Chapter 6

Danny wasn't home.

She left before him, so there was no way to know when he left. Admittedly, she had gotten home later than expected, but whenever he stays past curfew, he'll at least text her that he's going to be late. Most of the time. She got home at nine p.m. and she stayed up for two hours waiting for him to come home.

He didn't. She wanted nothing more than to call the police to report him missing, but that was an overreaction and even her panicked mind could figure that out. She would have to wait at least twenty-four hours before making that call. Calling him was useless, no answer. His phone might have died. That's what she kept thinking, but when midnight rolled around she bolted to her car and went looking.

She drove around town for three hours looking for him. Sam and Tucker were out of town, so he wouldn't be at their houses. Danny rarely went out, and if he did, there were few places he went to that she knew of. And all of those places were closed by this time.

Nasty Burger? Closed hours prior. The mall? Also closed. Arcade, closed. Park, empty. Danny, nowhere.

She would have stayed out too if she wasn't falling asleep at the wheel. She thought about calling their parents, but decided against it. They weren't even in town yet, she wasn't sure when they were going to get back, and it was entirely possible that she was blowing this all up bigger than it actually was.

She hoped he would have gotten home while she was searching; prayed to nothing in particular that her brother was safe and home.

It fell on deaf ears; her brother wasn't home, still, she had no idea where he was, her useless parents were gone again as well, and by the time she got back she only had enough energy to make it to her bed and pass out.

Jazz hoped he would be home when she woke up.

Waking up to an aching body was actually something that he was used to. The bullying in middle school had escalated to physical levels, complaints of it had fallen on deaf ears and he knows it will continue in high school. Probably even get worse. But waking up to this degree of pain is something he's only recently gotten acquainted with.

When he initially woke up in the forest, calling it dazed and confused was an understatement. He had a head splitting migraine, his ears were ringing, and the bright light of day burned his eyes like nothing else. He was thirsty, hungry, tired, and all the above. It hurt to breath, every inhale and exhale expanding and contracting on broken ribs. He was dizzy, his wounds from yesterday hurt just as much, but he wasn't bleeding anymore; a small victory that held little comfort.

It took an hour to figure out where he was, and when he transformed into his ghost half, he was pleasantly surprised to find the pain lessen. It was probably because he was dead in this form. Less alive, less pain. Though it still hurt.

Danny initially flew high up, but after yesterday's incident he paid more attention to what he was doing, and flew with a tad more caution. It wasn't that early unfortunately, so people were out and about and he didn't really have enough energy to stay invisible the whole way, not that he could anyway. He felt horribly drained, probably blood loss, or in his current form, ectoplasm loss.

When he finally reached his house, his parents were still gone; that's a good start. Jazz was home, that wasn't good. Reaching into his backpack he grabbed his cell phone; ten in the morning. Oh boy. Not good.

Jazz had called a staggering sixty-two times and sent well over forty texts. She most definitely knew he wasn't home, and judging by the awkward, no, obviously crooked angle she parked she went out looking for him. That made him feel a little guilty, she was obviously worried about him. The numerous texts, calls and voicemails made it obvious.

Danny sighed while dragging a hand through his hair. He's going to need an excuse, for sure, and he needed her to not be too physical with him. The last thing he needs right now is one of her monster bear hugs.

Danny had an idea he could use, a little flimsy, but one that had worked before. Plus, he could always say his phone was dead.

Making up his mind, he turned invisible and flew down towards his house. Luckily he could stay invisible long enough to reach his window on the second story. He fazed his hand through and unlocked the window, then pushed it open. He got in without hassle, and quickly shut the window and curtains before turning visible again.

Maybe he really is getting the hang of this. He has better control, and even if it was only for a little bit, he can still make his whole body invisible.

Then he came back to life, along with all the pain that he was feeling when he woke up. So, he wasn't getting the hang of it quite yet, but progress is still progress, and Danny feels like he's made a lot of it.

