Totally an impulsive piece of work here. This is the result of finally reading the Blood of Olympus (yes, there are spoilers. kind of.) and re-discovering one of my old favourite cartoon shows on YouTube.

So...have fun reading, I guess?

note: Phantom Planet never happened. Jazz is away at college. Danny is sixteen. Rachel is sixteen too. YAY!

(yes I know I have like a million and one things to update and many fluffy oneshots to write but...oh, well. heh.)

"Rachel, I need help."

Rachel Elizabeth Dare looked at the son of Hades, sitting across her. She blinked.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine," Nico said, irritably. "It's just that – this is something I would rather pass on to someone I trust. And with the demigods all having just gone through the Giant War – I mean, I know you were there too, but you didn't go through the same things as them. I thought you could help."

Rachel's face softened. She liked the son of Hades, even though she hardly interacted with him. He wasn't a bad kid, if a little moody. But he'd been getting better. She was seeing him with Will Solace all the time now, after her return from Camp Jupiter, where she'd been trying to figure out the Sibylline Books that Ella had memorised.

"What do you need?" she asked.

Nico shifted. "My dad has lots of problems with this town," he admitted. "It's called Amity Park, and it's – "

"The most haunted town in America!" Rachel snapped her fingers, and a smile was lighting up her face.

"You know it?"

"Know it? My mum's got some sister or cousin or friend or something staying there! Um, she doesn't like to talk much about her, but apparently her name's Maddie Fenton and she's a ghost hunter."

"Yeah, well," Nico grumbled. "All the ghosts there are causing serious backlog. So much paperwork. I'm telling you, it's no fun dealing with all that paperwork."

"So…what is it you want me to do, exactly?"

"You're mortal," said Nico, bluntly. "And I know you've got nothing to do the whole summer except work on weird art projects and hang around Camp Half-Blood. Demigods would attract the ghosts and monsters in Amity Park just as strongly, so it's, you know, preferable not to send them. Plus, with all your money, I thought you could go spend a month there or something. Help me check out the ghosts and stuff."

Rachel looked at him.

"Okay," he admitted. "I know the voice of Delphi is still extinguished, and I know it's on your mind, so I thought it might be a distraction of sorts. And I would go to Reyna to do this, if I could, but she's so absorbed in her duties as praetor, and did you know – she got a boyfriend? She met him on some quest in Jump City. One of the Teen Titans. So, you know, they need to spend time together, and all that. And besides, I trust you. And I thought that it would be good for you to get some time away from – " Nico hesitated. "From everything."

Rachel felt a rush of affection for the young teenager sitting in front of her. People could say what they liked about Nico (even though hardly anyone said anything bad about him anymore), but she really, truly liked the kid. He – he understood.

"What would be my cover?" she asked. "I can't just go in there for, like, no reason at all, can I?"

He looked up at her, and slowly smiled. "You're okay with this?"

"Are you kidding me? A summer free from my parents, and dealing with Chiron and the Stoll brothers and everything? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Camp Half-Blood and the people, and Camp Jupiter's great too, but it'll be nice to get away for a while, you know?"

There was no doubt about it, he was definitely smiling.

"There's some huge art exhibition going on in Amity Park this summer," he said. "Something like 'for teens, by teens'? I thought that would be okay. You can go in, and help, and stuff."

"Sounds fantastic," said Rachel. "I'll give Aunt Maddie a call."

"Lucky you've got relatives there."

"Definitely," agreed Rachel. "Not like it would be a problem to find somewhere to stay, but it's always more fun to stay with relatives. Especially if they're ghost hunters. What do you need me to do for your ghost issue, anyway?"

Nico shrugged. "Just keep an eye out. Keep track of the ghosts you run into, how they get in and out, and stuff like that. I'll deal with the rest."

"Works for me," said Rachel. "Oh, wow. Going to the most haunted town in the whole of America? This is gonna be great."

Nico smiled at her, a small smile.

"Thanks, Rachel."

"Rachel? Who's Rachel?"

"Oh, Danny." Maddie shook her head. "I told you before, honey! She's one of my old friend's daughters!"

"Since when do we have an old family friend called the Dares?" Danny demanded, standing in the kitchen with his arms crossed.

At that, Maddie's face dropped slightly.

"Well, her mother and I fell out years ago," she admitted. "We didn't agree on each other's marriages, you see. But we made it up in the end. We just don't talk very much. But Rachel's a lovely girl, I'm sure. She's coming to Amity Park for the art exhibition your school's having this year over the summer! She's supposed to be an artist."

"And I'm sure she's going to love learning all about the ghosts and everything I'm going to teach her!" Jack declared.

"She did express an interest in the ghosts here," said Maddie.

"Oh, man," said Danny. "The poor girl."

Thankfully, his parents didn't hear him.

Danny was not happy at having some random, unknown girl coming over for the summer. It was bad enough trying to get out of the house half the time with his parents around – it hadn't gotten much easier with Jazz going to college, and no one to cover for him – but with some random girl from New York? Here? In his house?

This was going to be great.

At least his parents hadn't made him clean up his room, and she'd be taking Jazz's empty room instead.

And then the doorbell rang.

"Danny! She's here!"

Grumbling to himself, Danny made his way down the stairs.

It hadn't taken long to convince her parents to let her go to Amity Park. Her father had simply grunted his agreement, and her mother hadn't said anything.

She had, however, pulled Rachel aside just before she left.

"Let me know how Maddie is doing," she told her daughter. "I haven't – it feels like I haven't spoken to her in years."

There was something in her mother's eyes that made Rachel say, simply, "Okay."

And here she was.

She waved to Jules-Albert as he drove away. She was perfectly capable of driving herself, but Nico had offered the French zombie to chauffeur her, and she appreciated the gesture.

She turned back around and gazed up at the massive sign that read FENTON WORKS, as she waited for someone to come to the door. She'd tossed some of her things inside a paint-splatted suitcase, and idly she began poking a hole in her jeans as she waited.

And then the door slammed open.

"You must be Rachel!"

She was aware of a large, massive man in an orange jumpsuit, grinning at her and shaking her hand up and down excitedly like a little kid.

"If you're here to learn about ghosts," he said, "you've come to the right place!"

"Oh, Jack, dear!"

And now another figure appeared; a slim woman, in a different-coloured jumpsuit, the hood pulled back to reveal short brown hair and gentle purple eyes that held warmth. "I'm Maddie, dear."

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare," she said. "Thanks so much for letting me stay with you, you know, I heard about this exhibition and it sounded great for me to take part in over the summer, the city gets kind of boring, you know, and plus I heard this was the most haunted town in the US so I thought it'd be really cool – "

"And it'll be even cooler once you know how to kill all the ghosts here! Our inventions will show you the best way to rip a ghost apart molecule by molecule and send it right back into – "

"Jack," said Maddie. "Let the girl come in."

"Right you are, Maddie!"

Rachel bounced over the doorstep and into the house. Despite its extreme exterior, it looked rather normal on the inside.

And then there was a clattering on the stairs, and Rachel's head shot up as a skinny, black-haired boy with bright blue eyes tumbled down onto the ground in front of her.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked, instantly.

"Oh, yeah, I'm good, I'm good," the boy said, scrambling to his feet and grinning at her. "Sorry about that. I'm a total klutz."

"Think I could tell," Rachel laughed. She held out a hand. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

"That's a mouthful," the boy said, and took her hand. "I'm Danny Fenton."