One

Danny Fenton had gone through a whole two weeks with only six ghost attacks at most when he started worrying.

Sam Manson and Tucker Foley, his best friends, called it paranoia but he disagreed. When the ghosts stopped attacking so much, it always meant something was going on. And he was convinced that it had something to do with Vlad Masters.

He had been friends with Sam and Tucker for years. Now in high school, they made a trio of unpopular kids: Sam, the Goth and self-proclaimed ultra-recyclo vegetarian; Tucker, the meat-loving techno geek; and Danny, the son of the crazy ghost hunters and general loser.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Tucker said at the Nasty Burger. He fiddled with his PDA, twirling the stylus through his fingers. "But even if so, Vlad's always up to something. He's the mayor of Amity Park. Surely we'll hear about it?"

Indeed, Vlad was not really known for subtlety these days. Danny lacked his sister's expertise in psychology but he suspected it had something to do with his breakdown after Danny had ruined his perfect clone attempt.

"I know, I just feel like I know something bad's going to happen."

"New ghost power?" Sam joked.

"Worst ghost power ever." Tucker laughed outright. "Thinking something bad might happen. Imagine."

"Guys, I'm serious."

"We know, Danny." Sam's face lost all traces of humor. "But we don't know what to do either. You know Vlad better than anyone. If you don't know his plans, then he's probably not being that obvious."

"I already miss the days when he was just doing stuff to get his polling numbers up," Danny mumbled, lowering his head to the table. Why did ghosts have to constantly keep making his life difficult?

The worst part was that he couldn't even just send Vlad to the Ghost Zone, like all the others. He had his own ghost portal, so he'd just use it to slip back into the Real World.

And, being honest, Danny did hope that he was just being overly cautious. Because if Vlad had gone back to being the chess obsessed maniac who was always two steps ahead, he didn't know if he could beat him. Not when he had no idea what game they were playing this time.

After all, he'd ruined Vlad's chances at a perfect clone, sent the Guys in White after him which led to his Wisconsin mansion's destruction, refused to renounce his father to join him, the Packers didn't look they were going to sell him the team anytime soon, and his mom had yet to respond positively to his creepy advances. What was he missing?

Danny hoped Vlad was just focusing on his stupid political career. His urban development project had been cut short after the mess with Undergrowth, plus the Vortex thing, though he'd naturally pinned that one on Danny Phantom.

Please, just be simple for once, he inwardly begged.

And as much as he hated to admit it, part of why he was worried was because of Valerie Gray.

The funny thing was, he had actually believed that things would more or less go back to normal after that last incident. Dani, newly stabilized, had gone off again and Valerie had promised to let him go (though, not before warning him that they'd be enemies the next time they came into contact). He had gone home, once again satisfied that the day had been saved. Sure, Vlad was still around but the cheesehead was impossible to get rid of. It had been enough.

And they had, for a while. Danny went to school, hung out with his friends, fought ghosts, was embarrassed by his parents, and talked with Jazz. But then Valerie had started giving him extra looks in class or at lunch.

He thought nothing of it, at first. Because they used to date, right? She might just miss him.

Sam had rolled her eyes. "Don't get so complacent. You never know what she might be thinking."

Uh oh. "You don't think she's figured it out, do you?"

"Who knows?" asked Tucker. "But I doubt it. If she knew, wouldn't she be flying off the handle?"

Danny was uncertain. Valerie had a temper, for sure. (He knew better than most after all the times she'd shot at him.) But there were also those moments when she took things with a disturbing calm. This could be one of those times.

And there was a nonzero chance Valerie might connect him to Danny Phantom. He knew he wasn't the best at the secret identity thing—he really benefited from most people just writing off the idea that the ghost boy and the Fentons' son could ever be one and the same. But Valerie now had an advantage over most of Amity Park's population: she knew that it was possible to be both ghost and human.

"Maybe."

That very day, ironically, he ran into the girl herself. He had been off to the movies with his friends when his ghost sense alerted him to his next fight. Sighing, he told Sam and Tucker to meet him there and went ghost, then took off into the sky. The ghost was, naturally, the Box Ghost, here for his weekly (sometimes daily or hourly) beating.

