THEN: Incapacitated by Skulker, Danny is an easy catch for the Winchesters with the help of the Fenton Thermos. Via process of elimination, the brothers manage to contain Phantom in a salt circle, a surprise for all involved. They learn that Danny is a halfa, but he isn't able - or, perhaps, willing? - to tell them exactly what that means. As things start to look grim for Danny, Sam and Tucker stage a distraction in the form of a smoke bomb and get Danny out. He doesn't make it far, however, before he collapses, succumbing to his wounds.
NOW:
The next day, Danny used Sam's makeup kit to conceal his cuts and bruises as well as he could. His ghost half accelerated his healing process, but it still took time.
Tucker had found Sam and Danny just before Danny's ten o'clock curfew and had taken him to Sam's house for a joint sleepover after informing Danny's parents. That was one good thing about having relatively absent parents: they didn't really mind when you slept at someone else's house so much.
Tucker shook him awake at the absolute latest he could sleep without being late for school. When the boys got to the kitchen, Sam was already there with her parents and grandmother. Although her heavy makeup concealed most of her face, her friends could tell from the droopiness of her eyelids how tired she was. Without the makeup or the skills to conceal the dark purple circles under their own eyes, the boys were sure that they looked even worse. Danny didn't mind it as much as Tucker: Danny's eye bags hadn't gone away for months. Nevertheless, they had to appreciate the fact that Sam had gotten up extra early to smooth things over with her parents before the boys came down for breakfast.
Sam's parents were some strange form of absent and overbearing, having no clue what went on in Sam's life and yet wanting to control every aspect of it. As the model citizens they styled themselves to be, they did not approve of two boys sleeping over at their house, even if Danny and Tucker had stayed in the guest room. Danny could tell from the look that Sam gave him that he would have to be on his best behavior over breakfast.
Thankfully, Sam's parents were occupied with their morning routine: making coffee, washing dishes, watching the news, etc. Everyday people things. Danny, still shaking off the exhaustion of the previous day's ghost fight and subsequent capture, envied this normalcy.
The three teens sat in relative silence as they chowed down on bacon and eggs, Sam alone eating something that looked like grass growing on a piece of cardboard. Sam's grandmother occasionally asked them questions pertaining to the crossword she was trying to do, but otherwise left them alone. Bored, Danny's attention drifted to the TV on the kitchen counter, where the morning news was playing. The volume was just high enough to be heard over the breakfast din, but not loud enough to be distracting.
Tiffany Snow, the news anchor for Amity Park News on channel 10, was in the middle of describing the devastation left after Skulker had appeared at the school. The scene cut to video taken from the parking lot that showed the crater Danny vividly remembered making with his butt and then panned to the destruction that had taken the place of the entryway into the school.
Construction crews already littered the scene. The entrance was half rebuilt at this point, and Danny caught a glimpse of trucks from a glass company pulling into the parking lot to replace the windows. The constant property damage wrought by ghosts had made construction crews into rapid response teams to rival the fire department. Lance Thunder, the ever-charismatic field reporter popped onto the screen, standing near the construction, but not so close that the noise would overwhelm his speaking.
"Thanks, Tiffany!" he said gravely. "According to eyewitness reports, yesterday's ghost attack was perpetrated by none other than Inviso-Bill, who apparently had a territorial dispute with the ghost known as Skulker." As Skulker and Danny's pictures popped up on screen, Danny sighed loudly. Why couldn't they get his name right? He'd have to have a private conversation with Lance if this kept up.
Lance went on for another few minutes, even interviewing Mr. Lancer, who bemoaned the necessary purchase of "yet another blackboard".
The screen cut back to Tiffany before she announced a commercial break.
"So, Daniel," said Mr. Manson, no longer occupied by the news, "What do your parents think about all these ghost attacks at school?"
Danny knew this was dangerous ground. Sam had relayed to him and Tucker exactly what her parents thought of the Fentons' antics.
"They're just relieved that no one was hurt," he said, trying for neutral territory.
Without turning from watching the last of the bacon cook, Mrs. Manson said, "Isn't their ghost portal the whole reason that all these ghosts are here in the first place?"
