Reality

William Lancer glared half-heartedly out the windscreen. Grumbling, he double-checked that his overcoat was buttoned securely before forcing open the door of his vehicle – it was due in for repairs after Jack Fenton had sideswiped William in order to run a set of red traffic lights. Maddie had graciously offered to pay the bill, but until then, Mr Lancer was reduced to driving from place to place in a car that was missing a wing mirror on the drivers' side, the door dented so that it stuck every time it was shut.

That was only part of the reason for his bad mood.

Mr Lancer ducked his head, snapping his collar up against the driving snow. In the time that it took to lock his car, the teacher was already shivering violently. He walked against the wind, hugging himself as he approached the teachers' back door of Casper High. Lancer hated winter – pausing on the step to fumble with his keys, the man's vision blurred for a moment. He gave a cry, launching himself backwards as a flurry of snowflakes blew full-force into his unprotected face. He teetered for a moment before an incremental shift took hold of his centre.

William fell backwards onto the icy asphalt with a shriek, landing hard. Caught up in the pain and frustration, he let loose a stream of colourful words, cursing anything colder than a refrigerator. Mr Lancer hated the cold.

The only thing he loathed more than simple coldness was snow.

Labouring to his feet and rubbing at his smarting buttocks, the balding teacher mounted the step once again, unlocking the door and stepping smartly inside. The door shut with a soft click, the blizzard reduced to a dull roar.

It was almost as cold inside the building as it had been in the snow.

Adjusting his scarf and flicking a switch that turned on the corridor lights, Lancer limped in the direction of his office. His footsteps echoed down the eerily silent walkways, and the teacher had half a mind to start humming a tune to himself. No sooner than he had started Ode to Joy, a voice rang out from the direction of the seniors' lockers.

"Is anybody there?"

Lancer froze, and the voice sounded again. "Oh, please… Please, whoever you are, get me out of here!" The cry was weak, the voice hoarse but still recognisable.

Dread settled in Lancer's gut. "I'm coming!" he called in response, breaking into a sprint. Rounding the corner, the teacher was once again shocked into standing still.

Two glowing cages rose from the floor, neatly encasing their occupants. In one, a glowing green puppy was curled on the floor, its red eyes carefully surveying the newcomer. In the cage next to it, Daniel Fenton crouched. He was shivering violently, wearing nothing but a pair of lightweight pyjamas.

The flabbergasted teacher was spurred into movement by the hacking cough that emanated from his pupil. "Mr Fenton!" he exclaimed, rushing to kneel in front of the tiny cage. "What in Dickens' name happened to you?"

Danny flinched slightly at the man's shout. "Could you get me some water?" he asked weakly, motioning to the door that led to the teachers' lounge. "I've been here since Friday night."

When Lancer returned with three bottles of water, the boy drained two of them, and half of the third. As he drank, Lancer boiled the kettle and fetched a hot water bottle from the nurse's office. The imprisoned boy clutched to this like a lifeline, drawing it close to his chest. Shucking his overcoat, the teacher proceeded to reach through the bars and throw it around his pupil.

"I'm going to try to get you out of here," he announced, locking eyes with the teen.

Danny managed a weak smile. "Thanks," he breathed, curling tighter around the hot water bottle.

Lancer appraised the cage. So far, he had not touched the bars, being exceedingly careful when passing things to Danny – the teacher had always been wary of things that glowed. But now… Now he had no choice. Reaching out, he wrapped a hand around one of the glowing bars, trying to gauge its strength and stability.

Danny gave a cry of warning, but it was too late – with a whoosh that set the hairs on his neck prickling, a glowing cage materialised around Lancer, effectively trapping him in a crouched position.

The teen swore. "Didn't my parents tell you about the new ghost traps?" he demanded.