Just after he'd sucked the Box Ghost back into his Thermos and clipped it to his belt, he felt a burst of pain in his shoulder and turned around.

There was Valerie, in her suit and hovering in the air on her board.

This was not the first time he'd seen her in recent memory. He had actually had to escape her a few days after the incident with Danielle. Apparently, after a truce she felt an extra need to attempt to capture him.

Danny initiated conversation and, to his surprise, there was no fight. All she did was ask for information. Unfortunately for Danny, it was about half-ghosts. She at least seemed sincere enough when she'd promised to not spread around what she learned, but it still bothered him that she asked if there were others.

What if she really did know?

After catching back up with Sam and Tucker and doing his best to enjoy the movie, they'd gone back to FentonWorks, hightailing it straight to Danny's room.

"Guys, what do I do? Valerie might actually know!" He shared the story of their encounter.

"You should have figured out how to get rid of her weapons when you had the chance," Sam said.

"That might have worked before she got that new suit," Danny said as he paced around the room. Who knew if the thing even came off.

"I don't know, dude." Tucker munched on a snack. "It's your secret. Are you cool with her knowing?"

That was the question, wasn't it? The thing is, Danny knew it was only a matter of time before someone else found out he was Phantom. But Valerie was one of the people whose reaction he avoided most. What if she knew and she just wanted to hunt him even more? He'd told her father about her ghost hunting before. . . . Would telling Mr. Gray his secret potentially help? Danny tried not to imagine that scenario.

"I don't know." He sat on his bed. "She hates me. Sure, maybe she might stop trying to destroy me but this could ruin our friendship."

"If she doesn't accept all of you, then she was never your friend in the first place." That was Sam, of course. She had never approved of him befriending Valerie since she'd turned ghost hunter.

Tucker nodded to that. "We've got your back, man. What do you want to do?"

Danny sighed. "I think I'm just gonna try to . . . keep my distance for a while. If she wants to talk to me, she'll have to come to me. But I hope that isn't for a while."

For the next few weeks, he put the Valerie thing to the back of his mind and focused on living his life.

There were some things he'd noticed lately. For one thing, at school it seemed as if he and his friends, while still low on the food chain, weren't quite considered the full losers they'd been even a month ago. Now they were just . . . there. But it was a massive improvement, in Danny's opinion, since even his old bully Dash Baxter had stopped going after him.

Jazz was in her senior year of high school, so she was busier than before. "I'm always available when you need me, little brother," she'd told him. But she spent a lot more time out of the house these days, and when home, she often locked herself up in her room.

Mom and Dad, meanwhile, seemed to have focused most of their attention on trying to fix their "malfunctioning" inventions like the Ghost Gabber. Danny had wanted to phase his head through a wall when he heard the voice repeat back his words, with the requisite "fear me" when he strolled through the living room one day. He had grown up dodging his parents' inventions and avoiding their lab so it was easy enough to get out of their proximity.

But his mind was soon captured by the mysterious absence of the majority of Amity Park's infamous ghostly activity. Danny had the rhythm of the whole half-ghost hero thing down so it figured that just when he had gotten used to that, things changed. It began with a week where there had been a whole three straight days without a single attack.

Danny had spent those days actually catching up on homework and hanging out with friends.

If only that had been the end of it.

Yet the farther along things got, the more it stuck out that the ghosts weren't appearing as much. Danny, due to being able to sense them naturally, was the first to notice but before long he was hearing his classmates talk about it in the halls or at lunch.

Who knew there'd be a day when it's weird that the city is less haunted? he asked himself.

And his mom and dad had become very suspicious.

"Those ghosts have to be lulling us into complacency," Mom said at dinner one night, fiddling with one of her scanners. "It's only a matter of time until ghost activity goes back to normal or spikes."

"That's right, Maddie." Dad nodded. "And when they do, we'll be ready with the new and improved Fenton Peeler and Weasel. Plus the Fenton Ghost Shredder. Those spooks won't know what hit 'em!" He pounded his fits together.

"Don't forget the Bazooka, dear."

Jazz and Danny shared a look.