All three kids winced. While the Mansons never stooped so low as to say "it's your fault" in polite conversation, they certainly had a way of sticking the knife in and twisting when they really wanted to. Danny laughed nervously and decided not to respond. Besides, Mrs. Manson had made her point.
On the TV, the screen suddenly went black.
"What the hey?" said Mr. Manson, reaching for the remote as Danny tensed. But Danny's ghost sense remained absent. A voice started speaking on the TV and Mr. Manson and Danny both relaxed back. "Oh, the commercial's just black. How... unique," said Mr. Manson.
"Ever wanted to see the place where your worst nightmares come to life?" said the creepy voice from the TV. "Where clowns never smile and darkness reigns?" Sam perked up, interested. From the black background, a skull-like face appeared, leering at the camera. It resolved into a man with glaring red eyes and a black trenchcoat. His hands were crossed over his chest, and in one of them he held what looked like a real, metal scepter with a glowing, swirling red stone set on top. "I am Freakshow, ringmaster of Circus Gothica, the place where all these things and more wait in store for only the most daring of viewers!"
The man backed up to show a huge black tent with a skull over the entrance. Spreading his arms, the man signaled a troupe of performers to come prowling and flipping out of the tent. They all looked... strange. Each one was painted green and had red eyes. One woman was covered with tattoos with spikes on her head. One man, a dwarf, was tossed into the air by another man who was much bigger than any normal human being.
"Creatures of the night," shouted the man, "unleash your dark side at Circus Gothica!"
"Unleash my dark side!" Danny jumped out of his chair, cheering loudly. The commercial ended and the news came back on. Nobody was paying attention to Tiffany now, however. Everyone was looking at Danny.
"Uh, Danny?" asked Tucker, "You okay there?"
Danny blinked, realizing that he was not in his seat anymore and everyone was staring at him. "Me?" he fumbled for a coherent thought process for a moment, hastily taking his seat again.
"Young man," said Mrs. Manson, "I hope you don't support such evil things as that, that circus." She breathed venom with the last word and Danny could suddenly see where Sam got it from.
"Me?" Danny said again, looking to his friends for some sort of guidance. All he got back was a bewildered look from Tucker and a hard stare from Sam that said tread carefully in more ways than one. "Uh, no," he said, looking back at Mrs. Manson, trying to find a way to get out of this mess without offending either Sam or her mother. "I would never -" Sam cleared her throat. "I mean, I wasn't planning to go to anything like that, it was just a spur of the moment thing with the guy's energy, you know?"
Mrs. Manson gave him a stare that was extremely similar to the one Sam was giving him, informing him that he'd just barely managed not to step on any toes in this conversation. He felt like a politician. Quickly, he took his seat again, diving back into his breakfast as if it were water and he a man who'd been in the desert for a month without a drop of the stuff.
Thankfully, it was soon time for school and the three teens could leave the overwhelmingly tense atmosphere of the Mansons' kitchen behind.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the door, Sam whirled on him. "What was that?" she asked, incensed. "You know I've been looking forward to that circus for months now! Now my parents will never let me go!"
Danny was just as confused as she was. "I don't know what that was, okay? One second I was sitting in my chair, eating my bacon, and the next I was standing in the middle of your kitchen getting ready to 'unleash my dark side'." He did exaggerated finger quotes before he realized that was the wrong move.
Sam's face grew pale with fury, obviously thinking Danny was mocking her. "Fine," she said, speeding up so that the distance between her and Danny and Tucker grew, "Tucker and I will go to the circus opening without you."
That statement hit Danny in the gut like a sucker punch. "But isn't it happening during school?" he tried.
"Like that's ever stopped me before," she snapped over her shoulder.
The first part of the school day was absolutely miserable. Sam avoided him as best she could, even going so far as to change to a different desk at the front of their classes so that she wouldn't have to sit next to Danny. Tucker tried to stick with Danny, but Sam kept shooting the two of them dirty looks. Danny knew that something needed to be done and that something was the one thing he was loath to do as a younger sibling: apologize.
Over lunch, he made a very tentative overture by purposefully sitting across from her at their normal table. She took one look at him and seemed to sense that he had a purpose, so she stayed seated, although her hands remained clenched around the edges of her lunch tray.
"I'm sorry, Sam," he said, getting the difficult words out of the way.