Next up was taking a shower, and then cleaning the wounds. Danny gulped, this wasn't going to be fun. Danny walks into his bathroom and slowly starts taking his shirt off, he could feel the dried blood and ectoplasm sticking to his skin. 'Ugh'. The shirt is stuck to his body, like it was glued on, "Oh, this is so gross."

Danny stops when he remembers. He has ghost powers, why was he trying to peel it off if he can just ghost it off? He shakes his head before pulling on the shirt and attempting to make it intangible. Tries one through four get him partial intangibility, so failures, but try five seems to be the winning number.

Danny takes a moment to examine the damage. It's not good. There are two holes on his waist from when the damn rodent was trying to chomp his head off. His abdomen has four large and tightly packed claw marks. The injury has partially scabbed over in a mix of red and green, but a majority of the wound still seems raw. He turns around and grimaces at what he sees. The worst wound that, that infernal rat put on him. Starting just below his shoulder, it continues down until his midsection. This wound is still bleeding, barely, but blood does dribble down his back slowly. It's deep. So deep it's scary, he can see a little bit of white.

The back of his ribs. He can see parts that are whiter than the rest, and he realizes that its bone that's grown back. The fucking pest had clawed into his bones, and they had healed already?

Do bones mend that quickly?

A myriad of bruises cover his whole body, a sickening black, blue, and yellow paint his body along with small scrapes and scratches.

Yeah, no wonder everything hurt.

The following shower is, without a doubt, one of the most uncomfortable experiences he's ever had the unfortunate pleasure of having. The water, whether hot or cold, burned like no tomorrow and he had to bite his lip the whole time. Even then, he spent about fifteen minutes in the shower just to make sure he was clean.

Next came treating his injuries.

Luckily, or unluckily, due to events in the past, his family has a large stock of medical supplies. The peroxide stung like fire on the newly formed back muscles that were still open from the damn rats clawing, and dressing the wound was a horribly uncomfortable, awkward and painful process that he never wants to do again. Pouring the fizzy alcohol into the literal holes in his abdomen, and then having to pour the pooling peroxide out of his own body is, again, not an experience he would recommend, or ever want to experience again.

Danny didn't notice it yesterday, possibly in the heat of battle, or maybe it was when he fell on his side and passed out, but he somehow broke his left hand pinky and ring finger. At least he thinks they're broken. A splint is easy enough to make on the fly, but his parents actually had finger splints in stock, so there's one win at least.

Ibuprofen has done nothing so far for the pain, so next time he'll have to find something stronger.

When Danny is finally done tending to his trauma, he slowly rests himself onto his bed, before immediately getting back up to grab an ice pack from down stairs. He pauses when he goes by Jazz's door, debating on whether to talk to her, but he decided against it. If his excuse is going to work, it's better to act like nothing is wrong.

It takes less than two minutes for him to get back in his room. He maneuvers the packs around while finding the least painful position to rest in. He grabs his remote and turns on the TV, idly scrolling through channels to find something to peak his interest.

About an hour later he passes out.

Blinding sunlight peers into the room, peeking through the agape curtains. Jazz turns in her sleep, mumbling and groaning to get the accursed suns illumination out of her closed eyes.

Eventually, she gives in flops onto her back. She cracks her eyes open slightly, before immediately regretting her decision. A few minutes later she tries again and is met with a similar result, but this time it's tolerable.

She turns her head to look at her alarm clock. 1:22? When was the last time she slept in that late? Elementary school?

"1:22?!" Jazz jumps out of bed and makes for the door. She trips on her feet, tangled with her sheets. She glares at the offending snare, before giving an angry huff and kicking them off. When she's finally up, Jazz makes a b-line to the bathroom connected to her room.

After finally being able to relieve herself of her… 'tension', she goes to her little brothers room. He wasn't home when she passed out, and she can only hope he's back.

She notices that the door is ajar, a good, no- a great sign since she left it wide open when she was looking for him. Her pace quickens and her face instantly changes from concern and anxiousness to relief. Jazz lets out a large sigh at the sight of her sleeping brother. She notes that he's sleeping on his side in a rather uncomfortable angle. There was something on his left hand too, though she couldn't make out what it is.