Lancer opened and closed his mouth dumbly. The Fentons had told him, only a week or so beforehand – Casper High had been sustaining significant damage most weekends due to spectral activity. The school board had finally commissioned the Fentons to protect the place, and Maddie and Jack had responded with zeal. They had fitted the place with an ingenious system of traps, triggered by the smallest ectosignature. Any ghost on the premises would be imprisoned, and anybody who touched the spectre's confinement would find themself in a similar situation. The security system was built with an additional feature that had been previously unheard of – the lack of alarms. Nobody would know about the caged victims until the school opened its doors on Monday morning.

"Oh, hell," Lancer groaned, leaning back against the bars of his cage.

Danny shifted, as though trying to get comfortable. This was difficult, considering that the only way to sit in the cage was cross-legged, and to lie down – as the teen was currently doing – one had to be curled in a ball. The cage was far too small to stand up; the only way for one to even remotely stretch their legs without getting stuck was to kneel with their knees at ninety degrees. To have been there for as long as Fenton had – Lancer shuddered. The boy's limbs must be cramped to an excruciating degree.

"Why are you here on a Sunday morning anyway?" Danny queried. His voice rasped, eyes dull as they met the older man's.

"I came to collect my mobile from my office," Lancer confessed. "My landline cut out when the snowfall turned to a blizzard late last night."

The student snorted. "Seriously? You came out in a blizzard to get your phone? You do realise that it probably won't work thanks to the storm."

Lancer sent the boy a half-hearted glare. "All the same, I need it."

The boy tilted his head from his curled position. "Why?"

The teacher shifted uncomfortably before deciding to turn the conversation around. "Why are you here, Mr Fenton? You said you've been here since Friday night." Lancer's cheeks reddened slightly. "Th-that can't be true, considering your alarming regularity for bathroom breaks during class. This place looks pretty… erm… clean."

It was difficult to tell if Danny's cheeks flushed in embarrassment, or if they were simply red with his cold. "I have good aim," he stated simply, flicking his eyes to a dustbin sitting against the wall, just out of arm's reach.

Lancer's cheeks were burning now. "Erm… Right. But how did you get in this position in the first place?"

The teen pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling Lancer's overcoat tighter around his wiry, pyjama-clad form. "It's complicated."

"I think we have time."

Danny's stare was calculating, as though he were deciding exactly what lie to tell. Lancer met this look with an unwavering stare of his own, oddly satisfied when the teen looked away with a sigh. "The ghosts like to pick on me."

The confession wasn't surprising. Lancer liked to think himself an observant man – he had noticed over the past few years that Danny sported more bruises and other small injuries than could possibly be caused by Dash. He had initially suspected abuse, but over time it had become obvious that these injuries were not caused by the teen's doting parents.

Ghosts made sense.

"Why?"

Danny shrugged, keeping his gaze on the floor. "At first I think it was just because I'm the Fentons' kid. As the youngest, I made a pretty easy target when it first started."

"When did it start?" Lancer was more than a little bit interested now.

"When they started coming through the portal."

"So about three years ago?"

"Mmm."

"And your parents… do they know?"

Danny tensed at the mention of his family, answering a little bit too quickly. "N-no, of course not!" At the look of horror on the teacher's face, Danny seemed to panic. "They don't need to know, Mr Lancer, I swear that I can deal with it! I've gotten really good at ghost hunting, and even carry around weapons! If you tell them, the ghosts'll just attack me more often, because Mum and Dad'll overreact about the whole thing. Irrational hunters make easy targets!"

William frowned. "But so do teenagers who don't know what they're doing."

The teen stiffened, and Lancer recoiled at the inexplicable outrage that flitted across the boy's face. "I actually know exactly what I'm doing," he stated coolly, settling his features into a mask of indifference.

"Yes, that certainly explains your current predicament," Lancer snorted.

Danny coloured, glaring at his teacher. "It was an accident!"

Mr Lancer was certain that he currently had the upper hand, and this gave him the confidence to press the matter. After about five minutes' contemplation, he finally voiced his questions. "Well, Mr Fenton, how did you get into this fine mess? And were you already ill, or has this come about thanks to you sitting in your pyjamas on the floor of an unheated building during a snowstorm?"

