(Un)natural Consequences
A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori

Within days of the accident, Danny knew something was wrong with him… more wrong than just the obvious ghost-thing. It took him weeks to understand what – and much longer to get to the why. Eventually he realized that super-gluing the instinctive knowledge of the dead into his living brain left some rather undesirable consequences.

The ghosts' complete oral and written language competed in Danny's head for dominance with English. Words danced around on the page as he tried to read, and his handwriting drifted awkwardly between English and ghost. Anything less than full concentration on his English assignments made them an exercise in frustration, but that sort of focus gave him severe migraines. And with the ghost world's unique physical and mathematical properties imprinted into Danny's mind, human-based math class quickly became a nearly impossible headache.

Danny's grades had always hovered in the As and Bs. After the accident, they drifted to Cs, then to Ds. His math grade tumbled to an F and refused to move. No matter how much his teachers sighed, his parents' harped, or how long he sat around and picked at his homework, Danny's grades stayed low.

Too many distracting ghost attacks. Not enough time. And, after several months of trying his hardest – seriously! – Danny started to realize that all this work was somewhat hopeless. He'd literally fried his brain; it didn't work right anymore. Only his continued 'borrowing' of Sam's assignments (or Tucker's when absolutely necessary) kept his grades in the passing column.

Ninth grade finished with a whimper and his parents fostered him into a 'summer educational program.' It didn't go much better than school had, and left Danny with a bad taste in his mouth. He started to hate anything that had to do with reading, writing, or math. At the end of the weeks-long program, Danny's parents went in for a meeting with the tutor. They talked for hours, leaving Danny sitting on a hard chair in the lobby, lazily tossing one of the children's toys from hand to hand.

Afterwards, Danny didn't realize anything had changed. The tutoring was over; Danny was pleased and made excellent use of what remained of his summer. His life drifted slowly from friends to sleep to ghosts and back to friends. He didn't notice his parents asking him to 'come read this' more often, or the math problems his father would con Danny into 'helping' solve, or that his mother suddenly seemed incapable of writing down instructions on her own.

He did notice the looks they gave him when he stumbled through reading something, or when his scribbled down instructions were only half in English, or when two plus two didn't make four. But school started before Danny had much more than a glimmer of unease about it. Tenth grade began on a bad note (he was in low math class with none other than Dash Baxter for his first period), and Danny had zero illusions that it would get any better. With the exception of a social studies class with Tucker and his phy ed rotation with Sam, he was without his best friends.

Several weeks into school, Danny's mother plopped a bowl of spaghetti down in front of him for supper and informed him that she'd gotten a letter letting them know Danny would be getting pulled out of a few classes for some 'tests'. Danny had been suspicious and curious, but his mother had smoothed it over with a shrug and a 'just do it, Sweetie. I signed the form.'

True to form, he got yanked from class a total of six times over the next few weeks. Each time, a smiling teacher named Mrs. Marez set him down in a quiet room and had him run through all sorts of random things. Most of the tests were easy – find the objects, put these in order, find the pattern, read this as quick as you can, do this problem, do that. Sometimes Mrs. Marez handed him something that wasn't even a test, just a questionnaire about his life and what he wanted to do when he grew up. At the end of each session, the teacher snuck him a piece of candy and sent him back to class without really explaining the what fors and how you dids.

It was after Thanksgiving when Danny's parents drove him to school for a surprise parent-teacher meeting. Danny, knowing his grades were in the toilet and he was late on several big projects, squirmed uncomfortably in his seat the entire way to school and tried to come up with several new excuses other than truthful 'the Portal fried my brain'. But when the secretary ushered them into the conference room, it wasn't his scowling teachers there to meet them. It was Mrs. Marez.

She gestured them into seats with that big smile of hers and passed around stacks of papers. Danny snagged a copy – curious – and paged through it. Words swam under his eyes and he didn't bother to read most of it. All the paperwork appeared to be about him. The scores from all those tests the teacher had give him. Danny sat up a bit, interested.

