A/N: Wow, it sure has been a long time hasn't it? I know this isn't what everyone wants to have updated, but I'm slowly trying to build myself back up to it. It's been a long time since I've consistently written anything that isn't a scientific paper, so I'm trying to ease myself back in. So my friends and I have developed a series of challenges for each other to write, and I'm trying to post any DP ones up here. I have a couple in another story called Ectoplasmic Sparks, but this one worked better under this title. You'll understand why when you finish reading it.

Even if it's not what you've been waiting so patiently for, I hope you still enjoy it!

For Better or Worse

It was with breakneck speed that the young ghost hero shot through the sky, weaving through the streets with long-practiced ease. He found the familiar alleyway close to his house and touched down roughly. His eyes immediately looked towards the town's clocktower and he groaned. Five after ten…which meant five minutes after curfew. He immediately lost all sense of urgency as he rested against the brick wall. Five minutes versus ten minutes didn't make much of a difference to his parents – late was late after all – which meant that he no longer had reason to rush and race about on the off-chance that he would make it home.

With this newfound time he decided to give himself a once over, making sure that he would look presentable for the lecture that was no doubt about to come. The cut on his torso was thankfully starting to clot, but the deep gash on his arm was still bleeding freely. He double-checked that the coast was clear before he transformed back into the form of a normal, inconspicuous teenager. Immediately he noticed the seeping blood on his white t-shirt, giving the injury away, and it was looking like his torso was going to stain as well.

He sighed as he wracked his brain for a solution when suddenly one struck him like lightning. He snapped his fingers before turning invisible and racing to his house. He phased through the door and up to his bedroom, and he definitely noticed his parents on the couch staring fixedly at the door. Oh yeah, he was definitely in for a lecture when he got home…

He dashed into his bedroom and quickly and quietly wrapped his arm up in a makeshift bandage before throwing on a dark zip-up hoodie from a concert he and Sam went to last year. It wasn't perfect, but it should last long enough to withstand the lecture.

He finally decided it was time to face the music and with a labored sigh he flew back down to the alley to slowly walk to the front door. All the while, he thought about how sick he was of this whole song-and-dance. Fight ghosts all night, land in the alley, make sure he was presentable, give half-baked excuses to his parents about missing curfew, listen to the ensuing lecture, go to bed, and repeat the next night. It was so exhausting and occupied more of his time than he had to spare.

He turned the doorknob and walked inside. He had enough sense to wear a sheepish look on his face as he regarded his parents who had stood from their previous positions on the couch.

"Daniel Fenton, do you know what time it is?" his mother asked harshly.

"…Not before ten?" he answered with a wince.

"No. It's not," Maddie said shortly. "Do you have any answer for why you were so late?"

Danny could hear the same weariness in her voice that he himself felt, and while some nights he felt like bantering and going toe-to-toe with them…tonight he just wanted it over with. "None that you'll like, so why don't you just lecture me, punish me, and let me go to bed?" Danny suggested tiredly, hoping it would just end the argument right there. Unfortunately it seemed to just incite his mother further…

"So you're not going to even try anymore?" she asked dangerously. "Danny what's going on?! Why can't you just tell us the truth on what's going on every night?! It's a lie every other night and now you're not even going to try to explain?"

"Well how about this, I'll try another lie again tomorrow, but I'm just really tired today and I just want to go to bed," he pleaded.

"No, Danny, that's not what we want! If you're really that tired then just tell us the truth and we wouldn't have to do this anymore!" she practically begged. "You think you're the only one that's tired? We're tired of this too! We don't like having to do this you know! We'd much rather spend our nights asking you about your life or girlfriends or things that normal parents are supposed to be talking about, but instead we have to go through this every night!"

He closed his eyes to rally his strength for a moment before looking at his parents with weary eyes. "Look, if I could tell you, don't you think I would? I know that would make all this stop, but I just can't."

Maddie threw her hands up in the air and started pacing around the room, breathing deep to try to calm herself down as Jack leveled a surprisingly serious gaze at his son. "Why not Danny? If you're getting into trouble or there's gangs or drugs or something like that we can help you," he tried to emphasize. "We won't even get that mad at you; we just want to know so we can stop worrying!"

"Can't you just take my word for it that I'm not in trouble? I've told you time and time again that I'm not doing drugs and I'm not in a gang or doing anything dangerous, so you don't need to worry!" Granted he was doing something dangerous, but it wasn't the kind of dangerous stuff they no doubt had in mind. "I mean look at me, I'm healthy, so I can't be getting into anything bad, right?"

"Yes Danny, let's look at you," his mother mentioned slowly, and Danny winced as he realized he'd walked into a trap. "Your grades are slipping, you're never home, and you shirk all your chores. You can't seem to tell the truth about anything anymore and seem perfectly able to lie to us without feeling guilty, which means you obviously don't have any respect for us."

