THEN:

Take me to the big show, take me anywhere but here.

"Where's Danny?"

Put me in the front row, make my problems disappear.

"You may know Danny, but that doesn't mean we trust you."

Drag these high wires, without a safety net.

"He's not responding to texts or calls. And he's been acting weird ever since the thing at the tracks. With the circus."

For the present admission, I wanna witness life or death...

Far removed from his old life, ensorcelled in a beautiful calm and blessed by this wonderful voice, he knelt before his master.

(Plain White T's. "Cirque Dans La Rue." Wonders of the Younger, Hollywood Records, 2010.)

NOW:

"He's not at home and he's not with you," Dean said, massaging the bridge of his nose, "So where the hell is he?"

Sam Manson looked at Tucker in that secret, silent language they seemed to share.

Dean was fed up with it. "Listen, you rebellious, emotionally congested assholes, Danny could be very much in danger here. We want to work with you to help him, but you've got to cooperate with us and work as a team, otherwise he's on his own." That sobered the little twerps up.

"Danny's not at home?" Tucker asked.

Dean shook his head. "We just came from there."

"What do you want to know?" asked Manson.

Dean took a deep breath, everyone in the group sensing him sinking into his role of oldest sibling. "Ok," he said, running over the events of the past few days in his mind, finding the gaps he and Sam hadn't been able to fill in. "Danny goes missing from our trap-"

"Which Danny are you talking about?" asked Tucker, laying the faux innocence on so thick that Dean could almost smell it.

Dean threw up his hands, turning away, not trusting himself to even look at the little bastards. By all that was good and holy and righteous in this world, he was never having kids. Through the pounding in his skull, he could hear murmurs of Sam trying to reason with the brats behind him. He took a few more steps down the sidewalk, breathing deeply and trying to think. In spite of him and his temper and Danny's friends' distrust, Danny was still missing. And he could be anywhere.

Dean slowed to a stop outside of a restaurant, one of those with an open patio. No one was outside right now, but the restaurant had a TV out there, shielded from the weather by what looked like a repurposed umbrella taped to the back. The TV was tuned to the local news station. Apparently Amity Park only had the one. And only like two reporters. Weird, but that was a small town for you. Dean thought it spoke to the level to which Sam and Tucker had managed to rile him that the ostentatious, nasally voice of Lance Thunder managed to calm him down.

"Thanks, Tiffany!" Thunder had just started his segment. Dean squinted. It looked like he was by a train yard. "I join you today from the entrance of Amity Park's latest scandal: Circus Gothica. For those of you that were hiding under your recliners yesterday, the circus has been attracting controversy literally since its ringmaster first stepped foot off their train." The scene cut to a shot of what looked like a flock of alabaster coat racks with black leather jackets on all jumping up and down. Dean realized with a start that it was a crowd of goths.

As Dean watched, the camera was lifted above the heads of the goths to expose the full tableau. Adults in relatively normal clothing stood with signs at the edges of the group, protesting the circus. Suddenly, a large space formed in the middle of the crowd and the camera had a clear shot of Danny Fenton.

Danny raised his arms above his head. "We are Danny Fenton and Sam Manson and we skipped school today to come to Circus Gothica! And we're proud of it!"

Dean blinked, staring at Danny. He didn't know the kid well, but that didn't seem like his style. Maybe it was the tension of the situation, but Dean's gut felt off.

On screen, as someone stepped up to spray Danny's shirt black, Danny glanced towards the camera and Dean caught a flash of red. But then it was gone. Dean growled and whirled back towards the group, whipping the keys to the Impala out of his jacket.

Sam was talking with the kids still, but Dean whistled, jangling the keys as he headed for the car.

"Get in, losers. We're going to the library."

Crammed around a computer at the library, the Winchesters and Sam and Tucker watched Danny making a fool of himself over and over again. Dean had pulled the clip from the earlier news segment up and zoomed in as much as he could to focus on Danny's eyes, mere pixels in the grand scheme of the video.