Jazz pushes the door open just a bit, and it gives out a quiet creek in response. She herself could barely hear it, so she's surprised when Danny's eyes snap open. He looks around before he spots her.

"Jazz? What's up?" Danny asks while getting up. He groans until he's sitting straight up, and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He yawns before stretching his arms out, then immediately winces, something Jazz notices but doesn't comment on.

"Where were you Danny? I was worried sick, and looking for you all night!" The concern in her voice is obvious, and it's something Danny wants to smile at, but decides that now is not the time. At least someone cares though.

He narrows one of his eyes, and raises the eyebrow on another. "What? You were searching for me? Why? Did you not see my note?" He lies.

"Note? What note?" Did she miss something?

"That note," he points, "I was on the roof, stargazing. Sorry if you called and I missed it, my phone died." He's almost got it. He's playing it off pretty good, at least he thinks he is.

Jazz walks over to his desk, and sure enough on the keyboard is a note.

Hey, I'll be on the roof. Yell up at me if you need me. -Danny

Really? She missed this? Jazz tries to remember if it was here before. She'll admit that she didn't really bother to check for a note. She just popped her head in and didn't see him.

Jazz lets out a sigh and rubs her temples. She feels like a fool. She panicked and overreacted, when the answer was literally here the whole time.

She eyes Danny before asking, "So where were you the rest of the night? I didn't find you here even after midnight."

Danny gives a sheepish grin and rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry, I kind of fell asleep up there. It was a long day, and it just sorta happened."

Well, okay. It's happened before, more than a few times actually. Jazz was almost ready to let it drop when she saw what was actually on his hand. "Is that a splint? What happened?!"

Danny grimaced. 'Fuck, she had to see that.'

"So, when I passed out up there," He turns his head away from her in mock embarrassment, "I may or may not have almost rolled off the roof-"

Before he can finish his sentence, Jazz interjects: "Danny! This is why I told you to stop sleeping up there! I knew this would happen eventually!"

Danny raises his hands up in surrender. He looks panicked, but not as much as Jazz would have thought. "It's not that bad Jazz!" He starts, "I caught myself at the last second, my fingers are just sprained I think. They would hurt way more if they were broken. Trust me, I know."

Jazz pauses at that. Danny would know, he's had a few of them broken before after a particularly bad run in with Dash and his goons. If he says they're not, then that's… still not fine. "Fine, I believe you. But! That still doesn't change the fact that you could have gotten seriously hurt Danny. Please, you have to be more careful!"

Danny allows a smile to bloom on his face; despite how nagging and overbearing she can be, it really is nice to have someone care for him so much. "Alright, I promise I'll stop sleeping up there. You know I don't do it on purpose, right?" He pauses to catch his breath, "Happy?"

Jazz huffed in exasperation, not at all satisfied. "No, not really. And I know you don't do it on purpose, I just don't want to see my baby brother hurt."

Danny rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off again. "And if you think you're getting off scot free, then you have another thing coming. I was out all night, till the wee hours of the morning searching for you, and I'm still tired."

Danny nods, if this can get him out of further scrutiny, then he's fine with a punishment. He arches and eyebrow and responds, "Alright… what did you have in mind?"

"My chores, obviously. I'm going to catch up on some sleep, and you'll do the dishes, and clean the living room. I'm assuming you have no plans right?"

Danny frowns at the jab at his social life, but she's not wrong. He does feel bad that she stayed out all night because of him too. He nods, "That's fair, I guess."

"Great! I'll fix us some breakfast, uh- lunch, I guess. Anything you want?" Good. The conversation went to a much more comfortable subject. "How about some sandwiches. The less I have to clean later the better. Do you still have prep classes today?"

She nods as she makes her way to down stairs, Danny following behind her. "At 4:30. I can make us lunch, get a nice nap in, and be ready to go by then." She stops for a brief second, then looks at her brother, "Wake me up if I sleep past my alarm, okay?

