A/N: Howdy! Thanks for being so patient! Finals were brutal as was a serious bout of writers block, but Amity Park is back, baby! Enjoy!

THEN: Sam, Danny, and Tucker spend the night at Sam's to keep Danny's parents from finding out about their son's nighttime spat with the Winchesters. The Winchesters come to find out that Danny has spent many nights at his friends houses when they go to the Fentons' house to see if Danny has an alibi for the day before. Despite how crazy Wes seemed, the Winchesters are slowly connecting the dots of Danny's secret. All they need now is to talk to Danny for some final confirmation, but when they arrive at Casper High, they find that Danny, along with half of the student body and some of the faculty, have quitted school to go watch the opening show of Circus Gothica down by the tracks.

NOW:

Sam grabbed Danny's hand to tug him through the crowd. They both blushed, but didn't know that the other had too. Pushing and shoving, they made their way through the tight mass of people to get to the front. The black train of Circus Gothica had pulled into position. Amity Park didn't have a train station with a platform, but it did have a huge viaduct where all the tracks converged and clustered together to cut through the edge of the city. Across the tracks, Danny could see the warehouse district where he had been taken by the Winchesters the night before. He looked away quickly, the healing wound in his side twinging at the memory.

"Look!" said Sam, pointing excitedly at the train as a huge door slid open on one of the box cars. From the car, the man from the commercial - Freakshow - emerged, his black trench coat waving in the breeze. Perched on his skull-like head was a tiny black bowler hat that would have looked out of place on anyone else. He was tall, looking down on the crowd from over a hooked nose, glaring with red eyes at the assembled high schoolers and community goths. A tiny smile seemed to always be on his lips as he looked around, making eye contact with as many people in the audience as he could as the silence stretched out.

When he met Danny's eyes there in the middle of the front row of people, he stopped. Then, he moved his hands. Clutched in black gloves was the metal scepter with its swirling red stone that Danny and Sam had seen on TV that morning. Danny was instantly mesmerized. It was so... peaceful. Like he could let go of all thought and drift into the swirling red mist within the stone.

Come to me, little ghost, whispered a tiny voice in his mind. Danny recoiled instantly, but something strange - and strong - grabbed a hold of his willpower, yanking him towards the voice. Come to me... and be at peace.

Danny thought peace sounded good. But something was wrong. Very wrong. The thing in his mind seemed to lose its grip and he slipped back into himself just in time to feel Sam tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Look!" she said for the second time, pointing to the depths of the box car. Apparently Freakshow had been giving a speech of some sort and was now gesturing into the blackness of the car, directing his audience's gaze like a good ringmaster.

"Behold!" he was saying, "My horrors!"

Something shot out of the box car, impaling a telephone pole fifty yards away. The crowd gasped, jerking back from the rope that was now strung over their heads. From within the car, another something - this one human shaped... barely - crawled. It was a woman, or at least a spider in the body of a woman. She climbed backwards, hand over hand, down the rope, looking for all the world like a creative toddler had seen a spider once and then gone to play with its Barbie dolls and some glue. And some green paint too. The woman's skin was a pale, sickly green, and her eyes were red. The same color as the swirling ball.

Danny's attention was drawn inexorably back to the scepter, still in Freakshow's hand. He found that it was much closer now, Freakshow's dramatic gesture having put it almost under Danny's nose.

Again the tiny voice spoke to him, like honey dripping through his mind. Come to me, little ghost. Be at peace. You need not make any more hard decisions. Why not rest a while?

Danny tried to recoil, but it was harder this time. He felt like he was trying to think through a fog made of molasses. But... he thought, dazed. I need to think. I need to make the hard decisions. That's what it means to be a hero.

The tiny voice laughed like the tinkling of bells. A hero? No. You are a ghost! Come to me, my child, and know who you truly are.

Danny's ego bucked. Not a hero? Then what was he doing with his nights? Learning to play the banjo?

"Ugh," he heard Sam's voice, as if from afar. Wasn't she right next to him? "Looks like the killjoys showed up."