"There!" Dean stabbed his finger at the screen. Sam grimaced, rewound it and played the video again, stopping where Dean had indicated. Sure enough, Danny's eyes appeared red.

"What?" Sam asked, sitting back and crossing his arms, "You dragged us out here for some red eye effect on a random news clip?"

"News cameras don't have red eye effect," murmured Tucker.

Dean nodded like he'd known that. "Right, and guess who else had red eyes?"

No one answered.

"When we went to the crime scene at the jewelry store this morning, one of the witnesses said that Phantom had red eyes too."

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other.

Dean sighed, trying to tamp down his frustration. "Does Danny - Phantom. Has Phantom ever had red eyes? Is that like a power of his? Going all Superman with the lasers or something?"

"No," said Sam Manson, hesitatingly, "He's never done that before."

Dean was about to continue his line of reasoning when, to his surprise, Manson continued.

"He started acting weird the morning the circus came into town," she blurted, "Saying stuff like that -" she gestured to the video "- to my mom and dad over breakfast after a commercial of the Circus came on."

Sam - Winchester this time - gently elbowed his way to the keyboard of the library's computer and started typing away as Manson continued behind him.

"He's never been that outgoing in big crowds of people when he's -" she paused, looking at Tucker as if for confirmation. "- when he's Fenton," she looked back at Dean, making eye contact with him so he could feel the significance of the trust she was putting in him and his brother with just those words. "He knew my parents would punish me if they found out we were at the Circus' opening, but I thought he was just being a... I don't know what I thought. I was just angry. But, looking back on it, he was distracted the whole time we were there. He kept looking up at the ringmaster, that Freakshow guy."

"Aha." Sam pushed himself back from the computer, letting them see past him to the screen. He pointed to a black Circus Gothica flier he had pulled up. "I remembered seeing this when we came to Amity Park a few months ago. It was at the motel we were staying at. So, I looked up the towns the Circus went to before coming here and, get this..." he switched to another tab, then another one, then another one, and then three more. The articles on each tab had one thing in common: a headline about a jewelry store being robbed.

"Each store was robbed at night. No alarms were triggered, but all the cases and vaults were cleared out completely. As if someone had just reached through the glass and taken the pieces."

"Like a ghost," Manson breathed.

Dean leaned forward. "The Fentons and the witnesses mentioned three other ghosts that were with Phantom in the store."

"Danny didn't steal any jewelry," said Tucker defensively.

"I didn't say that," said Dean, "But what about the other three ghosts?"

They sat for a moment, connecting all the dots.

"So..." said Tucker, breaking the silence and looking at Dean. The Sams also looked at Dean, waiting for what he would say next. Dean felt the responsibility of those gazes settle heavily on his soul. He glanced at the computer, where Danny's frozen, pixelated image peeked out from behind the articles and the weight increased.

"So, sounds like we need to pay a visit to this Circus."

Sam Manson pumped her fist in the air, letting out a silent cheer.

"Sam," Tucker said, betrayed, "They are robbing jewelry stores with ghosts."

"Yeah, but they're still cool."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "No," he said finally, shaking his head, "Just no."

Manson opened her mouth to argue, but Dean raised a hand - a gesture he knew was infuriating - and shook his head. "Anyway, it's a tent, so point of entry can be the walls."

"Actually," Manson said, digging around in her backpack. She drew out two crumpled bits of black paper. "I have tickets. I got them before my mom grounded me for going to the opening ceremony."

"One for you, obviously, but who was the other one for?" asked Sam.

To Dean's delight, the goth blushed and looked away, stammering.

Tucker leaned in, a smug smile on his face, ready to give it all away, but Manson tagged him in the shin with her boot and he shut up. It was ok though, Dean thought, looking at Sam who raised his eyebrows slyly. They all knew exactly who the other ticket had been for.

"A friend," she said as Tucker swore and hugged his shin.

"Uh huh," said Sam.

"Anyway," Manson said, forcefully pulling the conversation back on track, "To pacify the parents that were protesting at the opening ceremony, Freakshow is holding a special show just for the concerned parents. Tonight. You two -" she pointed at Sam and Dean "- can infiltrate the audience while Tucker and I sneak around backstage and try to find Danny."