"For what?" she asked, arching one eyebrow. She wasn't going to let him off easy.
"I don't know what came over me this morning, but I'm sorry I almost spoiled your chance to go to the circus." He gulped and cleared his throat. "I would really like to go with you." Tucker's jaw dropped and Danny quickly added, "And Tucker! You and Tucker! I would love to go with you both."
Danny was so focused on glaring at Tucker, inwardly begging him to shut his mouth, that he didn't notice Sam's face fall just a little. She covered up the emotion before he turned back to her.
"Thanks, Danny," she said. "The circus gets here this afternoon, so I was planning on going after Mr. Lancer's class to get the tickets."
"Sounds good!" Danny replied, still shooting Tucker the occasional glare, "Can't wait!"
Mr. Lancer, however, had other plans.
At the very beginning of class, he unfurled a flier in front of them. Even though Danny couldn't read the small words from his seat, he could tell it was for the Circus Gothica from the red and black color scheme. Freakshow's leering face, along with his swirly scepter, were pictured on the front. Danny stared at the picture. The swirls inside the stone on the scepter almost seemed to be moving... It was so mesmerizing...
"It has come to my attention," Mr. Lancer said, stony eyes surveying the class, "That some of you are thinking of playing hooky for the rest of the afternoon to go to the opening of this..." he flipped the flier around to reread the words, "this Circus Gothica." He slapped the flier down onto his desk like it was evidence in a courtroom. "Please know that this will not be tolerated. Any students found sneaking out will be in for five hours of detention for the next three weeks with me." He smiled evilly, as only a teacher can. "Now! Back to our discussion on Tolstoy's Crime and Punishment. You all should have read chapter 5 last night."
Danny shrank down in his seat. He definitely had not had time to do any sort of homework last night. Halfway through class, Mr. Lancer's gaze turned on him and he was forced to admit this. Mr. Lancer sighed, tearing holes in Danny's heart. He really wanted to be a good student. He really really did. But with getting attacked by Skulker and captured by the Winchesters, he just couldn't have spared the time.
He pushed down a tiny seed of bitterness telling him that Mr. Lancer should be grateful he had taken care of Skulker and that he spent his nights sleeplessly patrolling to keep Amity Park safe. It was because of Danny Phantom that the citizens of this city were able to sleep relatively undisturbed. Sighing and pushing that thought aside, Danny took out his pencil and started writing notes. He was quickly lost, however, not having any context for the discussion that Mr. Lancer was carrying at the front of the classroom, so he started doodling on his paper, his mind drifting into daydreams about Valerie and kicking butt and Valerie kicking butt. The bell rang. Danny looked up, surprised. Class was over. He'd been lost in his own mind for almost an hour.
"Dude, what were you thinking about during class?" asked Tucker when the three of them got out into the hall. "You were almost drooling onto your desk."
"Oh, really?" Danny asked, his voice cracking to an octave higher than usual as images of Valerie passed through his mind again.
"I bet it was Valerie," Sam said with distaste. "Anyway, we need to leave now if we're going to make it to the opening of Circus Gothica."
Tucker looked at Sam incredulously. "Didn't you hear Mr. Lancer? We'll get weeks of detention if we're caught."
"Yeah," Sam said as she reached her locker and started keying in the combination, "And?"
Tucker looked at her and then at Danny. Neither of them saw the lightbulb go off in his head.
"And," he said, drawing out the "a", "I'm not gonna go."
"What?!" Sam whipped around, blushing furiously.
"What?" said Danny at the same time, completely oblivious to the obvious subtext of the conversation. "I thought we were all going to go together."
"Yeah, Tucker!" Sam said. "All three of us."
Tucker hid a smirk. "No," he said lightly, "After Mr. Lancer's declaration of detention, I think I'm gonna choose life. Y'all have fun, though!" And, with an extra skip in his step, he walked away to grab his books from his locker before the next class.
Danny turned back to Sam. "Guess it's just us!"
Sam quickly stuck her head into the locker. "Yeah. Just us." Was it Danny's imagination, or had her voice also jumped up an octave? Before he could linger too long on the question, she pulled her head out of the locker and slammed it shut with finality. "Anyway, we should get going." And she marched away.