Danny shook his head to clear it and turned to look where she was pointing. Across the sea of goths and high schoolers was a gaggle of concerned parents and teachers carrying signs. If he squinted, he could just make out what some of them said.

PROTECT OUR CHILDREN!

LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE!

TOO MUCH BLACK!

Danny snorted with laughter at that last one. "Oh my gosh," he said, squinting even more, "Is that your mom holding the 'Too Much Black!' sign?"

Sam stood on her tiptoes to see, but then sank back down in abject embarrassment. "Oh my gosh, it is."

From the group of parents, a voice on a megaphone rang out. "What kind of evil things are you doing here?" Danny and Sam both recognized the voice as Sam's mother.

"Evil things?" Freakshow chuckled, his voice carrying unassisted across the crowd. Everyone hushed to listen to his words. "No no. Dark things, yes. Disturbing things? Absolutely. But evil? I'm afraid not." His grin was wide and simpering. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have nightmares." He gestured and a woman walked out of the tent in a red cloak. She threw it off to reveal that her entire body was covered with the tattoos of small fiends and animals. Spikes stuck up from her pale green head in a mohawk. "We have things here," continued Freakshow, narrating the transfixing spectacle, "That would boggle even the soundest of minds."

The woman flung her arms out and the tattoos across her body began to shift, streaming over her skin until they flew off in a flurry, cackling and cawing and leaving her skin a blank, green canvas. But looking back towards the box car had brought the red scepter back into Danny's vision again, and he was immediately lost in its swirling interior again. He could tell that this was where the tiny voice was coming from. Dull shouts started back up from the direction of the protestors, but Danny didn't pay it any mind. The tiny voice was talking to him again and he found he wanted to listen.

Come to me, said the voice, Be mine. Now that Danny was giving it a second thought, doing what the voice said was sounding like a great idea. Why would he want to be his own person? That sounded exhausting.

A hand on his shoulder ripped him back into the present.

"Danny, is everything okay?" asked Sam. "Your ghost sense just went off."

Danny felt the lingering cold sensation in his throat. "Oh, I didn't notice," he said. The scene around him had changed slightly since he'd last looked. The mob of parents and teachers were slowly infiltrating the crowd, snatching away any underaged children they recognized. Mr. and Mrs. Manson were at the forefront, occasionally yelling into their megaphone as they scanned the crowd. Nevertheless, there were no ghosts around that he could see.

"We need to get out of here," Sam muttered, shrinking down and looking for a way out. She reached back almost unconsciously and grabbed his hand to make sure they didn't get separated, but at the contact, Danny felt his face flush with heat and a storm of butterflies whirl in his stomach. The squeak he let out was thankfully lost in the noise of the crowd.

Behind them, Freakshow brandished his scepter and slammed it onto the platform, quieting the protestors. Sam and Danny continued to try and shove their way through the throng, but with everyone so still, they were forced to slow to prevent drawing undue attention to themselves. Having stopped moving, Danny's gaze drifted back to the scepter. The swirling from the red globe on top seemed to fill his mind, and he sank into the sensation, feeling himself grow blessedly numb to the stressors of the world around him.

That's right, said the tiny voice, Just rest in me. I'll take care of everything.

Danny thought that sounded alright. Why should he concern himself with morals if the red swirling orb would do it for him? He tuned back into the situation around him right as Freakshow began to speak again, but this time, he felt calm and confident. Whatever happened, he was sure that the swirling redness of the scepter would take care of it all for him.

"Look at these people," said the ringmaster, sweeping his scepter towards the protestors, "Here because they do not understand you, because they are revolted by you, because they fear you! Show them your true colors! And by that, I mean pure black!"

Danny felt the command ripple through him and immediately acted. "Hey guys!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Sam jumped next to him and hissed his name.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking warily at the circle of open space that had just formed around them both.

Danny ignored her. This was absolutely what he should do, the red sphere had told him so. "We are Danny Fenton and Sam Manson and we skipped school today to come to Circus Gothica! And we're proud of it!"