"As you know, Danny's been taking some tests with me," the teacher was saying to his parents. "We're just here to go over the results, and for me to give you some options for moving forwards. We won't be making any sort of decisions today to give all this some time to sink in."

Danny's mother was sitting up perfectly straight, peering down at the paperwork with her bottom lip wormed nervously between her teeth. His father was slouched backwards, trying (and failing) to affect nonchalance.

The teacher, taking the silence for acceptance, moved on with her spiel after a smile in Danny's direction. "We had some concerns about Danny's grades and his academic progress after the accident last year, and we started this testing after you brought them to our attention in September. He's obviously been struggling-"

Danny tensed. He'd known the school knew about the accident since he'd been pulled from class for several days, but he hadn't realized the testing was about that. Or that they'd been worried that his drop in grades was connected to the accident in some way.

"-and we're trying to understand why and what we can do to help him." The teacher leaned forwards, flipping Danny's copy of the test results to the second page and using it as a reference for his parents to follow along. "There's lots of good things in here, and the full test results are in here for you to peruse at your leisure. We're going to start by going over the summary on the second page. You can see that one of the first tests Danny did for me was an IQ test, just to see how smart he was."

Although tensed and worried about this whole thing, he sat forwards. He'd always wondered what his IQ was. Fortunately, the teacher's finger was pointing to the numbers and all Danny had to do was translate them in his brain.

"He got a 119, which is high. A normal IQ would be a 100. He almost qualifies for the gifted program with an IQ that high."

Danny barely fought back a grin. There it was: proof he wasn't stupid. Mrs. Marez caught his gaze and smiled with a subtle wink. He wondered what Jazz's IQ score would be if she got tested.

"So we use that number as a base for the rest of his scores. On the different categories, he should be scoring in the 110-130 range." Her finger trailed down the table of numbers. Danny shot a glance at his parents, noting that both of them were closely staring at the paperwork too. "You can see that in tasks like memory, storage, and retrieval, Danny scores in the 120s, which tells us that he's got an excellent memory."

"No more forgetting to do your chores," Danny's dad cut in. "We now have proof you don't really 'forget'."

Danny winced and glanced down at his fingers.

"You can also see that his oral skills are all very high. Danny learns really well by listening and speaking. What I want you to see, though, is his reading, writing, and math scores."

Extremely nervous, Danny looked at the numbers the teacher was indicating. His stomach dropped.

"They're… low." The teacher hesitated between the words. "After seeing these sorts of results, we did some other tests that tried to pinpoint what the problem was. From what we can tell," she paused and glanced at Danny with an arched eyebrow, "he has a language processing problem that falls somewhat in line with dyslexia. Dyslexia would be a medical diagnosis and I'm not in any way qualified to tell you he has that; all I'm just saying is that these test results are in line with someone who has that problem."

Danny threw the word dyslexia around in his brain for a moment. "What is that?" he finally asked. He'd heard it before, but didn't really understand what it meant.

The teacher smiled. "It's a processing problem. The wires in your brain get scrambled when you're trying to read and write. Some people say it's like the words move around on the page, or the letters change shapes on their own, and make it difficult to figure out what the words are. Sound kinda right?"

Feeling startled that she had so accurately pinpointed his problem, Danny hesitantly nodded. He caught the terse smile on his mother's face with that admission. The teacher grinned at Danny, tipping her head slightly as she explained it to him.

"I'm not a medical doctor, but it's pretty common for someone who got hurt like you did to have some problems like this. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it doesn't. It's not so important that you have the problem; what's important is that we know what it is, and we can help make it better. There are special programs-"

Danny understood what that meant instantly. Special programs. He knew several students in those 'programs.' As Danny felt the ground under him open up to swallow him whole, his mother cut in. Her body was tense and her tone was terse. "I don't want Danny pulled out of his normal classes. He's not stupid."

The teacher nodded and smiled. "I don't want him pulled out either. Most of those pullout classes wouldn't be a good fit for him anyways. But there are many programs we offer that Danny would benefit from that don't involve him being removed from his current courses. Also, remember that we're not here to make decisions today, just to discuss options. I'm just mentioning options for the future."