The boy's eyes were half-lidded, exhaustion weighing down his limbs so that he half-collapsed against the bars of his confinement; in the brief silence, he had already started to doze. "I came down with this cold on Friday afternoon, so I went to bed early, before the snow started. The next thing I know, it's almost midnight, and I'm woken by this stupid dog trying to use my desk as a chew toy.

"Before I could catch him, Skulker showed up, and I had to fight him before going after Cujo. By then, the mutt was headed through the start of the snowstorm towards the school, and we all know that the security turns on at midnight. Cujo's a good dog, and doesn't mean any harm; I didn't want Mum and Dad to catch and hurt him. I thought I had more time, but just as I caught up to Cujo right here, the ghost security turned on and trapped us."

Lancer frowned, unease coalescing in his gut. Something felt wrong about that explanation… "Who's Skulker?" It was fairly obvious that Cujo was the dog. Was Danny naming ghosts like pets?

Danny scrubbed at his eyes with a fist, yawning. "Metal suit, flaming Mohawk, over-inflated ego, lots of out-dated weapons…"

William nodded – he knew the one. However, knowing the ghosts' names did nothing to dismiss his unease… After a handful of heartbeats, it finally clicked. "The Chronicles of Narnia! You got out of bed to hunt ghosts across the town?!" he shouted in his best 'furious educator' voice. Another horrible thought made itself known. "Alone?!"

Danny bolted upright, jolted back into full wakefulness by the man's raised voice. "M-Mr Lancer… I-I-I…" Gulping, Danny clasped trembling hands in his lap. He took a shaky breath. "I only do it when I h-have to," he stammered.

"Sick? In the middle of the night? During the first snow of the year? Daniel, I think that you need to reassess your priorities. As soon as we get out of here, I'm sure your parents will-"

"No!" The tremors had increased, causing Danny's shoulders to shake.

"I beg your pardon?" Lancer's voice was quiet, but held such steel that Danny flinched. Nevertheless, the teen was not backing down.

"Y-you can't tell them."

"I can and I will, young man."

Danny seemed to fold in on himself, pressing a shaking hand over his face. "You don't know how badly that could end," he whispered.

The teacher wasn't giving up so easily. "What exactly could go wrong with your parents knowing what you're up to?"

"Everything!" Danny exploded, glaring at Lancer with eyes that the teacher could swear flashed green for an instant. "Dad could make me join their hunting, and I could slip up! Ghosts could redouble their efforts, and go directly for Mum and Dad instead of trying to fight me first! There's one ghost who's worse than the rest, and if either Mum or Dad find out anything, he'll make my life a living hell! They…" Danny's voice cracked, but he seemed not to notice as a tear slipped down one cheek. "They might figure it all out… We could all be hurt." He sniffed, keeping his gaze on the floor. "Please, they just can't know... Not yet. I'll tell them when I graduate."

His outburst exhausted, the teen slumped his shoulders.

"Mr Fenton-"

"Sorry for shouting," he mumbled, "but it's… just… Let me tell them myself. I'll do it when I graduate this spring."

Lancer gave a heavy sigh, feeling his body relax with the movement. "I'm not going to change your mind about this, am I?"

The young man shook his head stubbornly. "I don't want them fretting," he confessed. "Once I'm free to make my own life decisions without them breathing over my shoulders, I'll tell them everything."

Lancer arched an eyebrow. "Everything?"

Danny nodded miserably. "They deserve to know. Heavens, they've been given enough hints over the years!"

William frowned at the impossible teenager currently huddling in his coat. "You can practise on me if you want," he offered.

"What?" Danny's head shot up, his brows scrunching in confusion until their ends met above his nose. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it must be difficult to think of what to say. When the date's coming close, you can use me as a guinea pig to figure out what you're going to say."