Sam's mouth fell open, but she didn't have enough time to berate him before a goth separated himself from the crowd and sprayed Danny's white shirt black with some fabric paint, getting some on his arms and neck on accident. Danny whooped with the crowd, but they could both hear the horrified voices of Sam's parents over the din.

"Sam?!"

Sam's face was a mask of embarrassment and anger, and she refused to look at Danny as her parents made it to the both of them in the crowd and dragged them away with promises of severe punishments in both of their futures. But Danny felt serene, proud even. He'd done what he'd needed to do and it had absolutely been the right thing.

Twenty minutes later in the principal's office, sandwiched between Sam and his father, Danny reevaluated his actions. Sam hadn't talked to him the whole way back to school in her parents' car, sitting with her arms crossed and looking resolutely out the window. Slowly, he had come to the realization that he had done possibly the worst thing he could have done in that situation, barring murder or arson. What had he been thinking? That was exactly what Sam wanted to know too as she twisted to face him, whispering so her parents wouldn't hear.

"What on earth were you thinking, Danny?"

"I don't know! I'm sorry Sam, I have no idea what came over me!" He knew it sounded lame, but the sincere frustration and guilt on his face seemed to find a crack in Sam's tough exterior.

In front of them, Principal Ishiyama steepled her fingers to keep them from shaking. The Manson parents always made her nervous. They were big time benefactors of the school. Slapping on a smile, she said, "Some may call this rebellion a cry for attention, but here at Casper High, I call that a cry for detention. Clever, isn't it?" She let the words hang in the air, waiting for someone to agree with her, but not even the barest of nods came from her audience.

Clearing her throat to break the awkward silence, she continued, "As Mr. Lancer should have told you earlier today, skipping school to attend a perverted circus will not be tolerated by Casper High School and I'm afraid that means detention with Mr. Lancer for the next three weeks after school."

There was instant outrage from both the Fenton and Manson parents.

"Our Samantha wouldn't have been caught up in all this if your son hadn't dragged her to that thing!" shouted Mrs. Manson.

"Your son is a delinquent!" joined her husband.

"Danny didn't do anything wrong!" Jack spoke up, not really surprising anyone by following that up with, "He was scouting out that dark circus for ghosts! That's just the place they would hang out!"

Maddie took a more reasonable approach, choosing to squelch her anger at the Mansons, but not willing to let them smear Danny further. "Pamela, whoever started what, both of them ended up at Circus Gothica without the consent of any of us. As such, I think this punishment is justified. After all, they were both warned."

Principal Ishiyama almost melted from the support from Maddie. She wasn't sure she could've confronted the Mansons by herself.

The Mansons' protests dwindled into a quiet undercurrent of grumbling, but there was something hard in Pamela's face that Danny didn't like. Both he and Sam had shrunk into their chairs at the outburst of anger and yelling. When her parents had started slandering him, Sam had placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Mrs. Manson noticed it now, and a hard look stole into her eyes that neither of the teens liked.

"Whoever started it, it is clear that being close to Danny has only gotten Samantha in trouble time and time again. If he's not a bad influence, how else do you explain it?" Mrs. Manson didn't give Danny's parents a chance to respond before she continued. "I think it best that they spend some time apart. No more sleepovers, no more study groups, only school and detention. Maybe they'll come out better for it. Samantha is going to be grounded anyway."

Both Sam and Danny's faces blanched with fear at the suggestion. If they didn't have the excuse of a study group or a sleepover, how would they get out at night to go ghost hunting? They glanced at each other, faces draining of color. But then Sam gave a slight nod, a determined cast overtaking her features. Danny blinked, not understanding at first, but then returned the nod. They would figure out a way around it. They had to. The safety of Amity Park depended on it.

"Well," said Principle Ishiyama, raising her hands to try to diffuse the tension, "I think we should all go home and take a moment to cool off before their first detention tomorrow, but I'd say today has been a valuable lesson for the both of you. Hopefully you won't let your detention time go to waste." She looked sternly at the two teens who both returned baleful glares.