His mother relaxed slightly, but Danny still found himself staring at the papers in front of him.

"Danny's not, in any way, mentally incapable," Mrs. Marez continued. "If nothing else, the tests show how smart he is. All this is telling us is that Danny's brain works a little differently from yours and mine." Her gaze travelled slowly over the group. "It's not bad, or wrong – it just is. And that's okay. What we just need to figure out how to work with this, rather than just try to stamp him out with the same cookie-cutter mold we use for most of the other students. As you've noticed, leaving him alone isn't working well."

Danny squirmed a little on his chair and looked away from his parents.

The rest of the meeting dragged on, filled with questions from his mother, silence from his father and a warm had resting on Danny's shoulder, and the shuffling of paperwork. A few things were signed and Danny was excused back to class with a pass in his hand and a hole worked into his stomach.

He wasn't stupid. He didn't need a special program. He'd spent all the years of his life up until the accident doing just fine in school; he could figure out how to handle this without that kind of help.

Third period English class was a test. Danny groaned as he dropped into his chair – his mind was still reeling from the meeting this morning and there was no way he could focus on one of Lancer's essay exams. Just thinking about taking the test started the pinpricks of a migraine. He'd read the book. Well, he'd listening to an audio version he'd found online, anyways. He'd listened in class. He knew the information on his book. But he had zero confidence in being able to pass the actual written test. Not today, anyways. With all the stress from this morning, he'd be lucky if one word in three came out in English.

The test was plopped onto his desk and he paged through it dismally. Four pages. Sixteen long-form answers. Barely holding back his moan, Danny put his head down on his desk. It took several minutes of listening to the scritch of pencils on paper and looks from his teacher before he picked his head up and poked at the first answer. It was frustrating as hell. Fully ten minutes into class and he hadn't managed more than two sentences on the first question. At this rate, he'd be on question three when the bell rang.

A presence at his side made Danny flinch and look up. The classroom aide was crouching next to him. The man grinned slightly and cocked his head towards the door and whispered, "Come a second." When Danny tensed and started to dig in his heels, the man continued. "You look like you're about to punch someone. Come take a short break with me. I promise it'll help."

Although he wasn't sure he really need a break insomuch as he needed to rip up this English test and tell Lancer where to stuff it, Danny scowled and got to his feet. The aide swiped his test off the desk and followed him out in the hallway, dropping down into a crouch next to the door and gesturing at the floor next to him. Danny slumped down, crossing his arms.

"What's wrong with the world today?"

Danny scowled at him. "Nothing."

"Yes," the man drawled. "You're normal, happy Danny Fenton today." He nudged Danny's arm gently with an elbow. "I'm convinced. You have such awesome acting skills."

"I don't want to talk about it," Danny sighed. He shot a glance at the man – Mr. Elric, if Danny remembered right. Short-cropped red-dyed hair, a bristly start to a beard on his face, and skin just a few shades darker than Tucker's.

The man stretched out a leg. "A'ight. I don't pry." He grinned. "I just continually look for excuses to get out of that man's classroom. You presented a great one today."

Danny couldn't quite help the snort. Lancer was one of the more boring teachers.

"I do, however, get paid to do something English related." The man rolled his eyes. "So help me out here and keep up some sort of dismal English-based conversation whilst I waste your time and give you an excuse to take this test on a different day."

Danny's mind pricked up at the thought of not having to take that test today. "Deal," he said with a small grin.

The next half hour was filled with talk of, of all things, the book Lancer was currently giving a test on. Danny answered the man's questions relatively easily, since he actually knew the material for once. Danny figured the aide thought he was helping Danny study.

What he wasn't expecting, towards the end of the hour, for the man to pull out a pen and Danny's test and scribble a bunch of words on it. Mr. Elric held it out to him with a quirked eyebrow. Danny slowly took the test back and glanced at it. The red marks were everywhere, telling things he'd struggled on and things he'd done well with. The total points were even added up at the top for a grade of a B+.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Your test," the man answered with a shrug. "You answered all the questions."