Danny hums in acknowledgement, "Okay, sounds good. Do you when Mom and Dad will be back? The note said a few days, but you know how that goes."

When they enter the kitchen, "Oh yeah!" She exclaims, then faces Danny once again. "If I remember right, they should have an x-ray machine down there in the lab. Check out your fingers just to make sure."

Danny's eyes widen briefly before he smiles. "Will do. Thanks for reminding me!" He completely forgot about that. His parents should have quite a bit of medical equipment down there. Maybe he could test his blood, see what's actually going on with him. He doubts it'll be that simple, but at least he'll be able to see how bad the damage actually is. Hopefully there are some instructions on the Fenton Database.

It didn't take long to finish doing the chores, he had already cleaned the living room partially so washing the dishes took the longest. Danny waited until Jazz left before going down into the lab.

He's always had apprehension when it came to his parents lab. As he got older, he found that, no, it wasn't normal to have an experimental laboratory in your basement. It's even stranger to have explosions regularly occur in your house. As in, at least twice a month.

Danny used to spend a decent amount of time down here actually, but when his parents began testing weapons, he was old enough to understand that he didn't like them.

Ecto-blasters could do a lot of damage to both inanimate objects or organic life. He's seen multiple tests, whether on sheets of metal, lifelike target dummies, and there was even one occasion where the target was an actual ghost.

Seeing how the weapons worked against its intended target had scarred the young boy, and it caused him to drift away from his already estranged parents. He can even remember the ghosts screams and thrashing as the condensed ectoplasm blew holes in the defenseless ghost. He remembered the smell, a metallic ozone had burned his nostrils that day. The sight of the ghost whimpering and crying in pain as it melted into a small pile of gooey ectoplasm. All of it left its mark on him.

Danny turned the lights on and shook his head. His thoughts were straying again, something that was becoming more common as of late.

He idly wondered why they made the lab so big, almost larger than their house. There was even an obstacle course, definitely for his mother. The whole room was covered in metal for protection, metal that didn't always stop the explosions from the lab. The lab had a sterile smell to it, very much like cleaning chemicals. Chlorine and bleach possibly, along with the sound of ectoplasmic equipment; Ah, bittersweet, yet definitely more bitter, memories.

Danny looked around, where was the medical equipment again? Next to the main command console there are a few observation tables. He walks over and starts looking around. Sure enough on the wall there is a table attached to it, with a large crane above it.

Danny turns and starts up the terminal for the x-ray and waits as it boots up. He doesn't have to wait long before its up and ready to go. Danny goes to get the lead vest before deciding against it. He has to x-ray his whole body anyway, and he didn't want to put it on with his wounds anyway.

It's a little obvious that the machine won't be able to print out a full body scan in one go, so he starts with the easiest place: his hands. For the sake of it, he scans both hands and then his arms. From his arms come his chest, his head, and then his legs and feet.

It's not the most comfortable thing to do by yourself, especially when you have large open wounds, but he knows it's necessary to get a better handle on his… situation.

While the x-ray scans render and develop, Danny heads over to the main console. He places his hand on the scanner and is happy to know that it still works for him.

"Daniel James Fenton Recognized" A synthetic voice startles Danny and he takes a step back from the computer. When did they put that in? Last he checked, actually he never checked, but he feels like he would remember something like this.

The screen flickers on, the previously back screen is replaced by his profiles desktop. Danny smiles at the background picture: A picture of the Andromeda galaxy. When was the last time he was on this thing? He hadn't studied the Andromeda galaxy in years.

Despite his current situation, Danny takes the time to change the background picture to one of the more recent astronomical discoveries. The orange and black blurry photo at first glance, seemed unimpressive, but this was still the first actual picture of a black hole.

He's getting off topic though, and after a quick look through the built in programs Danny finds what he's looking for. This specific DNA sequencing program was made by his uncle, Vlad Masters. It's purpose was to test the ectoplasmic contamination levels in ones blood and DNA.