The Winchesters had barely gotten any sleep the night before. They had been awake until the ungodly hours of the morning scouring the warehouse district for Danny Phantom. He'd been wounded. Surely he couldn't have gotten far.
They had thought they'd struck gold when they found a trail of green ectoplasm droplets leading away from the warehouse, but the trail had gone cold in an indentation in an alleyway, where, disturbingly, the green was mixed with a smidgen of red. Blood. Had Phantom hurt someone on his mad dash for escape? Or was he actually Danny Fenton? The second option was looking more and more likely.
The only person they had told about being fake agents had been Danny. Their ID's and Dean's still-missing wallet had been stolen from a closed room with a single exit that they had been facing. Directly after they had been ejected by the principal, that big ghost, Skulker, had shown up and chased Danny Phantom like a rabbit from the front hall of the school, ultimately allowing the Winchesters to capture him. And now there was the suspiciously human-looking blood on the floor of the dead end alley. The only variable they didn't know was Danny's location from the fight with Skulker until 9:45 pm, when Phantom had escaped from the warehouse. And so, after getting in a few hours of much needed rest, the Winchesters drove to the Fenton's house to see if Danny had an alibi. They knew he was at school at this hour, but his parents would be less likely to lie about his location the night before.
As they pulled up to the curb outside of the Fentons' house, Sam asked quietly, "What do we do if Phantom really is Danny?"
Dean didn't miss a beat as he shut off the car's engine. "We determine whether or not he's a threat." Sam didn't need to ask what they would do if they found that Danny was a threat. They had killed kids before.
Dean's expression was more solemn than usual when he raised his fist to knock on the door. Sam's question had brought up dark thoughts that hadn't crossed his mind in a while. He knew instinctively that he would kill Danny if he needed to. If Danny turned out to be dangerous. It was his job as a hunter, the legacy his father had left to him. He glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye, his father's last words again replaying through his head. He would kill anything and anyone who turned out to be a threat.
Anyone, he thought, raising his hand to knock on the door again. Before his knuckles made contact with the wood, however, Jack whipped it open.
"Winchesters! Why the long faces? Come on in! Maddie made fudge!"
Sam and Dean started, trying and failing to clear their expressions. It wasn't often they let their hearts slip to the surface of their sleeves. How would they ever be able to face Jack again if they were forced to kill his son?
"Fudge sounds great, Dr. Fenton," Sam said, in a small voice.
"Dr. Fenton!" Jack guffawed, ushering them into the house. "That's a title for my wife and my father. You can just call me Jack!"
"Hello boys!" Maddie's bright voice came from the kitchen, raking like claws over Sam and Dean's souls. "Can I get you some fudge?"
Jack answered for them. "They need the fudge, Maddie-kins! We have some long faces here today!"
"Alright! Be right out!"
Sam and Dean sank onto the purple couch in the Fentons' living room, dreading the upcoming conversation. The dread only grew worse when Maddie filled their hands with fudge and lemonade, then settled herself across from them with her husband.
"So, what's the problem, boys?" asked Maddie, clasping her hands in front of her as only a mother could. Dean felt a zing of grief, but quickly pushed it down.
"Um," Sam started, a little uncertainly. He trailed off, looking at Dean for confirmation that they really wanted to do this. Do we really suspect their son of moonlighting as a dead vigilante? Sam thought, looking back at the Fentons' smiling, concerned faces. It was ridiculous even to think. And yet... Sam knew from cold hard experience that the most innocent of faces could hide fangs.
Dean took a deep breath. "Do you know where Danny was last night?"
Maddie gave her husband a look of confusion that he returned. "Sam's house. For a sleepover with Sam and Tucker. Tucker called us just before curfew saying that they were having a movie night. Zombie Mall Cop 3 if I'm not mistaken."
"When is Danny's curfew?" Dean asked.
"Ten o'clock on the dot," Jack responded, "He's been good about his curfew the past few weeks, but it was a real struggle at the beginning of the ghost infestation."
"Oh really." Dean traded his own look with Sam. Inwardly, his heart was sinking. That was one more hole in Danny's alibi: Phantom had escaped just before ten.
Maddie looked back and forth between the two brothers. "Why?" she finally said, "Did you see Danny somewhere else? Somewhere dangerous?"