"But I…" Danny hesitated. "I didn't actually take the test. I was just talking to you."

"And I was asking you the questions off the test." The man smiled.

Danny shuffled the papers around again, confused and uncertain. "I… that's not how it works…"

Mr. Elric hummed. "Was Lancer testing you on your ability to write?" He waited for Danny to shake his head before continuing. "He was testing you on whether or not you knew the answers to the questions. You knew them." One shoulder came up. "Well, you knew most of them, anyways."

"I…" Danny sat there, staring down at his test in bewilderment. While the man's comment had made sense – that's not how school worked. You didn't take a test by talking. And certainly not with the classroom aide in the hallway. There was no way this was okay.

"How about this," the man said. "You bring the test up to Lancer at the end of the hour and see what he says." With a gentle pat on Danny's shoulder, Mr. Elric got to his feet and vanished back into the classroom. Danny stayed out in the hallway until the bell was just about to ring, staring at the test, still confused as to whether or not this was okay.

He brushed past grumbling students as they brought their tests up to the front, waiting until the bell had rung and the classroom was emptying out before sidling up to the old teacher. He held out his test, mouth open and ready to give an explanation about how this wasn't his idea, when Lancer took the test, glanced over it, and simply told him, "Good job," before slotting the test in with the others.

Danny stood still, finding this absolutely bizarre. "But I didn't actually take the test," he finally sputtered.

"You answered the questions," Lancer said, piling the papers into his case. "That's what I wanted to know."

Finally finding words to express the confusion in his chest, Danny managed a distressed, "But it's not fair."

Lancer paused. "What's not fair?"

"I didn't take it," Danny pressed. "I just talked to Mr. Elric in the hallway. Nobody else got to do that. Everybody else had to write everything down."

Students for the next period were starting to file into the room, followed by the teacher that would be using the room. Lancer pressed his lips together, then let out a breath and said, "I have a break right now. Come to my office and let's chat."

Very willing to skip out of his social studies class for awhile, Danny trailed the teacher without complaint. He dropped into the chair opposite Lancer's desk in his office.

The man organized some of his supplies before settling into the teacher chair and steepling his fingers. "I am aware of the meeting you had this morning."

Danny tensed. "So?"

"So," Lancer said after a moment, "I'm also aware of the results of that meeting." The man pressed his lips together, obviously searching for how to say what he wanted to say. "Let's look at it like this, Mr. Fenton. Take the other students in the room. What did they have to struggle to do last hour?"

"Take a test," Danny said slowly, not understanding where this was going.

"And what would you have had to struggle to take that same test?"

Danny's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "I don't understand."

Lancer nodded. "You would have had to struggle to take that test too. But you would have also had to struggle to read the questions and write the answers down. So everybody else had to focus on doing one thing last hour, and you would have to do three."

Danny glanced down at his shoes, a bit disconcerted when Lancer put it like that.

"Is that fair? To make them take one test, and you kind of having to take three at the same time?"

It took a second, but Danny eventually shook his head. "I'm not stupid-"

"I'm not saying you are," Lancer cut in with a sharp tone. "Anyone who's been around you for more than a few hours wouldn't dream of calling you stupid."

Danny ducked his head.

"But you do struggle with some things, especially after last year."

Danny's arms crept over his chest. After a year of keeping his problems to himself and thinking he was keeping his secret so well, it was very stressful to know that everybody else had seen right through it all.

"I don't teach a class on how to write. I don't teach a class on how to read. I teach a course on literature." Lancer leaned forwards over his desk. "I care that you understood the work, not whether or not you can write the answers on the page."

Danny was very quiet.

"If you really want to retake the test, you can," the man said. "But you've more than demonstrated that you know the material."

Danny had half a mind to take the teacher's offer to retake the test. He wasn't stupid. He could take the test just like everyone else. Of course, he'd get a crappy grade. Certainly not a B+, even with risking some serious migraines.

