"I'm not so sure about this, Maddie." Vlad crosses his arms. His fingers tap steadily on his arms.

"Vlad, we've been over this. Jack thinks Danny will help us. Besides, you said it yourself, Danny's really smart and knows about ghosts." Maddie looks up at Vlad with a serious face, "Are you just nervous about spending time with him after what happened?"

"No. Maybe. Yes." Vlad sighs and leans against the railing behind him.

The two of them are in line for food. Maddie had wanted a change from Hal's so they'd all agreed to come here. Vlad doesn't mind. It gives him some time alone with Maddie while they wait for their order to finish. Lately Jack has been…less than keen on leaving them alone. He always seems to stick to Vlad's side when he's around.

"It's alright, Vlad. I promise to kick you if I think you're going to say something stupid."

Vlad frowns, "Thanks." His voice is flat but he knows it would be helpful, even if she's not really going to do it.

"What are friends for?" Maddie grins.

Vlad gives her a half smile, forced and not really there, as his fingers start drumming against the railing.

"Vlad, relax. Danny's not going to take our plans."

That's not the reason he's so nervous. Two weeks had seen not much improvement between Vlad and Danny. Vlad made a conscious effort to not say anything even remotely mean or snide or sarcastic and it was obviously making things awkward between them.

"I know. I just don't know how to act around him." Vlad looks away.

"Act like you normally would just...watch the temper." Maddie rests her hand on his arm.

He doesn't get a chance to answer her when their number is called and their food is ready. Each of them grabs two trays and they head over to where Jack and Danny are sitting.

Vlad hands Danny his food and sits down opposite him.

"Thanks." Danny says. All Vlad can give in return is a hum.

"So what are we talking about?" Maddie asks.

"Jack was telling me about why you asked me to come here." Danny picks up a fry and eats it.

"Jack! You said you'd wait until we were all together!" Maddie frowns.

Jacks hands quickly fly up, "Mads, I didn't say anything!"

Maddie blinks and looks at a very smug looking Danny.

"So you guys do want something. I thought it was weird when you told me not to invite Jenny or Dean." Danny leans his elbows on the table and grabs his sandwich, "So what is it?"

Maddie pouts, "That was a dirty trick."

"Yeah. So what's up?" Danny doesn't seem perturbed. Vlad isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.

Jack sighs and pulls his backpack closer, "We were hoping you'd still be up for helping us out."

"With what?" Danny asks, eating another fry. Vlad finds Danny's hands very distracting. He wishes Danny weren't so attractive. He hates it. So much.

"Well." Maddie sits forward in her seat. "The three of us are working on a joint doctoral thesis. And for our thesis, well, the end goal, is to prove...the existence of ghosts."

Danny says nothing so Jack picks up where Maddie left off.

"We've got this idea but we've kind of hit a wall in terms of...doing it. And we were hoping, since you seem to know about ghosts and you're stupid smart, if you could maybe see something we're missing."

Danny looks at Jack as he chews on his fry. He seems to be mulling something over before he glances at Vlad. It only lasts a second.

"We as in..." Danny makes a vague notion around the table. Vlad knows exactly what he means.

"The three of us can't figure out where to go from where we are and any time we try we knock heads." Vlad leans forward, "I saw how easy you solved that equation in Professor Young's room. I have issues with stuff like that and I'm a smart man."

Danny looks surprised and there's an uneven smile on his face, "That was surprisingly confident of you."

That wasn't...what he was expecting.

"Are you going to help us or not?" Vlad frowns. He hopes his face isn't red.

"Sure." Danny shrugs.

Jack grabs a file from his backpack and hands it to Danny. Danny wipes his hands off on a napkin before he grabs the file.

Vlad watches his face as he reads over the contents of the folder. It was a summation of all of their work for the past two years and Danny is speeding through everything like it's a picture novel. Part of him thinks Danny isn't taking it seriously. There's no way Danny could read that fast…is there?

Danny's face is unreadable to Vlad as he flips the page.

"Can you guys stop watching me? It's unnerving." Danny says, not looking up from his reading.

Vlad looks over at Jack and Maddie who both look embarrassed and a bit bashful. He feels a bit better about watching Danny now.

Vlad starts picking at his food while he sneaks glances at Danny. Danny just keeps flipping through the pages and Vlad wonders if their two years of work could really be read in just a matter of minutes. It felt like a lot more work than that.

"So…you're trying to build a portal?" Danny asks as he sets the file down. The diagram is the last page. It was more an amalgamation of scribbles and notes than a proper diagram. They can't figure out how to get it to work.

"Yes." Jack wipes his palms off on his pants. He's nervous, Vlad can tell.

"Why?" Danny shakes his head, "How would this prove the existence of ghosts?"