"A conveniently timed bathroom break and we can help," Dean said, nodding along.

"Exactly."

"Now all we need is a rendezvous point," Sam said.

"Easy," said Tucker, pulling up a picture on his PDA, "We can meet at the train. It's big, distinctive, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon." It was indeed distinctive: huge, black, and covered in spikes that were probably not altogether legal.

It was the beginning to a pretty solid plan, all things considered. But then again, the walls of Jericho were pretty solid too.

Sam held out hope through the rest of the afternoon that Danny would turn up. He would float through the wall, chuck his backpack on the floor and tell her about the crazy day he'd had chasing ghosts. His whining about getting punched in the face would make her forget about the hurried conference she and Tucker had had in the library with the Winchesters. They would talk about school assignments and whether or not her parents would get arrested at the circus and she wouldn't have to worry about him. At least for the evening.

But, as the sun set over Amity Park, her hope faded with the daylight. As it got darker, red strings of lights lit up the train yard where Circus Gothica was just waking up. Circus music in a minor key, slightly out of tune, drifted across the street to where she and Tucker were hiding, waiting for the Winchesters' signal.

Minutes after the music started, they heard the telltale rumble of the Winchesters' car coming down a side street. Out of sight, the car must have parked, because the rumbling stopped and they heard car doors close. Sam and Dean walked out of the sidestreet, hands in pockets, radiating nerves. It was all an act, Sam knew, and they were pulling it off very well. They had agreed that the brothers would pose as concerned dads that had heard about the protest and wanted to come see the circus before they let their teen daughters come the next day. Sam had been skeptical about whether or not their story would be believable, but watching them wring their hands and scrunch their eyebrows with worry renewed her faith.

Tucker moved beside her and she whipped out her arm, stilling him.

"Wait," she hissed.

The Winchesters made it to the ticket booth, digging through their pockets and presenting Sam's tickets. A part of her cringed. Those tickets had meant the world to her. And now two dorks in leather jackets were squandering them just to get up and leave in the middle of the show. It hurt a little more than she had thought it would.

She and Tucker watched carefully as the Winchesters crowded close to the ticket booth, their anxious voices getting louder and louder as they escalated to the signal.

"I'm just so worried about my little girl!" shouted Dean. Bingo.

With the brothers crowded around the booth, blocking the line of sight of the ticketmaster, Sam and Tucker were able to sneak past and blend into the shadows behind the first couple of stands. Dead ahead lay their goal: the big top. They snuck forward as the Winchesters roamed aimlessly around the stands, playing various games while waiting for the show to start.

Eventually, they made it to the high canvas walls of the gigantic tent. Stakes the size of their arms with cables thicker than their fingers anchored the structure. Careful not to trip on either of these things, they made a circuit of the tent, coming to a side entrance. If worse came to worst, Dean had given them knives to cut their way out, but they didn't want to give away that they were here too early. Sam did take comfort from the weight of the knife down the side of her boot. It was a nice knife. If they all made it out of this ok, she was planning on asking Dean where he'd gotten it from.

They crept inside the big top, sticking to the shadows. Kneeling behind a large crate, they saw that the large backstage area went in a circle around the edge of the tent and was sectioned into individual areas for performers to get ready.

"Let's split up," whispered Sam.

Tucker blanched. "Are you crazy?!"

"We've got very little time until the show starts and this place is going to be crawling with people. We need to move fast and we can do that better if we split up!"

Tucker gulped, but nodded, and they separated. Sam went left, Tucker went right. It was eerily quiet in the big top, the creepy circus music confined to outdoor speakers on the other side of the tent. Sam tiptoed as quietly as she could, poking her nose into anything large enough to contain a teenage boy. Of course, she thought wryly, a soup thermos could contain this particular teenage boy. She found no suspicious metals, nothing glowed the green of ectoplasm, and she heard nothing aside from the muffled music. She hoped Tucker was having better luck.