It wasn't hard to figure out why he made this. That accident in college, as far as he's been told, was awful. One of his parents first attempts at creating the portal had ended up putting Vlad into a coma for two years. His blood had been tainted to lethal quantities, somehow he didn't die and the only reason he could afford the hospital bills at the time was because his parents felt guilty about how it happened and they paid off all the hospital and treatment bills.

How ironic that the same project would affect their son. Now all he needed to do was get a sample of his blood.

Danny eyed the syringes on one of the tables. He has always, and always will hate needles and getting shots. Not the pain, mind you. It's just the experience of having something so obviously foreign enter your body. Kind of like the ectoplasm in his body, though he didn't really have control over that situation.

By the time Danny's filled the syringe with his blood and began having it analyzed, the x-ray images are done being processed. Now he has to wait for his blood, a process that will take roughly twenty minutes.

Moving onto his inner images, Danny first starts with his hands. Lo and behold, his fingers are in fact, broken. They are already healing though, remarkably fast. Seeing as they were bent and a very obtuse angle when he first woke up, he expected the damage to be worse. The result he sees show that while still broken, they have partially mended.

He checks his ribs next, and ribs six and seven are broken on his right side, while ribs five and nine are broken on his left. The ribs, similar to his fingers, are already mending.

Danny has had both broken ribs and broken fingers before. Other bones as well, but the day after x-rays he's gotten before have never been like this.

He's healing at an accelerated rate. Danny's eyes widen as realization dawns on him. He has a healing factor.

"Wooo!" What a useful ability. Undoubtedly from the ectoplasm; Danny wonders if his parents know of the medicinal properties of ectoplasm. Then again, he could be a special case. As far as he could remember, this stuff has never been good for humans.

Then he notices the spherical object in his chest. Next to his heart, right in the center of his chest. It's a small sphere about the size of a baseball, if he had to hazard a guess. It's a thick white on the x-ray, showing that the foreign object is denser than even the bones in his body.

What could this be? Is this what he was feeling the last few days? Is this his… core? On that thought, Danny immediately goes back to the main computer and goes to work searching for his answers.

The Fentons obviously don't just use paper for their reports and examination logs. It makes sense that they would have it digitally as well, any self respecting scientist would be a fool to not use the wondrous tools that are DBMS's. Recording data digitally is significantly faster, easier, and takes up less space. It reduces redundancy and increases efficiency, and if that isn't appealing to a scientist then they're probably an idiot and a hack.

Oddly enough, his father preferred to use paperback and manual writing for his notes. Danny wonders how much that says about him as a researcher. His mother used both; As useful as it is to use electronic storage, there are times when one mistake can wipe everything.

It takes no time at all to find what he's looking for. Searching 'core' in the ecto-anatomy files brought up instant results.

The core is, for all intent and purposes, the heart of a ghost. A ghost needs no other organ besides a core. The core is the source of power for ghosts. Everything that is a ghost, comes from the core. Their life, intelligence, abilities, even their personalities.

It's also a ghosts greatest weakness. If it gets damaged, it is almost always fatal. That's good to know.

"Don't get stabbed in the second heart."

According to the information, only the more powerful ghosts can use their cores. The less intelligent animals, beasts, and monster-type ghosts can barely tap into their cores. The more powerful the core the larger it is, and if this data is going by anything, he's got a pretty damn big core. The average size seems to be smaller, around the size of a golf ball.

Now all that's left is the blood work. Checking up on the progress, Danny finds he still has about ten minutes left. He frowns before shrugging his shoulders and heading upstairs to get some food. If he's going to wait, may as well be productive about it.

Right around the ten minute mark, Danny finds his way back down towards the lab with a half-eaten sandwich. He still has about a minute left, so he plugs a flash drive into the x-ray terminal and downloads the images. After they're copied over he wipes the recent memory on it.

He wants the records, but not the evidence that will be left behind.

"Analysis complete." Ah, it's done.

Danny clicked on the accept prompt, and the data appeared soon after.

Shock and confusion cover his face. What was this? His blood had a lethal amount of ectoplasm in it. Enough to kill multiple people!