He was just fine on his own. He didn't need help. If he could handle the ghosts and the powers, he could certainly handle this too.

Lancer must have read something in his expression. "I'm not trying to make class easier for you than everyone else. I'm just trying to make it fair. You have a lot going on in your life, I just thought I'd try to take one thing off your plate."

Danny stared at the stack of tests for a long few seconds. It was a nice thought on Lancer's part. He'd been having a rough day – and the ghosts hadn't even bothered to show up yet – and it would be very nice to be done with the test, especially with a grade like that. And Lancer did have something of a point about the tests not being completely fair when he had to work so much harder at writing the answers down. Danny had thought so himself on multiple occasions, but had never put it into words. "I stick with this grade," Danny ventured finally.

Lancer's mouth crept into a smile. "So you know, if you want, if you're ever having another bad day, you can feel free to do it again. An oral test. With either me or Mr. Elric."

Danny shot a startled glance at the teacher. "Okay," he said, pretty sure he wouldn't take the man up on the offer. He didn't really need the help. Today was just different, because of the meeting this morning.

A pass was pushed across the table. "Get to class. Oh, wait…"

Danny snagged the pass and stood still, watching the teacher dig through the mess on his desk a second.

The man held out a CD. "An audio file of the book we'll be doing next. I expect the CD back when we're done with the unit."

Danny's mouth dropped open. How had the teacher known Danny had listened to the book instead of read it? He hesitantly took the offered CD with a, "Thanks."

"Scat." Lancer wiggled fingers at him, shooing Danny from the room.

After reporting to his friends at lunch his grade on his English test, Danny felt the first small trickle of pride. He had worked hard to learn that book. And really, fair was fair. He'd answered the same questions everybody else had. Maybe even harder ones, since the aide had pressed him for details and connections Danny would have never thought to write onto his test. Sam's excited grin had made the last of the uneasy prickles wash away.

It was several days later, a Friday, when he once again got pulled out of his first period math class with a pass from the office. He slunk into Mrs. Marez's office with a confused smile. "I have to take another test?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No. I just want to chat with you for a few minutes. I'm sure you don't mind missing a bit of math."

Unable to refute that comment, Danny dropped into the offered seat. He'd be fine if this meeting lasted the remainder of the period.

"I just wanted to touch base with you about the meeting we had." She smiled at him, pleasant and open. "I know those meetings can be really uncomfortable, and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

He shrugged. "I'm fine," he said. The teacher just watched him for a long second, so Danny continued into the silence. "I mean, you weren't wrong. I… don't read and write or do math really well." He dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet. "And it's probably because of the accident I got into."

"You're a smart kid."

Lost at the apparent non sequitur, Danny looked up at her. She was leaning back in her chair, watching him.

"Maybe you're not as academically smart as your sister – and that's perfectly fine. Between you and me, I think she needs help with that valedictorian fixation of hers." The teacher winked and Danny grinned. "But you're smart. You're used to solving your own problems. You're used to not asking for help. You're self-reliant."

With nothing to say to that pretty apt description of himself, Danny just nodded.

"I bet it's really a struggle to admit you're not as good at something and that, maybe just a little bit, you could use a touch of help here and there."

Honestly, Danny thought he'd been getting better at the 'asking for help' thing since the accident. He felt like he was constantly hanging on Sam, Tucker, and Jazz to keep himself afloat.

"So, after a couple days to think it through… what do you think?" She blinked at him, tipping her head to the side. "About maybe getting a little bit of help with the reading and the writing and the math thing."

Still unable to picture 'help' as anything other than the special classes the dumb kids got stuck into, Danny wrinkled his nose.

"I heard you got a good grade on your English test," she said, another strange tangent to the conversation. When Danny slowly nodded and waited for her to piece the dots together, she added, "You know that oral tests like that… that's a kind of 'little bit of help'. How would you feel about having the option of doing oral tests in your other classes? Like social, or science?"

Danny thought about that for a long second before speaking. "I could do that?" There was something sort of alluring in that thought. As much as he hated Lancer's essay tests with a passion, the other tests in his other classes ranked pretty low as well.