Their parents steered them by their shoulders out of the principal's office and out of school to where their respective family cars were waiting in the parking lot. Mr. and Mrs. Manson turned their noses up at the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle that took up three parking spaces on its own, courtesy of Jack's driving. They all but shoved Sam into the back seat of a sensible black sedan and drove off. Danny watched until they were gone, seeing Sam take a last look back as they pulled out of the parking lot. Her expression, which had been solidly defiant all through their meeting with the principal, was shot through with fear and sadness when she made one last moment of eye contact with Danny. He quickly smiled in what he hoped was reassurance, but the Mansons' car was already disappearing behind a bush and he couldn't tell if she had seen.

Meanwhile, his own parents had started going through the pre-flight checklist before getting into the Assault Vehicle, determining that all of their weapons were locked and loaded before they hit the dangerous, ghost-infested streets of Amity Park.

"Come on, Danny," his mom said as they finally assured themselves that they were ready to take on anything that might attack them on the road home.

As he got in the back of the modified RV, his mom turned and extended her hand. "Phone," she said.

"What?" Danny replied, more out of shock than anything else.

"Give me your phone," she repeated, "You are grounded, young man."

Danny didn't fight back; the only people he really used the device to communicate with were Sam and Tucker, and he could easily chat with on his computer, which his parents couldn't take away without depriving him of his homework. He found out when he got home that he had vastly underestimated his parents.

"What?!" he asked for the second time that day, as his mother fiddled with the computer. "But I need it for school!"

"And you will have it for school," Maddie said, not stopping, "But you will not have it for playing video games or chatting with friends outside of regulated times."

Danny choked back a sigh of relief. So there would be some times when he could communicate with Sam and Tucker.

"You will be allowed one half hour a day where you can use your computer to chat with your friends. You may not play video games during that time."

"But we mainly talk while playing video games!" Danny said.

"Then you'll have to figure out another thing to do while talking with them. You will be grounded for the duration of your detention at school, and then, assuming you do well, you will have your privileges restored."

Danny sulked for a moment, catching his mother's eye.

Her voice softened as she continued. "Please understand, Danny. We don't want to do this, but your grades have been dropping for a while now and now you're going to dangerous places with Sam, skipping school. We want what's best for you, Danny."

Jack put his huge arm around Danny's shoulders. "We really do, Danny-boy."

Danny pouted, but let his dad hug him. It felt nice to hear them say something other than Phantom-related vitriol, even if they were in the middle of punishing him.

Maddie continued tapping away on the computer. "Once you finish school, you'll head straight home and work on your homework until dinner, after which you may use your computer for that half hour with your friends. If you finish your homework before dinner, you can come spend time with us in the lab or play board games or read. After your time with your friends, you will be in bed by ten. Lights out."

Danny felt like he was in a dream. Ten o'clock bedtime? Was he in heaven? Of course, he would need to immediately violate that to go out on patrol. He would have to use his time on the computer to coordinate with Tucker and Sam where they would meet so he wouldn't have to literally do it on the fly. This was just a new challenge to overcome, and maybe now his grades would finally get the attention they so desperately needed. Maybe this was for the better?

Little ghooooost~ The tiny voice was barely audible, but Danny was very happy that it hadn't left him. He'd have to see if he could talk to it some more later.

Sam and Dean lingered across the street from the black train of the Circus Gothica long after the crowd had dispersed. The green-tinted performers were busy now setting up a giant, black tent with a skull on the front.

Neither brother knew what to make of Danny's sudden performance in the middle of the crowd of goths earlier. On the one hand, they had thought he was a generally smart kid, able to sneak out of school without alerting his teachers or parents. On the other hand, they grudgingly had to respect his guts. He was so going to be grounded later. Which would mean...

"Hey, Dean," Sam said, watching an unbelievably strong green man hoist a pole the size of a street light onto his bare shoulders.

"Yeah?"

"If Danny's parents ground him, he'll be really easy to ask questions of."

Dean took his eyes off the green lady that had let the tattooed animals stream off her body. "I do love interrogations." His grin was almost predatorial.