"Jamie," Dani yawned, as she propped herself up on the bench and smiled at him sleepily, her eyes still blinking tiredly. "Good morning."

"It's afternoon," Jamie said, automatically, his eyes wide. "What are you – why are you sleeping on a bench in the middle of winter?"

"Oh." Dani looked down, vaguely, and then glanced up at him sheepishly. "I didn't get to sleep last night. And I got tired."

"But why are you sleeping here?" Jamie demanded. "Aren't you freezing? Why aren't you at home?"

Dani chuckled, uneasily, and drew her eyes away. "The funny thing about that," she said, "is where to go when you're sleepy and don't have a home, you know? The bench seemed as good as any other bench."

"You don't – " Jamie's eyes were wide with disbelief: "You don't have a home?"

Dani shrugged, and laughed again nervously. She knew she should have found a better hiding place. It wasn't like she disliked Jamie – she'd had loads of fun with him yesterday – but she also knew how people reacted to a homeless kid. She was not planning to be put into foster care, or anything like that. Not a chance.

Even though it would be really easy for her to escape.

Jamie sat down next to her. "You have to tell me everything," he said, firmly.

"Hey, I'm just a homeless kid. I drift around from place to place, I steal every now and then if I don't have any money, and when I can, I find a way to earn cash." Dani grinned weakly, spread her hands before her. "What else do you need to know?"

"Why do you not have a home?" Jamie demanded. "Parents, family, friends?"

Something tugged at Dani's heart, and at the way he was looking at her, looking so concerned and so worried. "I ran away from my dad," she admitted. "I couldn't go back to him. And I don't have a mum, or any other relatives. I mean, I have friends, but I'd rather travel, you know? It's more fun."

She beamed at him.

"Fun?" Jamie echoed, still staring at her. "Fun?"

"I know, people think I'm crazy," Dani said. "But it's not that bad a way to live."

She was looking at him with wide, bright eyes, and in that moment Jamie could see that she was okay with living this way – on the road, without a roof over her head, and nowhere to call home.

"You can't stay here," said Jamie.

"I'm not planning to," Dani grinned at him, and she laughed and leaned back on the bench.

And Jamie couldn't help but think that her grin was maybe kind of cute.

"You can stay with me," Jamie offered; and then he flushed red. "I mean, not with me. I mean, kind of with me. In my house. With my mum and my sister Sophie."

Dani just stared at him in shock.

"Wait, what?"

Nobody offered her a place to stay. Ever. After all, she was a homeless kid off the streets – and as far as she knew, people almost always associated homeless kids with bad news, especially if she were an eleven-year-old on the streets alone. Sure, there were always the people who wanted to bring her to social services, but she always escaped.

But hardly anyone offered her a place to stay before. Maybe a lift, but that was about it. Not a place to stay.

Jamie seemed to notice her hesitation.

"I mean, I know it might be weird, but we've got the space," he said. "And you can't stay out here on your own! It's not safe. Plus, you'll freeze."

Dani almost let out a giggle at that. Not safe. Freeze.

But Jamie was looking at her so earnestly that Dani almost subconsciously found herself scratching the back of her head.

She could accept. If Jamie's mum was as nice as he was, then she wouldn't mind. A real bed, or a couch, or anything, seemed like a good alternative to sleeping on a bench in the park or staying up the night. And food. Good, warm food would be amazing. Besides, if Jamie's mum tried to do anything like call up social services to get her to foster care or something, she could always just run off, the same way she always did.

Dani tilted her head as she looked at him.

"Okay," she said, finally.

Mrs Bennett, to Dani's relief, hadn't said a thing about social services.

But she didn't let her guard down just yet. Mrs Bennett could think that the first night a homeless girl was sleeping in her house wasn't the best time to approach the topic of foster care. And, to be fair, Mrs Bennett had been wonderful. She'd accepted Jamie's explanation of Dani, and Dani had met Sophie – a cute blond girl who had giggled and just stared hard at Dani's eyes and repeated the word "Blue".

Cute kid.

Dani supposed, that if she were a normal eleven-year-old girl, she'd be all over Sophie. Unfortunately, she had the genes of a fourteen-year-old boy.

So while it was undeniable that Sophie was pretty adorable, she wasn't too keen when Sophie proceeded to drape herself all over the halfa.

Thankfully, Mrs Bennett had gotten Sophie to bed, and had showed Dani the guest room where she could sleep for the night. It was a pretty nice room – kind of small, to be sure, but it was warm and the bed was comfortable. Much better than anywhere she'd been sleeping for a long, long time.

Dani stared up at the moon from the window of the guest room she'd been given.

The moon.

She thought of Jack Frost, from the night before. He was, certainly, without a doubt, ridiculously nice. And he'd been very easy to talk to. She'd never really known that spirits existed – though she supposed she should've guessed. After all, if ghosts existed, there were sure to be plenty of strange things in the world.

And Santa Claus! And the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman!

Sometimes, Dani wished she really did have a proper childhood.

He could be around somewhere outside, a voice inside her head said.

Jack Frost. It'd be nice to see him again.

There was a knock on the door, and Jamie stuck his head in. "Dani?"

"Yeah?" She twisted her head away from the window.

He grinned at her, almost shyly. "Do you wanna play video games or something?"

Jamie almost regretted asking her to play video games with him. Almost.

She was literally pounding him and sending the figures onscreen running back crying. There was a glint in her eyes as she jumped up on the beanbag, punching her fist into the air as the words GAME OVER flashed on the screen for what must've been the tenth time in half an hour.

"You slaughtered me again," Jamie said, somewhat in awe, as he lowered his video game controller. "How did you do that?"