Mrs. Marez nodded. "I think you told me one of your biggest headaches was homework. We could get you a 'little bit of help' there too."

"How?" As much as Danny didn't necessarily want or need help – because he wasn't stupid – he was interested in what she had to say.

"Let's say Faluca hands out forty math questions for homework, and it takes the other students twenty minutes to do them. How long do you think it'd take you?"

Danny wormed his lip between his teeth. When he had done math problems with Sam and Tucker last year, he generally gotten one done for every three they did. So that twenty-minute assignment would probably take him an hour – or more, depending on the ghosts.

"Well, one option I could give you would be timed homework. When Faluca hands out his math questions, he tells you how long it should take. You start a timer when you start your homework, and you get to be done when the timer goes off." She arched an eyebrow when Danny opened his mouth with the obvious issue with that and stopped him from speaking. "And you hand in your partially completed assignment for full credit."

Danny's jaw snapped shut. That sounded… appealing. Not that he needed the help, and not that Faluca would allow him to do something like that.

"Or perhaps we could simply switch up your study periods. Instead of you sitting in a classroom with thirty other kids, you'd get a tutor who would help you get your homework done in school. Then you really wouldn't have any homework to deal with at all."

His leg bounced and Danny looked away, scanning the room. He was uncomfortable with how tempting that offer was. The ghosts gave him almost no time to work as it was. And getting some help to actually get his work done, rather than sitting in a room full of loud teenagers and waste an hour of his life every day?

"We might even be able to work something in about extended time on projects," she continued, either ignorant of Danny's tumultuous thoughts or ignoring them. "A few extra days if you fall behind, without penalties."

Danny's toes were digging into the carpet, swiveling back and forth.

"None of these things would be to make it easy on you. You're not stupid, Danny. I'm not trying to make school easy. I'm just trying to make it fair."

"You talked to Lancer," Danny muttered, catching the similarity in the phrasing.

"Hate to break it to you, kid," she said conspiratorially, "but we talk about you guys all the time. We don't have real lives and we live vicariously through our students."

Danny shot a glance in her direction, catching the grin and returning it uneasily.

"Just think about what we're offering," Mrs. Marez said. "I know it's a hard choice."

"I can handle it," Danny said. He tossed confidence into his voice that his brain wasn't echoing. "I'm good at dealing with problems."

She smiled. "Yes, you are." She dug out the candy jar, signaling the end of their chat, but held it in her lap rather than hold it out. "What are you going to do when you graduate?"

Danny mentally replaced the 'when' with an 'if'. With his grades going the way they were, he wasn't sure what was in his future. Danny shrugged. "I dunno."

"What were you going to do, before the accident?"

"I wanted to be an astronaut," Danny said, a slight grin flitting onto his face as he thought about it. "I know that it's a really slim chance, but I always loved the stars. Maybe something with astronomy."

She fiddled with the top of her jar. "But not anymore?"

Good feelings gone, the smile vanished. "No." Suddenly uncomfortable with the line of questions, he asked, "Can I go now?"

"In a second," she said. "You seem to really like space. Why'd you change your dream?"

Danny scowled, his arms creeping across his chest. "I can't even pass high school," he said darkly. "I'm not going to get into college, especially a science program like that. It's just a stupid dream-"

"There's no such thing as stupid dreams," Mrs. Marez cut in smoothly. "And what I'm hearing you tell me you can't get into college the way you've been trying." Her head tipped a bit. "Maybe you should try something new."

"I…"

"You know, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Nicola Tesla, the Wright brothers, Ben Franklin… all those famous people had reading and writing problems a lot like yours." She arched an eyebrow. "Werner Von Braun was dyslexic. You know him, right?"

Danny stared at her. "Yes," he said quietly.

She shrugged. "It's ultimately your choice, Danny, whether or not you want help. But all those people succeeded despite problems like you have. Maybe not the exact some thing, but something like it. They succeeded because learned to deal with their problems. Getting help is not admitting you're stupid or not good enough; everybody needs help with something. Maybe this is your Achilles' heel, or your kryptonite. It doesn't need to kill your dreams."