Now, he had never gotten the hang of talking while silent but he and his sister had enough of an understanding these days that they could both read on each other's faces, clear as day, their skepticism that their parents' hunting skills had improved.

Regardless, if even Jack and Maddie Fenton had noticed, then something had to be going on.

The night air brought a refreshing cool to his face as he flew gracefully through the sky, arcing up to get a good look at the moon and the constellations as they gleamed.

Sam and Tucker were still available through a three-way call but Danny had sent them off to bed. He knew he wasn't likely to get much sleep, anyway. His friends had grumbled but left. Curfew had long since come and gone but ghost powers were convenient.

Wind rustled in his ears. He floated up to orient his body into a sitting position. The complete feeling he always got when in the air flooded him.

"Hey, Phantom!" a familiar voice called. "Can I talk to you?"

Danny sighed. Well, it was time.

"Danny, who was that? Is that Valerie?" said Sam.

"Yeah. It's fine, Sam. She asked to talk."

"Okay. But if anything happens, call us."

"What she said," agreed Tucker.

"Of course," Danny said as he lowered himself to the ground, ended the call on his phone, and shoved it in the bag he'd brought. He wanted this to be just between the two of them.

His boots touched the grass. He had chosen to fly over the park tonight. Surrounded by trees, he felt boxed in.

Could be worse, he thought. She could have chosen to talk at school.

At last, his eyes landed on Valerie, who had shed her suit's helmet and board. Her steps were light as she strode up the path. She stopped around four feet away from him, hands hanging awkwardly at her sides.

For a moment, they stood in silence. Danny's aura was one of the nearest light sources and made him feel exposed.

"No guns, this time?" He tried to give her his usual cocky trademark Danny Phantom grin but it came out weaker.

She offered an awkward smile in return. Then took a deep breath and said, "Hi, Danny. No, no guns. Listen. I, uh—I know about you and I know Vlad's like Danielle."

Rarely did he feel like his brain had been broken by so few sentences. (At least, outside of his toughest classes in school.) Valerie having figured out his secret was expected, but:

"Wait, Vlad? How do you know about that?" Then he looked her over with a bit of suspicion. "He isn't tracking you or watching this conversation, is he?"

"If he is, I wouldn't know," Valere said bitterly. "I've looked it over but I went to him for help with my equipment. Who knows what he's done to it. As for how I know . . . After you and Danielle left, I went back to his mansion to talk to him and saw him transform. Don't look at me like that—I was watching from a distance. So I tried to shoot him the last time I saw him in person."

"What? Are you crazy? Vlad's super powerful. You could have been killed!"

"I know that, Danny! I said tried, didn't I? It didn't work. He disabled my suit somehow and instantly knocked me out."

Danny should have known that he would have that kind of contingency plan for a potential Valerie betrayal. Sure, the guy was a total fruitloop but he covered his bases. He probably got the info out of Technus.

"When I woke up, he said I wasn't useful to him anymore but he made me promise that if I didn't tell anyone he was . . . you know, both, he would let me go. I can't even tell my dad who he works for is part-ghost." Her eyes looked on the verge of tearing up. "That's kind of how I started to figure you out. He talked about you. Phantom you. And he also sounded like he hated human you, which was weird since he sounds like he's got a thing for your mom."

Danny forced his mind not to go to all the disturbing proof of that he'd seen in his time as Vlad's enemy. "You have no idea."

"So it is you," she whispered.

It occurred to him that she might not have been certain that he was Danny Fenton. Until now.

He swallowed. "Yeah, Val, it's me."

"You don't seem surprised that I know."

"I kind of wondered if you would after you saw Dani as a human," he said. "But those extra looks in school and asking if there are others like her convinced me. Had no idea you were thinking about Vlad."

"Yeah." She looked up at the sky. "You know, I'm still really mad at you but I don't even know why at this point. Yeah, there was that mess with the ghost dog and I hate that you never told me! But more than anything else . . . I'm just mad at myself. For almost getting people killed, like you or your cousin. For letting Vlad play me like that, how he's used me and you even tried to tell me and I didn't listen!" Her expression darkened.

"He wasn't my dog," Danny told her. "But I still wish I could have stopped what happened that day."