"You'd do that for me?" the teen breathed. He shook himself, blinking rapidly for a moment. "I-I mean, we'll see. Thanks for the offer – it all depends on a bunch of variables, but if circumstances allow, I just might do that."

William Lancer was not an idiot; it was obvious that the boy was still hiding things from him. It's not my business, he reminded himself. I don't need to know everything about the kid.

Danny moved to settle again, sliding his body across the floor until he was curled up on his side, shivering despite the overcoat. A harsh, rattling cough tore from Danny's chest, and Lancer started at the abrasive sound. "Daniel?"

"Mmm?" the boy answered, not bothering to open eyes that had dark smudges beneath them.

"Are you cold?"

"Of course I am," he rasped, tugging the overcoat tighter around himself as if to further prove the point.

"Here." The teacher stripped off his scarf and a jacket, pushing the items through a gap between bars.

"You'll be cold," Danny protested.

Lancer shrugged. "Look at me – I'm wearing three more jumpers. I'll be fine."

"Why are you wearing so many?" Danny asked weakly, wrapping the scarf around his neck with small, brusque movements.

A shrug. "I just hate the cold, especially when it's snowing. I'd prefer to be sweltering in too many layers than chilled in too few."

Danny snorted. "And people consider my wardrobe strange," he mumbled. The final word morphed into a hacking cough that shook his entire frame, and Lancer shifted back a little bit, hoping to reduce the risk of infection.

Danny noticed this, chuckling weakly. "You can't catch this – it's a ghost cold," he reassured the man.

Almost immediately, the teen's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, crap," he breathed.

The teacher stiffened. "Daniel Fenton, the last time I checked, you are not a ghost."

"O-of course not. Sorry, bad joke."

"Which explains why you're coughing up glowing phlegm," Lancer noted, trying for an offhand manner. In reality, his words were as strained as his pupil's.

Danny was shaking again. "Um, Skulker gave it to me."

"How could he give it to you when humans can't be infected?"

Danny flinched at the steel in his teacher's voice. "A-a long time ago, the portal turned on with me inside," he confessed, panic flashing in his wild gaze. "It contaminated me with a bit of ectoplasm – I've got a weak ectosignature and everything. It's doesn't affect me in any other way, but I'm susceptible to ghostly illnesses. In fact, my immune system is boosted – I haven't caught a human sickness since the accident, because the ectoplasm's strong enough to fight practically anything off!"

"You're lying."

"Am not!" Danny insisted. "What other explanation makes sense, when for the past few winters I've caught colds that have had me coughing up phlegm that glows green?"

"Alright, I believe you."

The corridor lapsed into silence, the only sound the distant dull roar of the blizzard.

After a couple of minutes, Lancer had to ask. "Why didn't you lie to me just then? Ectoplasmic contamination isn't something I'd think you'd want people to know about."

"I couldn't think up something convincing," Danny confessed. "I'm an awful liar, and I've got a really fuzzy head from this cold. I spoke before I could think."

"So you were going to lie to me."

Danny sent him an unreadable look. "Can you blame me?"

No, he couldn't.

"So… Why do you hate the cold?"

"Because it's awful."

"I love it," the boy stated. "I want to know why anyone would hate it."

"Do you like your parents' inventions?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Danny asked.

"I'm just trying to make you understand. One of their inventions has caused you lasting pain."

Danny shifted, uncurling slightly so he could get a better look at his teacher. "May I ask what happened?"

Lancer figured that a fair trade was in order, since Danny had shared the truth with him. Well, part of the truth anyway. "It killed my wife and son almost five years ago now."

Danny stiffened, eyes widening. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry about it." Lancer waved a hand dismissively. "We were in a car crash in a blizzard on a lonely rural highway. It was just before Christmas, and we were going to visit my parents. Our daughter was the same age as you are now." He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "We were pushed off the road by a huge gust of wind. Elena died at the scene, and our daughter, Steph, lost the use of her arms and legs thanks to a spinal injury. I had a bunch of broken bones, but the two of us managed to get out of the situation with only minor frostbite thanks to a prompt rescue the next day. Our son, Michael, was twelve years old. H-he decided to sneak out of the car and search for help once we fell asleep – they found his body three days later. Hypothermia had killed him, not a hundred metres from the car.