Danny pressed his lips together and looked away. It was a low blow for this teacher to dangle space in front of him like a carrot.

"Or you can keep doing it your way, which – if we're being honest – isn't working too well for you. If you chose that route, you certainly can. It's your life, and it'll be interesting to see where it takes you. Candy?"

Startled, Danny glanced at her, snagged a Kit Kat bar, and watched her quietly for a long few minutes. "I'll think about it," he said.

"It's all I ask," she said, handing him a pass. "If you walk slow, you can go right to your second period class."

Danny ended up walking so slowly that he was late to class. He stumbled into his seat, found a window to stare out of, and spent the rest of the hour lost in his own thoughts. The remainder of the day went much the same. Around and around in his head, he kept hearing Mrs. Marez's words. Doodling a rocket on his paper, Danny scowled.

That night after Jazz had vanished up to her room to study, Danny got up the courage to ask his parents about the meeting at the school and what they thought about it. He got more pursed lips and tense body postures from his mother. His father, though, leaned forwards. "My sister needed a little bit of extra help in school."

Danny shifted uncomfortably. "What if I got some extra help too? Would you be okay with that?"

"Would your grades go up?" his father asked, his voice and face serious.

Danny nodded uncertainly. "Mrs. Marez said she could get me a tutor-"

"Would you stop shirking from your chores?" the man interrupted.

Danny snorted a laugh. "Are you ever going to drop that? I've been doing my chores!"

His father's eyes narrowed. "Would you be happier? Would you lose the moody, overworked, anxious thing you've been the last year and go back to being my happy Dan-o?"

Danny inexplicably felt his chest tighten at that question. He swallowed and shrugged. "I think it'd help," he finally said, his voice quiet. "And maybe I could, you know, go to college. And maybe get into that science program I wanted. And-"

He cut off when his father grinned and punched a fist into his palm. "Then I'm okay with it. I get my son back to go fishing and hunting and researching with."

"Ghost fishing," Danny corrected. "And ghost hunting." He glanced at his mother. "What do you think, Mom?"

"It's a big decision," she said after a long second. "This kind of thing sticks with you. I'm not sure you'll benefit from getting a label like that."

"What else can I do?" Danny stared at her. "Mom, at this rate, I'm not going to college. I'm not even sure I can graduate from high school. I don't… want… help." He thought over what Mrs. Marez had said, and the test Lancer had allowed him to take, and how much easier his life would be if that were the normal. "But… maybe… I need… it." The words came out of his mouth slowly and painfully.

His mother was very quiet.

"The accident… the Portal…" Danny struggled to find the words he'd never wanted to say to his parents. "It hurt me, I guess, more than I thought it did." His arms crossed over his chest uncomfortably. "My brain just doesn't always work… right. And I don't think… there's anything I can do about it… by myself… and it's not getting better."

She was tense and stiff, her lips pressed tightly together.

"Mads," his father said gently. "It's not your fault. Stop blaming yourself for the repercussions of an accident."

When she shot him a harried look, Danny glanced between them, startled to realize his mother had been feeling guilty about the whole thing. It wasn't her fault he'd walked in on their experiment.

"You're my son. I want what's best for you. If this is… what's best for you… then I'm behind it." Her body posture belied the sentence. "I want you to think about it for the weekend, and if you still want this on Monday, I'll sign the paperwork."

Danny nodded and smiled and bugged her into signing the paperwork Monday morning. He'd decided. This was – he hoped – going to help. Mrs. Marez was horribly pleased to see him, and took the paperwork with a smile. Danny spent nearly an hour in her office that morning, setting up what she said were 'reasonable accommodations', along with all the warnings she could seem to muster.

It was set up as a self-advocacy program, meaning Danny wouldn't be magically given any sort of help unless he asked for it. But if he asked for it, he would get it. And the help only lasted as long as he didn't abuse the privilege. As soon as Danny started to use these accommodations to make life easy rather than fair, they would be gone.

