This is expanded from an Apricity sentence idea, prompted by tiacat11's gentle nudge several months ago that I should do more with this one and, since I already had something in mind, I kept going until I got here. :D

90. Abuse: The last thing he needed was getting called into Lancer's office at the end of an already horrible week, but while he was prepared to get chewed out or offered one last chance to pull his English grade up to passing through some time consuming extra credit project that he couldn't refuse, he had no idea how to respond to the man hesitantly asking if he needed to call Child Protection Services.

Stonewall

November 21, 2015

Daniel Fenton was having a hard time in school. That much was certain.

The school year had started off fairly well, Lancer had thought. The boy wasn't quite as studious and dedicated to his books as his older sister had been, but then again, Lancer couldn't really expect anyone to follow in the shoes of the girl with the highest C.A.T. score in history. But he was pleased with the younger Fenton's performance in the first few weeks. He came to class on time and turned in his homework when he was supposed to, earning solid grades that promised well for the rest of his high school career.

Until, all of a sudden, he didn't.

Lancer's teaching style hadn't changed. Daniel's social life hadn't changed, beyond spending his time with Samantha and Tucker exclusively. But he and Mr. Foley had been thick as thieves since elementary school and Miss Manson was the most conscientious student of the three, so her increased presence should have signaled and upturn in quality schoolwork if there had been any change at all.

He was at a loss to understand why this had happened now, but the transformation was drastic.

Homework was lost more often than not. Often characterized by ripped corners and covered in unidentifiable substances when it did come back to the teacher's desk. With each passing week, there seemed to be less substance— effort, time, care— in each worksheet.

As much as he had started with high hopes for the boy, he started revising his opinions as they got further into the year.

Not only did Daniel not always come to class on time, sometimes he didn't bother coming at all, or left halfway through with an odd excuse and didn't bother reappearing before the bell rang.

As a responsible teacher, Lancer had tried tamping down on the habit, refusing to let him leave to get the books they both knew full well he hadn't left in his locker because they were sitting on his desk. But when he said no then, Daniel would need to go to the bathroom, or suddenly feel nauseous and leave without permission, regardless of the consequences.

If the boy was going to leave the room anyway, Lancer didn't see why the class needed to be disrupted with a fruitless test of wills that encouraged his other students to do the same. So he let Daniel leave, and told any students that complained about the unfairness of the situation that Mr. Fenton had special circumstances and that they had worked out an arrangement.

It wasn't even really lying. He was sure that there had to be something going on, he just didn't know what it was yet. Although he satisfied himself that it did not involve any medical emergencies that the school nurses were aware of. And if Mr. Fenton had no knowledge of their one sided arrangement and counted himself lucky to not get detention more often, well, Lancer would make sure that his gratitude was repaid with answers.

Let the rest of the Casper High student body think that Daniel had a serious problem with his bladder. Or was using code for triple detention. Lancer didn't much care as long as he could finally understand what was going on.

He kept a closer eye on Daniel, but could detect no rational pattern in his homework or attendance.

And it wasn't like the boy didn't care. Daniel looked regretful whenever he didn't have homework to turn in. And not just because he knew it would probably result in taunting laughter from his classmates, or a detention or makeup session that wouldn't bother attending, but he actually seemed sorry to come to class empty handed. Like he wished he could have had his homework done, but just… didn't.

Lancer just couldn't understand it. He would pay attention and keep notes in class until he fell asleep or suddenly up and left. His rare questions and answers to discussion questions were thoughtful and insightful, but Lancer gave up on trying to get anything coherent out of him if he called on him in class when his hand wasn't raised.

Daniel welcomed any chances to makeup late or missing assignments, although never seemed able to promise anything more complete the second time around.

And detentions didn't dissuade him from any of his odd habits, like they would have with any other student. But despite the near standing detention orders, Mr. Fenton persisted in his chronic tardiness, clumsiness, lack of completed assignments.

Lancer had no clue what was wrong. Where his student was going when he was skipping out of class. Or how no one knew what the problem was. Or how to fix it.

He began collecting homework by walking down the aisles of desk chairs himself instead of asking everything to be handed forward. He'd hoped to catch some snatches of conversation, or glimpse something else in Daniel's backpack that could give him a clue as to the issues his student was dealing with.

Everyone clammed up when he walked past, however. Samantha, Tucker, and Daniel the most tight-lipped of all, refusing to speak until he was safely out of earshot on the other side of the room again.