"Steph and I manage well enough now – she's staying with relatives two towns over this week because one of her cousins is turning twenty-one. I need my phone so that she can call me whenever the snow makes her worry about my wellbeing…"

"And so you can call when you're worried about hers," Danny finished quietly for him when Lancer trailed off.

The teacher nodded slightly. "That's right," he whispered.

"Are you sure you don't want your scarf back?"

The teacher's posture stiffened. "You keep warm, Mr Fenton! I'll not have you get worse thanks to this infernal winter weather."

The lights flickered, buzzed, and went out. The hallway was plunged into darkness, and Lancer gave a squawk of surprise.

"Damned storm," Danny cursed. His outline slowly came into focus, and Lancer breathed out in relief as he realised that the ghost dog, along with the cages themselves, still glowed dimly with an eerie green light.

"What time do you think it is?" Danny whispered.

Lancer shrugged, an involuntary movement as it was practically invisible in such dim light. "I left home at about ten in the morning."

"So early afternoon, then." The rasping statement was followed by yet another bout of coughing. Once this subsided, the only sound coming from Danny was his strained breathing. "What time do you teachers start arriving on Mondays?"

"Most of us are here by seven-thirty."

Danny yawned. "Good – they can call m'parents."

"You're right." The teacher decided to settle. He curled on the floor as best he could, folding around himself like a cat would. "Try to get some rest, Daniel."

The only answer from the cage next to his was a light snore.

Lancer tried to sleep, but found that he couldn't. Even after the storm cleared to reveal a sky sequined with stars, the teacher could do nothing but alternate between staring out the tiny window set high in the wall, and staring at the boy and the ghost dog. Either way, the view became monotonous fairly quickly. Danny stirred once or twice, rousing only long enough to cough violently and take a sip of water from the almost-empty bottle in an effort to soothe an obviously tormented throat.

William figured that it was well after midnight when the boy's pattern of behaviour changed.

Danny was having a nightmare.

The boy thrashed on the floor, his limbs pressing against the bars of the cage as he whimpered.

"Daniel!" Lancer cried, reaching towards the teen. Danny continued to writhe, tears sliding from beneath closed lids.

"D-don't hurt my parents!" he screamed, arching his back as best he could. "Vlad!"

"Daniel, wake up!"

"Please, hurt me instead! Don't kill my dad! Vlad, leave him alone!"

"Daniel Fenton!" Lancer shook the terrified teen's shoulder, and Danny screamed as though mortally wounded.

"Fine, I'll change, I'll change! I'll give you the mid-morph sample, just leave my family alone!"

Lancer was wholly unprepared for what happened next. With a wordless cry and a flash of light that wrapped around the boy in front of him in twin rings, Daniel Fenton was replaced by Danny Phantom.

Lancer pulled back into his own cage as though burned. Danny continued to sob and scream, throwing himself against the bars with a force that was certain to leave substantial bruises. With a particularly violent cry, glowing emerald eyes finally flew open, Danny trying to leap to his feet and bumping his head on the cage's ceiling in the process.

He collapsed back onto the floor, dazed.

Lancer continued to sit perfectly still, shock holding him in place. Danny looked up at the ceiling of the cage, rubbing at his head. He glanced down at his hands next, horror dawning on his softly glowing features as he stared at the pristine white gloves.

Ghostly green eyes snapped up to meet human green ones.

"What…?" The teacher's voice was strained, a slight tremor running through it.

Danny began to tremble. "Damn it," he swore, moving backwards to press against the edge of his cage that was farthest away from Lancer.

"Daniel?!"

For Kikai.

Thanks for reading, guys!