Danny tried to interrupt after that, but his mother continued to plow through his list of growing faults. "You don't seem to care about anything important anymore other than whatever you rush off to do at night. You're always twitchy and jumpy and seem to always be on alert. And what's worse is that on top of all that you don't even talk to us anymore! You know that these lectures are the most time we get to talk to you all day, and they only consist of us yelling at you!

"So yes, let's take a look at you Danny," she challenged. "Let's take a good long look and then tell me again that there's nothing wrong, because you are not the same Danny you were before the accident."

Danny remained silent, not really knowing how to refute her, or even if he should, because she was absolutely right about all of it. He wasn't the same as he was before the accident, and he never would be either, not that his parents would understand the reasons why.

"Well?" Maddie pushed, her voice sharp and impatient, like a predator about ready to pounce on its prey. "Do you have anything to say?"

Instead of being intimidated like he used to be when he was a child, he summed up all the defiance he could muster tonight to look his mom squarely in the eyes. "You're right; I'm not the same Danny I was before the accident. It made me realize things about my life, and no, I'm not going to share what those are. Now, can I go to bed?"

Maddie looked taken aback by Danny's brazen attitude. Sure his responses differed from night to night, but tonight there was just something different. He'd been stubbornly defiant before, but tonight…it was almost like his defiance stemmed from some sort of apathetic break inside himself. He didn't care to argue anymore…and so he wasn't going to argue, and that was final.

Maddie spent so much time puzzling her son's attitude that Danny just took her silence as permission and thudded up the stairs, leaving his still silent parents behind. As soon as he made it upstairs, he slammed the door and leaned against the back of it, breathing out a sigh he didn't know he had been holding. He didn't know where that came from…but he knew he'd be paying for it later. But at least it was over with for now.

He threw himself on the bed in exhaustion. He felt terrible after what happened downstairs. He knew they were just concerned about him and were trying to help him, but they just couldn't. Afterall, they would never understand…and there was no way he could make them.

He too saw their relationship slipping, just like his mom saw it. He'd seen her flipping through albums of his childhood or caressing pictures of his youth. He knew that inside she was lamenting that their relationship wasn't the same as in those pictures. They didn't go on day trips anymore – how was he supposed to explain leaving for a ghost attack? They didn't talk anymore – he couldn't tell her half of what was going on in his life to begin with, and everything that came out of his mouth was a lie. They weren't physically affectionate anymore – what if she pressed on an injury and he couldn't explain why he had it?

Their interactions were limited to lies and excuses on his end, and discipline and rants on theirs.

It would be so much easier if only they knew—

His mouth parted and his tense eyebrows relaxed in sudden realization. If only they knew. Gone would be the lies, gone would be excuses, gone would be this constant fear of exposure. Gone would be this act and gone would be this need to hide his double life.

He realized he was walking down the stairs: that was weird, he didn't even remember standing up, let alone leaving his room… And yet his feet continued to carry him forward, as if they had come to some kind of conclusion he had not.

Yes, gone would be all of his problems and additional stresses, but weren't there reasons why he put all those stresses on himself in the first place? Reasons why he just gave the speech downstairs about not telling them? Ah right, the fear of rejection. The fear of the revelation fracturing the household. The fear of being experimented on by his own parents in the name of science.

But deep down, he knew they wouldn't knowingly experiment on him. Somehow he always knew that. And as far as rejection and fracturing their relationship…that was the path they were heading anyways. Granted it would be a quicker path to that inevitable end but…he just found that he was too tired to care anymore.

He was in the kitchen. When did he even reach the bottom of the stairs?

Because he was tired. He was tired of all of it. Whatever reasons he had to keep this secret, and he knew they were good because he wouldn't have done it otherwise…right now they just didn't seem to matter anymore. A wash of apathy came over him, brought on by the overwhelming desire to just end this charade, for better or for worse. The desire to make tonight the last night of their song and dance routine. Maybe he'd care afterwards, and he could clean it up then, but right now…he just couldn't bring himself to care.

He was too exhausted, too wearied by this false double-life, and he didn't want to deal with it anymore.

He was in the basement. His parents were right in front of him. He didn't even remember consciously making the decision to come down here.

"Mom, Dad," he announced solemnly. Was he really doing this? He didn't remember coming to an actual consensus, but apparently his body or his heart or whatever was controlling his actions had come to some kind of decision.

They turned to look at him, the basement silent as if it knew what was happening. He waited for their eye contact. Those invisible forces triggered his transformation, and the deafening whoosh of the rings of light echoed through the basement, followed by his determined exhale.

"We need to talk."