He could see them whispering back and forth, knew that Miss Manson and Mr. Foley were in on their friend's secret and covered for him with no thought to how frustrated they would make their Vice Principal when they refused to answer questions about the flimsiest of excuses.

Daniel avoided every single question put to him and escaped at the earliest moment possible every time Lancer called him to a private conference.

Even his sister was no help, when he asked for her opinion in the hallways. She'd rattle off half a dozen highly technical terms that he didn't remember well enough to look up later and then rush off to her next class or to the library to get a head start on her next week's homework assignments.

On the rare occasions when he did manage to pin her down and get a coherent answer, she rambled on and on about how Danny was a growing boy and his adolescent years were fundamental to his formation and it was important to have a stable and caring home environment as well as solid friends who could help him understand himself better and a school system that worked with his individual needs.

Which wasn't all that helpful, because Lancer was trying to work with his needs, but also was running the risk of needing to take drastic actions if Daniel's work didn't start improving.

It was all just so frustrating. And he was getting nowhere, no matter how often he tried to stress the severity of the situation to Daniel and his friends. They all nodded solemnly before leaving the room and Daniel would come up empty handed the next day when homework was collected.

Eventually, he was left with no choice but to call a conference with Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. He'd sent them the tardiness reports and detention schedule, of course, but hadn't heard anything from the parents of his most troubled student and, besides being a troubling trend, it left him at a loss for how to continue.

There was only so much leeway he could grant and he felt that he'd reached it for Daniel.

He hated to do it, of course, because the state mandated parent-teacher conferences gave him more contact with Jack and Maddie than he ever cared to have. But this was too important to let the situation continue deteriorating without spelling out the ramifications of where everyone stood.

He couldn't just let Daniel fail his classes, or worse, get expelled.

It hardly took any time at all before he remembered just how much he disliked meeting with the Fentons, however. He honestly couldn't imagine how a girl like Jazz could have come out of such a home, because, every single time, he seemed to forget just how traumatizing it was to be alone in the same room with them for extended periods of time.

Especially if he was actually trying to get anything done.

Jack hardly sat down, preferring to pace up and down the room making arm gestures so large and oblivious that more than one poster was accidentally waved off of the wall. At least they'd switched from sharp pushpins to sticky tack the year before.

But any and all commentary on Daniel's performance in school seemed to roll right off his back. Or bounce off of his thick skull. Nothing seemed to stick. Not even the detentions or the failing grades. Kept talking about ghosts. Or if he talked about the issue at hand, it was only tangentially about what a great kid his Danny-boy was. Refusing to even register any information that contradicted his set image of his son.

It was infuriating. And more useless than trying to resolve matters in a meeting of the school board. It was just frankly ridiculous trying to address the man at all, so he soon gave it up in favor of his wife.

Maddie, at least, seemed a bit more willing to pay attention to the dire straights for which their son seemed to be heading. It still took a while to actually make her understand what was happening, because she began the session claiming that her son could do no wrong.

Lancer had dealt with that exact same attitude in countless prior family consultations, and he knew that she would change her mind as soon as he silently handed her an entire stack of detentions and tardy slips one by one.

She stared at them confused at first, then with her jaw gaping as they just kept coming. Very quickly, her eyes had turned steely as she realized what Daniel had actually been getting himself into.

"You're serious?" she asked. And Lancer replied that he wouldn't make something like this up.

Jack cued into his wife's discomfort like he hadn't done with anything else.

"Mads?" he asked, finally coming to sit down beside her. "What is it?"

"Danny's in trouble."

"He's not in trouble, Mrs. Fenton," Lancer began to protest. Because, yes, while her son was in trouble, it wasn't anything that they couldn't get him out of if they all worked together.

"He will be in trouble," she replied, passing off the papers to her husband.

Jack looked at them with a furrowed brow. "But, Danny's always been a solid B student!"

"Yes, he has," Lancer agreed. "And I had expected that trend to continue, but something has changed this year and now he's like this…" he waved his hand to the proof he'd given them.

He was glad to finally have their attention now, but was a bit unnerved at how foreboding the couple came when they took their son's behavior seriously. He shook it off, trying to be glad of their full cooperation for a change, but was glad for more than one reason when they eventually ended the conference for the night.

They promised to have a talk with their son, so Lancer waited expectantly to see what would happen the next day.

Daniel looked much the same as he always did on the following morning. Made no eye contact with Lancer and gave no indication that he'd been lectured the previous evening.

