. Danny cringed when she plucked the "Invis-O-Bill" news articles and moved them aside. Eventually, she made it to an expensive cardstock invitation with "Class of 2000" etched onto the paper in Gold lettering.

"Is this what you're looking for?"

"That's the one!" Jack snapped up the invite, and Jazz dropped all the rest of the clippings onto the floor. "Wow, 2000? It's been twenty-three years since we last saw Vlad."

"Which is why I think it might be an error…" Maddie looked uncomfortable. "I mean, don't you think it's a little strange he might be inviting us to his home? After… you know?"

Danny and Jazz gave each other looks. After what?

"No way Vladdie is still mad about that," Jack scoffed. "I'm sure it's all water under the bridge. Besides, he still had our address! That means he cares."

"Wait…" Jazz interrupted. "Mom, did you say Vlad Masters?"

Maddie Fenton turned to her daughter. "Yes. Why?"

Jazz jumped up and ran out of the room. Danny shrugged at his parents' confused looks. When she returned, Jazz was holding a glossy magazine which she held up for her parents to see.

"A man named Vlad Masters is Billionaire-of-the-Month in Money Magazine. There's no way it's the same guy, right?"

"That's Vladdie!" Jack looked giddy. He snapped the magazine from his daughter's hand and stared at the cover. "Wow, he looks great! His hair is all silver, though. Guess he's not aging as gracefully as me."

Maddie took the magazine and flipped to the article inside. "Vlad Masters currently resides in Wisconsin at Castle Gouda, the former home of Wisconsin's dairy tycoon, Pat Robbins, affectionately titled the Dairy King during the Second World War for supplying dairy products to our soldiers overseas…"

"Mom, that information is so irrelevant right now," Jazz snapped. "What about Mr. Masters? What's he like?"

Their mother's face fell a little, and she looked pensive. Danny opened his mouth to ask if she was alright, but their father started regaling them with about ten thousand college stories about his laboratory shenanigans with famed billionaire Vlad Masters.

"...and that's why I still have a missing toenail on my right foot."

"Jack," Maddie finally interrupted. "I think we should talk about this privately-"

"No need!" Jack grinned wide. "Come'on, Maddie, let's go. It isn't far, maybe a six hour drive, and the kids'll love it! They can explore a Scottish castle nestled in the rolling Wisconsin hills, and we can catch up with old chums!"

Maddie Fenton didn't remember any chums she had a particular interest in catching up with, but the look on her husband's face had swayed her decisions in life more times than she could count. She sighed, hands on her hips, and nodded.

"Alright," she agreed. "We'll leave early Saturday morning and come home Sunday night."

"Heck yeah!"

Danny looked at Jazz again. She rolled her eyes. "At least it isn't ghost hunting."

Danny didn't agree. A six-hour drive to go meet their parents' college friends didn't sound better than ghost hunting at all. Especially since he was still waiting on a text back from Tucker. He wanted to bridge the gap between them, even if it meant apologizing for the thousandth time. Although, the longer Tucker went without texting back, only embittered Danny about the whole thing.

He'd rather be chasing the Box Ghost in circles and venting his frustration on that.

"Then it's settled." Jack said with finality, wrapping his entire family up in his big, gorilla-sized arms. "A family vacation in the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle. Just what the doctor ordered."

"Yaaay…" Danny and Jazz groaned at the same time, overruled as always.