According to this, it was almost a 50/50 split. His fucking DNA was coated in the stuff! Is that how this whole thing happened? It's become a part of him down to the molecular level!

"This… this is incurable. This is…" Permanent. It's not going away. Ever.

Danny's breathing started to pick up and all of his wounds took that moment to remind him of their presence. He shakily got to one of the chairs and sat down in it. He placed his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. "Fuck."

Danny sat there in that same position for two hours. Everything is happening too fast. His death, the side-effects, the powers, almost dying again, fighting for his… afterlife. It's just too much at once.

He got up, plugged the flash drive in and repeated what he did at the x-ray terminal. He grabbed his vial of blood and stared at it in his hands for a moment. After a couple of minutes Danny breaks his gaze away and tosses it in the air. Ectoplasm coats his form in a flash of light and with a quick swipe, ectoplasmic claws destroy the evidence. As the glass and blood is burned to ashes by the energy construct, the ectoplasm in it is reabsorbed back into his system.

Danny takes a breath and exhales it in an attempt to relieve some stress. It doesn't really work.

He's got answers. Not as many as he would like, but he's got information on the status of his body.

Now he's got one more question that needs an answer, but he'll have to wait till they get back.

It wasn't until two days later that his parents returned home. They didn't even stop in to say they were back. That wasn't unusual, but it still never felt right.

This wasn't going to be easy to ask. Honestly, he would have preferred a couple more days to build up his courage. Quite a bit of his future was going to be decided by this question.

And here he was, just standing at the entrance to the lab. He was biting his lip, and his brows were furrowed in worry, fear, and anticipation. He didn't even notice Jazz staring at him from the living room sofa. He was there for maybe five minutes just contemplating his next action before he went down the stairs.

'Just get it over with.' He thought.

Then he was in front of them. They didn't even notice him, too engrossed in their own projects. His father, Jack, was working on what looked like a white and green Spartan Laser from Halo. No doubt, that would do some serious damage to a ghost.

Or him.

His mother looked like she was doing some repairs on the portal. Yeah, that was his fault.

A sarcastic thought went through his mind. 'Sorry about dying in there, maybe next time don't put an 'on' button inside of it.'

He clears his throat to get their attention. After a couple of seconds he realizes that they didn't hear it. He tries again, a little louder than the first. Still being ignored.

"Um- uh… Mom, Dad?" His voice cracked on the first word, goddammit puberty. Awful timing. His parents turned around to look at him. His mother smiled at him, "Hi sweety, what's going on? You never come down here." That's because this place disturbed him, especially after the recent events.

"I- uh, had something I wanted to ask." He starts, "I- if- how was the trip to Uncle Vlads?" He chickens out.

His father smiles and stands up straight. "It was great! Road trips are always fun! Plus we were able to catch up with V-man. Even though he's our best friend, he lives in another state so we don't get too many opportunities to talk with him." Honestly, Danny would have liked to go. He liked Vlad, he always seemed welcoming and he actually paid attention to him and Jazz. He hadn't seen his uncle in years, it would have been nice to visit.

His father wasn't finished though; "We even found a large area near town that had high concentrations of ectoplasm. Oh-ho, you should have seen it Danny! The whole area was glowing green with the stuff! A couple of ghosts must've duked it out!" Clearly he was pleased that they found it. Danny was pretty sure that was him though, hopefully there wasn't anything that led back to him. He gulped, but continued. He was almost there.

Danny gives an honest smile, "That's nice. Maybe next time you go to visit him I could go too? I haven't seen him in a while. Jazz too."

His mother answers him, "Of course, next time we'll tell you and Jazz before we leave. Was that all though?" He's heard that before, unless they were leaving next week for Wisconsin, there was no way they would remember.

Danny stiffened for a second, the involuntary action going unnoticed by his parents, before he steeled his nerves, "Mom, Dad," Danny takes a breath, "if I ever… died and became… a ghost," He nervously scraps his fingers with his thumb, "what would you do?"

This was it, the deciding factor. What will they say? This answer… he wasn't even sure if he wanted to hear it.