Her hope decreased steadily as she continued. She pushed aside another curtain and stepped into a new space. She froze when she saw a figure hunched in the corner. Black jumpsuit. White boots. A white head of glowing hair.

"Danny!" she almost yelled. Then again, more quietly as she rushed towards him, "Danny!"

Danny turned groggily, blinking with half-lidded eyes. "Sam?" He managed before she threw her arms around his neck. When she'd had her fill, she pushed him back to arm's length, giving him a once over. He looked exhausted, but otherwise ok.

"You look like crap," she said, smiling, "Come on, let's go!"

Danny grinned. Then his eyes shifted past her and grew wide with fear.

"Well, well," said a nasally voice behind her, "What do we have here?"

She whipped around. Freakshow stood just inside the flap Sam herself had pushed through mere seconds before. He was all dressed for the show with a spiked black and red trench coat, his signature scepter in hand. He was smiling as he did on all the posters, TV ads, and billboards, but there was a note of something in his expression that put Sam on edge. She thought fast.

"Sorry," Sam said, grabbing Danny's wrist and pulling him to his feet, "My friend got lost. We'll get out of your way." She tried to drag Danny towards the flap, but Freakshow casually extended the scepter across the exit, blocking her way.

"So you know my latest... acquisition..." Freakshow said, his voice soft. "He is quite the ghost, don't you think? Unfortunately... that means you are a loose end. And loose ends need to be tied up." He snapped his fingers.

Suddenly Danny's wrist was no longer in her grasp. She looked back to see him standing with his head in his hands.

"Danny?"

He looked up, his eyes flashing green and red like Christmas lights. "S-Sam?" Then, he crashed to his knees with a yell.

"You will serve me, ghost!" said Freakshow, extending his scepter towards Danny. Abruptly, Danny stopped shuddering, becoming deathly still. He looked up.

Sam gasped and stepped back as she saw his glowing red eyes.

"Yes, master," he said. Then he lunged at Sam.

"I forgot how much of a chicken you are," Dean said, munching on some cotton candy.

Sam cringed away from yet another clown. "It's just like you and airplanes." It was moderately ok because Dean was with him, but still, the clowns were creepy.

"Yes," Dean acknowledged, "But planes are deadly machines. Man is not meant to fly."

"Man isn't meant to wear ruffly collars and big red noses either," Sam said, trying to hide behind his carton of popcorn. "And we've been around enough killer clowns to know they are just as dangerous."

"That was, like, a two time thing."

"Two times too many."

Dean bumped Sam in the shoulder to get his attention. "Looks like the big top is opening. Let's go."

They headed inside the tent, which was mercifully free of clowns. Dean hoped that Sam and Tucker had made it. They took their seats on the edge of an aisle so they could make a hasty exit if needed. The crowd of parents slowly filled in the rest of the spaces and the lights dimmed, signaling the start of the show.

A spotlight exploded into life overhead, illuminating a sharp circle in the closest ring. A man stood there, looking at his feet in a dramatic fashion. The brightness of the light cast his face in dark shadow. In his hands, he held a scepter with a swirling red sphere attached to the top.

Dean huffed. "Overkill."

Suddenly, the ringmaster - for that was who he must be - spread his arms. Magnanimous.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome," he paused for effect, "To Circus Gothica!"

The show proceeded, performers zipping through the rings on wheels of fire, backwards, forwards, upside down. Dean noticed several of them were green. Paint? Or ghostly pallor? He was about to grab Sam's arm to make their way out of the stands to the train when Sam elbowed him.

"Dean! Look!" he hissed.

Dean followed his gaze up towards the shrouded roof of the tent where a tightrope was strung between two of the large supports. Two shadowed figures were balanced on one of the platforms leading onto the rope. One of them was in a long, flowing robe holding something with a blade that glinted, sharp and deadly. The other figure was being forced backwards onto the rope in clunky combat boots. Sam Manson. There was no net below them.

"Damn it," he said, scrambling from the stands, hoping he was fast enough. The Manson girl's life depended on it.