Even when Lancer moved down the aisle to collect the worksheets that were due, Mr. Fenton didn't indicate any changes in his demeanor. Lancer sighed, but supposed that it wasn't too surprising, given the secrecy he had displayed thus far. He hadn't expected the teenager to admit to a change of heart in the middle of a crowded classroom.

He'd collected the homework and was about to move on to the next row of students when something caught his eye. Daniel had turned back in his chair to start whispering something to Miss Manson and his shirt sleeve rolled back a few inches as he swing himself around the desk.

Lancer only saw it for a moment, but there was no mistaking that it had been a large darkening bruise on his student's arm. He froze on the spot, mind racing. Eventually, he made himself start moving again, picking up more piles of paper in a daze.

He honestly couldn't remember what he said for the rest of the class. His students probably didn't either and that would be something he could lament later in the year, but…

Daniel Fenton. With bruising on his arm.

It could have been from falling into the corner of a table or something as mundane and harmless as general clumsiness. He'd certainly been banned from handling any delicate equipment in the science labs for such reasons. But the spot was too large and not sharp enough to have come from an accident like that.

And now that he thought about it, Daniel had been wearing long sleeves for most of the year, even though it was still warm enough outside that the rest of his classmates were enjoying the short sleeves while they could.

Had there been a reason for it, this whole time…? Had Lancer been so unobservant as to miss something like that? Was that why his academic performance had deteriorated so quickly?

Could the Fentons really…? Bouncing off the walls Jack and Maddie who always brought platters of fudge to the school bake sales and ghost shaped cookies to the Halloween parties?

But then he thought of the way Jack glowered at the page and the way Maddie pursed her lips when she understood what he was trying to tell her in that meeting.

He recalled what Jazz had said about Danny needing a supportive environment to thrive. Of course that was true of every child, but had she been specifically referencing a defect in her own family's actions?

Lancer pictured Jazz now, her expressions and inflections in all of their conversations. He could very easily be reading too much into her words. And he couldn't imagine her being on the receiving end of any kind of abuse. Not the brilliant cheerful Jazz.

But sometimes in families with a prodigy, the less gifted children were frowned upon for decent average work. He'd heard of it before, and now he sat watching Danny Fenton and wondering if he could be one of those cases.

He didn't want to believe it, but he couldn't ignore signs just because he hoped they didn't mean what he thought they meant. If it was true, he was one of the only people in a position to be able to help Danny.

And even if he couldn't help, he could at least be there for his student, protect him in other ways. Appease his parents during parent-teacher conferences and minimize any calls home. He could privatize detention notices, disguise them as something else, just as he did for Mr. Baxter.

The thought that he might have to, though, made him sick. But better safe than sorry. He'd never forgive himself if he overlooked something like this just long enough for something to go horribly wrong.

It still took a long time for Lancer to decide that he should say something. And then even longer to decide what that something should be.

He called Daniel up to his desk at the end of class and asked him to come see him in his office at the end of the day.

The boy sighed, but nodded before rejoining his friends as they headed out to their next period.

Lancer fretted until school let out, then waited nervously behind his desk for the knock on his door.

It finally came and he invited Daniel in, unsurprised at the wearily resigned look on the boy's face. He searched it for signs of something else, though, something deeper, and telling of his living conditions at home.

Apparently he was looking for a long time, because eventually Danny shifted awkwardly and asked if he actually needed to be there. Lancer started and then recovered, stammering uncharacteristically as he said yes and asked for Danny to take a seat.

Danny did so warily, with one eyebrow raised as high as it would go.

"We need to have a talk, Daniel," Lancer began, watching his student's expression fall as he started slouching in his seat like he could just disappear if he slid down far enough. "About the school year and how you've been doing."

Danny grimaced, waiting for the bad news to come. More detentions, suspension, extra tests to make up for the papers he'd missed…

And Lancer could have started with any of those topics. Was planning on breaking the ice with them, in fact. But as he continued looking down at his student— too skinny, too young, with bruises he was hiding underneath that shirt— all of his thoughts seemed to come to a halt.

"Daniel," he began, hardly knowing what he was going to say next. "Do I…" he paused, then began again. "Should I… call CPS?"

Danny blinked at him. "CPS?" he repeated blankly.

"Yes."

"CPS… as in…?"

"Child Protection Services, yes."