"Just don't talk about it."

"Right. But don't feel bad about Vlad. He's got tons of people charmed, including my dad."

"Yeah, what is going on with that? How hasn't he noticed?"

"Honestly?" Danny shrugged. "I think he feels guilty. They didn't talk for a long time. Plus it's sort of his fault that Vlad became . . . like this."

"And how do you become half-ghost?"

"Can we talk about that another time?" The accident was not a day he liked to think about, especially now with all the mixed up memories of it having happened a second time and gone a different way.

"Uh, sure. There's still a bunch of things I want to know about, like what happened with the mayor or my last suit but it's late and we have school in the morning, so I should cut to the chase. I came here mostly to talk about Vlad."

Danny's eyes narrowed. "What about him? Is he threatening you again?"

"Maybe? He sent me this letter. Except it was weird and just said something like, 'I dare you, Valerie, to stop me.' Plus the last time we talked he said something about how he's got this new piece for his plan or something like that. Does he always reference chess?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's Vlad, all right. It's one of his favorite things to talk about, along with my mom, destroying my dad, and the Green Bay Packers."

Valerie shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah."

She took another deep breath, then exhaled. "Look. I know you're half-ghost so I'm pretty mad at myself for hunting you but I don't know what to think of you anymore, you know? It turns out I didn't know a whole lot about you. But this Vlad thing is bigger than us. Truce?" She held out her hand.

"Truce." He took it and they shook gloved hands.

They separated awkwardly. Valerie added a few more inches between them. "Danny, you know Vlad better than me. You have any idea why he sent me that?"

"Maybe he thinks he's so powerful now that even if we teamed up we'd still lose? So he wants to dare us to try so he can watch us fail?" He shrugged again, letting his feet leave the ground. He studied Valerie's reaction as he gave into the desire to float; she made direct eye contact, though her mouth tightened. "But I'm convinced that he's behind the lower number of ghost attacks."

"Yeah, I was wondering about that. That's why it was so easy to find you. You were one of the only ghosts that showed up on my scanner today."

"Figures."

"And, Danny, I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you. I've been such a monster!" She looked near tears again.

"It's okay," he said quickly. "I forgive you. You're not a monster." He gave her a hopeful look. "So you'll keep my secret, right?"

"Yes. I'll keep your secret. I won't even tell your parents." She gave an ironic smile.

He needed to apologize for many things—stopping Valerie Gray from stealing the Fenton prototype Ecto-Skeleton was not one of them. "I did what I had to. Just like you did, when you saved me."

"Yeah, I guess I did do that." She gave a humorless laugh. "I saved two ghosts and never knew it."

Oh, crud. "That a bad thing?"

"I don't know yet. But Plasmius is way worse than anything else."

Now, that, he could agree with.

They told each other goodbyes, promising to talk again. Then Danny was left alone once again. He pulled his phone back out, dialed the number, put it to his ear, then surged into the air, heading home.

"Hey, anyone still there?"

"Danny?" Sam's voice. "Are you okay? She didn't hurt you, did she?"

"No. Actually, she didn't pull any weapons the whole time. So it's official: Valerie knows. But apparently she also knows Vlad is Plasmius."

"Seriously?" said Tucker, joining the conversation. "Danny, this is crazy."

"You're telling me?"

And yet even despite having had such a difficult conversation and gained some disturbing news about his archenemy, when he did get back to his room, he had no trouble falling fast asleep.

Author's Note: The Danny Phantom timeline operates on a very Marvel/DC comic book sort of logic. Time passes, but characters barely, if ever, seem to age. I know a lot of other DP writers have their own take on the timeline but I'm not even going to pretend to make this make sense so: Jazz = senior, Danny's age-group = sophomores. That's just what I'm going with for the fic even though I'll admit that doesn't make any sense based on canon episodes. Other than that, I'm copying the show's approach to time because I'll admit to being too lazy to keep track of weeks or months to create a coherent timeline. Feel free to call me out for it (or anything you want).

Also, I'm getting convinced this fic could wind up pretty long, based on my outline. I'll do my best to work on this as long as I'm inspired.