Maddie looked at her child, confused by the sudden question. She notices his hesitance on the subject, finding it odd, but before she can say anything Jack answers her son.

"Don't worry Danny-o!" The giant of a man grins, "Rest assured, if you ever become one of those disgusting things, we'll put you out of your misery!" The Fenton patriarch glances over at his weapons in pride, not noticing how pale his son has become, before turning back to Danny, "We know that no Fenton would ever want to be subjected to that kind of fate!" The grin on his face seems friendly and loving, like a father, but it unsettles Danny to his core. That is his father, but what he just said… he didn't feel warm or comforted at all.

That wasn't exactly what Maddie wanted to say. There's a huge difference between saying something, and actually being able to go through with it. And despite how estranged they were with their children, despite how much she and Jack hate ghosts, she can't say she would actually be able to re-end her son if he came back to life as a ghost. Her and Jack despise ghosts, but this was their son they were talking about. She had never thought about this before, it's never once crossed her mind that her children would become ghosts. Not that they would anyway.

Danny sucks in a quick breath. 'No.' They would kill him if he was a ghost. That is not what he wanted to hear. He turns away, and can barely mutter a response, "okay." It was quiet, but just barely loud enough for them to hear.

Maddie notes how… strained it sounded, but before she can say anything Danny was already heading up the stairs. She narrows her eyes; that was strange. Danny doesn't often come down to the lab, she was pretty sure he found the large amount of weapons and odd gadgets uncomfortable. Jazz felt the same as well, and is very vocal about her opinion on the subject. She's made it clear where she stands on multiple occasions.

Maddie shook her head, how were her children so different from their parents? She would have to ask Danny why he asked that later. She would ponder that question too, maybe there was a deeper meaning to it.

Halfway up the stairs Danny runs into Jazz, and by the look of unconstrained fury on her face, she heard everything. How could she not be angry? Their parents, more accurately her father, all but admitted to not giving what every child should have as a birthright: Unconditional love from their parents. Her mother didn't even deny it either!

Rage soon faded when she saw Danny's face, he clearly understood what that meant too. He looked heartbroken, scared, ready to cry, no, he is crying. Her heart broke a little, when was the last time she saw him cry? He didn't even cry when those nasty bullies broke some of his bones, how much did those words hurt him?

Before Danny can go past her she wraps him in a hug. He flinches, but relaxes and starts shaking, "Shhh." She coos. Danny sniffles in response, "It's alright." Jazz leads him upstairs to the living room. If she knew her parents, they were going to stay down there for a while.

This didn't just affect Danny; Jazz always knew her parents had an unhealthy obsession with ghosts. They're ghost hunters, ecto-biologist's and inventors, that was their job and she'll begrudgingly admit that they are good at it. She's seen some of their 'victims' before, whether it was when they brought one in or when one escaped. But this was taking it too far; for them to forsake her brother, their son, for an almost xenophobic hatred was… wrong and worrisome on so many levels.

She also assumed that line of thought applied to her as well: If she died and became a ghost, they would end her.

Mentally, she was tougher though. Danny may be able to take a beating, but his mind has always been susceptible. Danny could get knocked down and get back up, and she could take mental whiplash and shrug it off. Sticks and stones and all that… Words would never hurt her, but they would hurt Danny. They did hurt him.

This was his weakness, and he just got hit in his most vulnerable spot. She sighed and ruffled his hair in an attempt to sooth him.

As Danny started to calm down, her anger resurfaced. How could they? They're so pig-headed with their obsession with ghosts that they can't even give their own son the love and reassurance he deserves.

Well, if they won't give it, then she will. She's practically raised him anyway with how absent they've been, so she'll just have to try harder.

They didn't even understand the underlying meaning in the question. She didn't think her father would ever understand that question, he's too much of a scatterbrained goof to. Maddie? She's smart, scarily smart; she should have been able to see the real meaning behind that question. Was her lack of an answer her response?

How disappointing. She'll be having words with them later, that's for sure.