"Well, you see, we were all thinking – so we were talking and we kind of - " Maddie seems to be at a loss for words. She was hoping Danny would just jump into helping them. Give them a magical solution they could spring board off of.

Had she not thought of having to explain everything to him? Vlad had. He'd mulled it over for a few days after they'd decided to get Danny's help.

"The three of us came to the same conclusion a while back when we were talking about ghosts." Vlad starts. He'd had this conversation about a thousand times in his head. And Jack said he worried too much. "Ghosts are incorporeal, right? But they exist so how can a being exist in our plane of existence without actually taking up space? We thought that maybe ghosts have their own plane of existence parallel to ours and their incorporeal form is just their being spilling over into our sister dimension."

"And you want to…see if this dimension exists?" Danny asks. Vlad is surprised to hear no condescension from Danny. Most other paranormal…believers weren't so keen to their theory.

"Yes. If we can build the portal and get it to work we can send in a drone and get video proof of the existence of this sister dimension." Vlad leans forward, "We could even find a ghost in this dimension and provide it as evidence to the doctoral committee or even the scientific community as a whole."

"You want to trap someone?" Danny looks…disappointed?

That was not how he imagined this conversation going.

"A ghost." Maddie frowns, jumping in, "Proof of our theories."

"But it's a person." Danny turns to look at the others. "Why would you do that to someone?"

Maddie snorts, as if the thought is outrageous, "A ghost isn't a person, Danny. It's a concentration of ectoplasm -"

"How can you know that?" Danny closes the folder and pushes it away, "Until that night in the house, you three have never even seen a ghost. How can you tell me they're not people?"

"A ghost is just the remnants of a person. They're not people." Jack looks at the folder then back at Danny, "It's not like they have feelings or -"

Jack stops talking. Just stops. Vlad looks between Jack and Danny. Danny looks like he's – Vlad doesn't even know. He's so bad at reading Danny.

"I can't help you." Danny shakes his head and turns back to his food. He doesn't touch it, though.

"W-what?" Maddie's shoulders hunch up, "Danny -"

"Guys -" Vlad cuts them off as something occurs to him.

Jack and Maddie look at him in confusion as Vlad leans forward to look at Danny. Danny looks up at him. Vlad thinks he looks…troubled? He's not sure but Vlad knows he's upset.

"You said…before that night the three of us hadn't seen a ghost." Vlad frowns, "You didn't include yourself. Danny, have you seen a ghost before?"

Danny doesn't answer. The longer he doesn't answer, the more he's sure of his suspicion.

"You have! Why – why didn't you say anything?"

Danny looks over at the other two at the table and Vlad manages to fit the pieces together.

"Because of the things we said. How we acted."

Danny licks over his lower lip and looks away.

"They're people still. They just died, it doesn't change who they are." Danny frowns, looking away from all of them, and whispers to himself. "I didn't realize it was this bad with you two."

"You don't want to help us anymore because of what we could do to the ghosts we'd find."

Danny doesn't say anything.

"You could help us if you wanted to."

Still nothing.

"Our idea will work. You know it will."

Vlad can't believe this. He feels something akin to hope in his chest as he comes to his realization.

Danny's nose scrunches up and Vlad's moment of happiness flitters away. Danny stands up and steps out of the booth. Vlad panics.

"No! Don't leave. Please!" he throws on the please in the hopes that it will work.

"I'm not going to help you three make people into guinea pigs."

Danny moves to leave but Vlad grabs his hand.

"Don't you see? This is a good thing! You can tell us what you know so we can learn. Danny, we've been working on assumptions but if you can tell us what you know -"

"Danny's word isn't scientific proof, Vlad!" Maddie frowns, "But if you're right…and ghosts aren't…different than people…"

"We couldn't dream of catching one." Jack finishes.

Vlad doesn't look at his two best friends. He just watches Danny as he glances between the three of them. He shakes his head and looks up. Danny sighs before he pulls his hand free. It doesn't take much.

"If I help you…" Danny takes a deep breath. "If I help you, you can only observe them. No…no dissection, no trapping, no experimentation."

"I can agree to that." Vlad is surprised at himself. He didn't think he'd have agreed to that so readily a while ago. He looks to Jack and Maddie.

Jack nods but Maddie looks like she doesn't approve.

"I'm okay with that." Jack nudges Maddie. "Mads?"

"Yeah, fine." She looks up at Danny. "I'm just not sure we should be taking your word for all of this. You just randomly say you've seen ghosts before and we're supposed to believe you?"

"Maddie!" Jack hisses, scowling at her.

"Don't you Maddie me. I want to know I'm not just agreeing to this because he has a hunch!"

Danny sits down and sighs, "My parents were paranormal investigators."

Technically true. For the longest time they were hunters but they gave up hunting when they found out about Danny.