Mr. Elric – the aide from Lancer's class – ended up being his tutor during a small group study time. There were four others in the group, seated around a small table, and Danny was startled to find that none of his study partners were the stupid kids. They were people who he wouldn't have picked out of a crowd. It didn't take long before all Danny's projects were caught up, and the amount of homework he was bringing home dwindled from a several-hour marathon to a handful of math problems and listening to Lancer's book on tape.

With more time after school, Danny got to bug Sam and Tucker while they did their own homework. They got to see several extra movies, as well as wander around the town on 'patrol' before the sun actually set and they were all late for curfew. Danny felt more relaxed than he had in a long time; with school somewhat off his plate, he could more easily balance his double life as a ghost hunter. And – oddly – the less stressed Danny felt, the easier it was to keep track of the ghost side of his brain. He'd written an entire essay for Lancer the other day, and everything but a small handful of words had come out in English on the first try.

School certainly wasn't easy. But it was back to the level of difficulty it had been before the accident had fried his brains. Keeping his friends in the dark about most of the extra help he was getting, Sam and Tucker were baffled at his apparent quick turn-around in school. Danny just laughed when they brought it up and changed the subject.

It wasn't until his second quarter report card showed up in the mail that Danny learned just how much a difference those few small changes had made in his life. The tutor, the occasional oral test, and the sometimes-modified math homework were the only things Danny had been leaning on to help him through school. He saw the envelope from the school too late to snatch it from his parents' grasp – a tactic he'd perfected over the last year of bringing home dismal grades. He waited with trepidation as his mother scanned the paper, then handed it to his father without a word.

"I expected better," his father said after a moment, holding out the report card with a teasing frown. Danny snatched the paper, his heart beating wildly in his chest. "What's with the C in math? You should be getting all As and Bs."

Danny stared at the grades, absolutely floored. His first quarter grades were a progression of Ds and Fs. His second quarter grades were… much better. "I got an A- in English?" he whispered, his voice squeaking a bit on the last word.

There was a hand-written note at the bottom. Danny grinned when he saw it was from Lancer. "Incredible attitude change and effort this quarter, Mr. Fenton," it read. "You earned the grade without question. If you could actually show up for class more often, that grade would have been higher. I'm glad you accepted the help. The last two months have shown that you deserve it."

An arm circled around his shoulders. He glanced up at his mother with a grin. "I done did guuud," he drawled, waving the paper around. "Chu proud a'me?"

"You did," she said. There was a grin on her face too. "I'm proud of you."

"Is that our report cards?" came his sister's voice. She raced into the room, snagging the still unopened envelope with her name on it. It was ripped open, her eyes canning the page. Then she let out a sob and dropped to her knees. "I'm still second! Damn you, Michael Faher!"

"It was that A- you got in phy ed in seventh grade," Danny said mock-seriously. "I'm sure Michael Faher never got anything with a minus in it in his life."

She threw him a glare. "Brat."

Danny snickered as his sister picked herself off the ground and stomped up to her room – likely to email her 7th grade phy ed teacher and see if he'd change her grade.

The paper was snagged from Danny's hand. "I'm keeping this," his mother said. She pulled him close for a second, holding him tight before she walked away. "It shows you can make good decisions."

Running with the 'good mood' thing, Danny sidled up next to his mother. "So… since I'm so good at making decisions, there's this movie I've really been wanting to see. And my allowance kinda ran out."

His mother glanced at him. "So the good decisions don't apply to finances," she chided with a smile.

"I'm not good at math," Danny said, going for a pesky, over-the-top whine. "You had me tested, remember?"

She reached into her purse and dug out enough money for several movie tickets, a massive overdose of popcorn and drinks and candy, and a meal at the Nasty Burger afterwards. "A reward," she said, holding out the cash. "And I want no Cs on that report card next quarter."

"Deal," Danny said quickly, snagging the money and digging for his phone to call Sam and Tucker. "I'll see you later!"

He didn't wait for a reply before dashing out the door.