Maybe. Dean thought privately. Out loud he said, "No, no. We just saw him on the way home and he told us he might be getting home late. Guess he decided to stay over with his friends after all."
"Ah, yes," Jack said, his eyebrows furrowing, "He's been doing that quite a lot lately. We've tried to be considerate with all this ghost madness going on, but I do think he needs to stay home a bit more. We miss seeing him in the mornings. And after school. He's always off with his friends studying or doing whatever else teenagers do these days. We didn't see him all of yesterday, you know. He went to school really early with Jazz and didn't come home after."
Dean wanted to shove a pillow in Jack's mouth to get him to shut up. He didn't know the hole he was digging for his son. Dean's mind spun with the possibilities. Could Danny be staying over at his friends' houses more to cover up his late-night vigilantism? And Jack had said Danny had started getting distant right after the ghost infestation began. Could it be because he was fighting ghosts? Or was he just a busy teen who wanted to hang out with his friends during these hard times? They could ask his friends... but if Sam and Tucker were in on it as Wes had suggested, they would just lie to his and Sam's faces to protect Danny.
What they really needed to do was talk to Danny himself. Not Phantom. Not Sam and Tucker. And certainly, as Jack rambled on about what he wished he and his son could do together, not Danny's parents. No, they needed to confront the kid and wave his shredded alibi in front of him to see how he reacted. And if that didn't do the trick, well, they had one piece of evidence they hadn't used yet: Dean's missing wallet.
Abruptly, Dean stood. "I just remembered we have something we needed to do." He grabbed Sam, hauling him to his feet. "Thanks for the fudge and lemonade."
"Wha-?" Dean didn't let his brother finish, simply dragging him towards the door, depositing his undeserved fudge and lemonade on the way. Ignoring the protests of the Fentons', he shoved Sam out the door and into the Impala, quite the feat, considering Sam had a full three inches on him. Rounding the car, he nearly dove inside before starting it and driving off.
"What was that for?" Sam asked, straightening his rumpled jacket.
"That was getting us nowhere. We need to talk to Danny. Just Danny. Not his friends, not his family, not anyone at his damn high school. Danny."
"He's just going to lie to us."
"I know," Dean trailed off as he thought, absently putting himself into autopilot to head to the school. "If we get him alone and confront him like we know for sure that he's Phantom, then he might come out and be honest. Plus, someone stole my wallet. The only one who would have wanted us out of that school to keep us from learning about all his secrets is Phantom. If we find the wallet, we find Phantom or one of his allies."
When Sam and Dean showed up at Casper High with a forged note from Danny's parents, however, they found that Danny, along with a significant number of other students, had skipped class soon after lunch and hadn't been seen since. The Winchesters were careful to steer clear of the principal for fear that she would throw them out if she saw them, but she, along with a lot of the teachers, seemed to have also left.
"Where is everyone?" Dean asked the charmed secretary in the front office.
The poor woman blushed and withdrew a stack of fliers from a desk drawer. She laid them on the counter in front of the brothers. "We've been confiscating these all day. It's some sort of weird circus that's coming into town today and having its opening show down by the tracks in about half an hour. Any students that go are going to have detention. A lot of it."
Dean picked up the flier and examined it, noting the gothic font and edgy color scheme. "I'll bet."
Sam picked up a flier too. "Hey," he said, "I think I recognize this! I saw another flier on the bulletin board at the motel!"
"Oh, are you staying at the Nevermore?" asked the secretary, wrinkling her nose. "The couple that runs it is ok, but the rooms are all black and nasty, I've heard."
"Well, the beds are comfortable and that's all that matters," Dean said, sending a lascivious wink at the woman, who squeaked.
Sam saw where the conversation was heading. "Well, thank you for your time, but we'd better get going." He grabbed Dean's arm and towed him out the door.
"What?" Dean drawled, "Things were just starting to get fun! Did you see how much she was blushing?"
"I'm sure the next town over could see how much she was blushing, Dean." Sam ruffled the flier in his brother's face. "We should go here and see if we can find Danny."
"I'll go back and ask the secretary where the tracks are," Dean volunteered, immediately spinning on his heel and walking back down the hall.
Sam sighed and followed him, resolving that he would wait outside the office this time.