Dani just grinned and laughed as she bounced back down onto the beanbag. "It's a secret," she told him, her eyes glinting. "You wanna go another round?"

"You'll just kill me again," Jamie mourned.

"I'll go easy on you!"

"Then that's no fair!"

"I could kick your butt at it again," Dani suggested, grinning.

Jamie threw a pillow at her head.

She responded by grabbing it and whacking it down on his arm.

When Mrs Bennett checked in on them some ten minutes later, it was to discover Jamie chasing Dani around the room as the two children laughed, batting at each other with pillows as Dani leapt over a chair and skidded to a halt in a corner by the window.

Mrs Bennett leaned against the doorway and smiled.

"Gotcha!" came the cry from her son, but no sooner was it out of his mouth than did Dani duck under his arm, and end up behind him, hitting him over the head with her own pillow.

"Gotcha," she said, grinning cheekily, until Jamie turned around and tackled her. They ended up rolling on the floor, laughing, Dani trying to squirm out of his grasp, until they came to a stop by one of the beanbags.

"Well, it looks like you two are having fun," Mrs Bennett said, amused.

Jamie grinned, straightened himself up. "Hey, Mum."

"Hey to you too."

"Hi, Mrs Bennett," Dani chirped as she pushed herself upright and promptly pushed Jamie off the beanbag.

Mrs Bennett couldn't help but beam at the dark-haired girl. Homeless though she was, there was something about Dani that made you trust her and want to take care of her.

"It's time for bed, kids," she said, pointedly.

"Right. I'd better go back to the guest room – "

"You could stay in my room!"

Mrs Bennett blinked at that. So did Dani.

Jamie turned to smile at his mother pleadingly: "Please? We can just get the mattress out from the guest room! It'd be fun! We won't stay up too late, I promise!"

"Well – " Mrs Bennett hesitated, and then she caught sight of the look on Dani's face. It was incredulous, and she looked – touched. Like no one had offered anything like that before.

Mrs Bennett softened. "All right, then."

"Yes!" Jamie cheered. "C'mon, Dani, I'll help you move the mattress in – "

When Jack landed on the window that opened into Jamie's room, he blinked and stopped short.

Jamie was there, all right. He was awake, which was not surprising at all, even though it was nearly ten thirty. No, what was surprising was that there was a scrawny girl on a mattress on the floor at the foot of his bed, and they were talking animatedly, excitedly.

He pushed open the window, gently.

It wasn't Jamie's head who shot up first. It was hers. And when she saw him, she beamed at him brightly.

Well, that was certainly a change from yesterday.

"Jack!" Jamie grinned at him. "You remember Dani, right?"

"Course I do. Kid, you make even me look like I suck at snowball fights." Jack raised his eyebrows and smiled at her, sinking onto the edge of Jamie's desk.

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Maybe you actually do suck."

"Are you kidding me? I'm Jack Frost. I practically invented snowball fights." He sent a snowflake her way, icy blue and cold, and watched her eyes widen as it drifted over to her: "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Jamie glanced over at Dani, who was still staring at the snowflake, a smile spreading over her face.

"She's homeless," Jamie said. "So I offered her a place to stay."

Jack frowned, sat up straighter. "Homeless?"

"You know," she said. "No home to call my own?"

"But – you're a kid!"

She rolled her eyes, her attention now drawn away from the snowflake. "Thanks, Jack, I kind of realised that." She seemed, he realised, much more comfortable around him than she'd been the previous day. "It's fun, you know. I travel a lot."

"Bet you haven't travelled more than me."

"That's cos you fly around the world!" The smile on her face looked a little strange now, a kind of amused smile that almost put him on edge because it was an I know something you don't smile. "I just travel."

"She's awesome at video games," Jamie told Jack.

"That's because I'm awesome at everything," Dani said, automatically.

"Someone's very modest," Jack grinned.

"Someone's very honest," she corrected.

Jack just laughed, shook his head. "Sure." He settled back down onto the desk again: "Hey, you ever been to a place called Amity Park?"

"Amity Park?" she repeated.

Jamie wrinkled his nose: "What's Amity Park?"

"It's supposed to be the most haunted town in the US," she told Jamie, and then she turned back to Jack: "Why do you ask?"

"I met a ghost last night," he shrugged. "Dani Phantom. Like your name."

"Ah." Dani nodded, and a grin broke out on her face. "Don't you think she's really cool?"

"I was kind of looking for her tonight," Jack admitted, and he turned to Jamie: "You'd like her."

"A ghost?" was all Jamie could say. "Ghosts are real?"

He stared at the both of them in disbelief.

"I'm real," Jack reminded him, chuckling.

Dani laughed, slid to the edge of her mattress and smiled up at Jamie. "There are loads of ghosts," she told him. "But the most famous one of all is Danny Phantom, the ghost hero of Amity Park."

"You've met him?" Jack asked.

"A few times," said Dani, and there was that strange smile on her face again. "He's a really amazing guy. You know, there's this one ghost who keeps trying to be evil but I swear he's so bad at it, he's called the Box Ghost, and – "

When Mrs Bennett opened the door the next morning, it was to find both kids snoring away on their mattresses peacefully, and it took nearly fifteen minutes for her to get her son up.

"What happened to that promise of not staying up late?" she whispered to him as he blinked his eyes open sleepily.

"It wasn't that late," he muttered, groggily.

Mrs Bennett only smiled and shook her head.

hey, guys. thanks for the reviews! it was really hard to try and actually get this chapter done, and i hope you guys aren't disappointed with how it turned out. i really wasn't sure what to write or how to write it best - i kept redoing it!

anyway, don't worry my friends. all questions about what shall happen and whether Danny shall appear and etc...shall be answered in the story. heh.

so...any comments? haha