"As a hobby. They were scientists professionally. Patented inventions and made money off of them."

"Sounds like my dream job." Jack laughs, though he's obviously not feeling jovial.

"It sucked, honestly," Danny frowns, "Most of their income was from grants which had to be spent on research and not anything else. We were kind of…what's the thing where you take the back seat to the back seat?"

"The trunk?" Vlad offers.

Danny huffs and looks away. There's a small smile. Vlad actually feels proud of that.

"My sister practically raised me cause my parents were more preoccupied with their job and their hobby."

"That's terrible but it's still just your word." Maddie looks a bit less hostile but she doesn't look happy either.

"It was terrible and I know. I don't have any solid proof. There's no evidence except what I can show you." Danny looks around before sighing and looking at Maddie, "How about this. I tell you what I know and you promise not to start out with dissections and at least try to observe anyone you find for evidence of what I'm telling you."

Maddie stares at Danny for a moment before she nods, "That I can do. Danny, I'm sorry I don't -"

"Don't." Danny interrupts her, "You're a scientist. I get it. You want evidence. I'm just surprised Vlad agreed to it so quickly."

Maddie snorts and nods, "Yeah, Jack I get but Vlad?"

"I'm right here." Vlad feels so offended but…yeah.

"So." Jack laces his hands together, "I don't mean to…jump tracks here but…you can help us?"

Danny sighs and hangs his head, "I might have a few ideas. Let me mull them over for a while, okay?"

Vlad thinks he's just unsure about helping them still but he forces himself to stay quiet. There's no way he's going to push this.

"They really asked you to help them with their thesis?" Jenny asks as Danny closes the door to the diner behind him. Hal is going to leave in a few minutes and he'll lock up.

"Yup." Danny shrugs.

"Are you going to?"

"I…I don't know." Danny shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

"Then don't." Jenny tells him.

Danny looks up at her, a bit shocked by the answer.

"Don't?"

Jenny smiles and links her arm with Danny's as they start walking towards her building.

"Don't. I trust your judgement, Danny. If you think it would be a good idea to wait, then wait."

He feels guilty, "I promised to help them."

Jenny sighs. He'd been talking to her all day. He's been thinking about this since yesterday at lunch. His parents and Vlad had let his take the file home. It was just a copy. They weren't even on the right track.

"Well, if you don't want to help them, you could just nudge them in the right direction. Give them a hint?"

Danny frowns, "I mean…I guess? What if something goes wrong? What if one of them gets hurt because of what I tell them?"

"Danny, you can't have it both ways." Jenny huffs, "Either you go all in and help them not get hurt or you give them a hint and you leave it alone. Other than that, your only option is to leave it alone."

Danny groans.

"Guess I'm going all in." He sighs.

"Are you going to have time? I mean, with work and you going to school yourself next semester…are you going to have the time?"

"I'm used to juggling multiple things. I can handle it."

Jenny shakes her head, "I'm jealous. I get too much on my plate at once and I get too frazzled. I can't even figure out how I'm going to spend my holidays."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I've been playing the worlds worst game of telephone tag with my parents over who I'm going to visit and when during Christmas." Jenny turns up her nose, "Neither of them want to talk to each other and they're less inclined to be nice. Dad doesn't want me spending any time with my mom and mom hates dad's new girlfriend and I just want to disappear for the holidays."

"Why not just stay here?" Danny asks.

"Because the dorms shut down when the Semester ends, Danny." Jenny leans against him, "I hate Christmas."

"I know how you feel." Danny returns her sigh and leans against her. "You know, if you wanted to, you could just stay with me at my place. Not deal with any of that."

Jenny looks up at him with wide eyes. Her voice is soft when she asks, "You would let me stay with you?"

"Yeah. I mean, until the semester starts up again and then you can go back to the dorms." Danny shrugs, "I have two rooms and it's not like I'm going anywhere."

Jenny stops, her small smile fading.

"I'd love to spend Christmas with you, Danny." She looks up at the sky and groans as they round a corner, "Unfortunately, I think my parents would be pissed if I didn't at least visit. They're the kind of spiteful to stop paying my tuition."

Danny winces, "Ouch. Well, you could go, spend a day or two with each parent and then retreat back here to frozen Wisconsin to stay with me."

Jenny pouts and hugs his arm tight, "Danny, you're a saint. I love you, man."

"Awww, I love you, too, Jenny. You're like a little sister to me."

Jenny snorts, "I have an older brother, no thanks. I don't need to be tormented."

"Alright. Just a real good friend, yeah?"

"Yeah," she hums.

They reach Jenny's building and she disentangles her arm from Danny's, "Good luck on your dilemma, Danny."

"You, too. Let me know how it all works out." Danny waves, "My door's always open, Jen."

Jenny smiles and gives him a small wave as she heads into her dorm.