Danny stared at the Vice Principal for a long moment, trying to believe that the man was serious. But the expression on his face and the way he was earnestly hunched over the desk with clasped hands left Danny in little doubt that he was making a genuine offer in the belief that it was needed.

He knew people thought his parents were several brands of crazy. Had always thought that. But never had he heard anyone claim that they were dangerous. Or, at least, not dangerous to anyone but ghosts. Which, yeah, technically included him now too, but no one knew that, including his parents. And that was a different situation altogether.

Which left him thoroughly confused about the offer before him now.

"…Why?" he finally asked.

Lancer sat back at the question, not expecting a response quite like that one. But Daniel seemed legitimately surprised at his proposition, like the thought had never even crossed his mind that anyone would want to call CPS on his parents. He wondered for a moment if he'd completely misread the situation.

It might be a good thing, that he had misunderstood the situation so completely that Daniel was sitting there gaping at him like he had finally gone crazy.

He hoped that was the case, at least, because if it wasn't, it indicated that Daniel wasn't even in a mindset to recognize his abuse. Or the fact that help could even be called in from the outside. And he really didn't want to delve into the ramifications that would entail. But he would, of course, if that's where this conversation led him.

First, however, he needed to answer the question.

"Because there's a bruise on your arm," he said, nodding toward him.

Danny grabbed at his arm and pulled the sleeve down so far that his fingertips disappeared.

"No, it's not…" he stammered, looking for something to say. "It's not…" he tried to deny, even though they both knew full well that there was a dark shape covering his forearm.

"Daniel," Lancer cut in before they wasted time over this. "They're bruises. And you have them the day after I told your parents that you were having trouble in school."

Danny stopped and turned slowly until he faced Lancer straight on. His mouth hung slightly open and his eyes went wide as he realized that Lancer was serious about this and thought he was getting abused by his parents.

It took him too long to find his voice again, but as soon as he did, his words tumbled over themselves so fast that it was a wonder his teacher was able to decipher any of it. Lancer did realize, though, the fact that Danny was swearing up and down that his parents hadn't done anything to him and didn't mistreat him and were good people and would never ever ever in a million years consciously hurt him in any way and the vehemence of the speech took Lancer by storm, fairly bowling him over in his chair.

In the end, he had to raise his arms out placatingly, trying to visually reassure Daniel while he worked to calm him down.

"Okay, okay," he broke in even though Danny was still rambling, "It's alright, I believe you."

He hadn't been ready for the panicked look and nearly incoherent speech by his student on his parents' behalf. But it did ease the biggest load off his mind, and he was relieved as he tried to assure Daniel that he had adequately made his point.

It took a few tries but eventually he was able to make himself heard. "I do believe you, Daniel. You've convinced me. It's okay," he said, because how could the boy's violent reaction have done anything else?

Danny finally calmed down a bit and Lancer was able to breathe easier. But he sighed, knowing that the situation was not yet resolved. This conversation wasn't over.

"That… still doesn't explain the bruising, though," he said, just as Danny was beginning to imagine that he was off the hook.

"Oh, right," Danny said, glancing down at his sleeve and laughing nervously. "It's nothing. I, uh, tripped over a desk…"

Lancer stared at him and sighed.

Danny glanced down before offering, "… and fell down the stairs."

The silence deepened as Danny added, "I was also having problems with stuff falling out of my locker?"

Lancer raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not entirely sure how gullible you think I am, Mr. Fenton, but despite not calling you out on your increasingly impossible excuses, I haven't believed a word of it from the start. And I'm not about to begin with this flimsy excuse. Excuses," he amended after a moment.

"Now, you say it's not from your parents and I believe you. I do," he assured his student. "And I'm very relieved to hear it." More relieved than he was willing to admit, in fact, because that would require admitting just how wrongly he'd allowed himself to believe the situation was.

"But that doesn't change the fact that you have a bruise on your arm," he said, nodding toward the boy again. "Or that there is something wrong. That something's happened this year and that you're having problems because of it. Real problems, too," he pressed. "Not things that you want to have happening."

Danny began squirming in his seat, eyes flickering to the door like it had become his lifeline.

"I'm not looking to get you or anyone in trouble here, Daniel," Lancer said, leaning forward earnestly. "I don't even care if you believe me; I'm just trying to help you here. You're going to fail your classes and get held back a grade if nothing changes."

Danny looked up at him sharply. "Aren't you the Vice Principal…?"

Lancer sighed. "Yes, I've given you as much leniency as I can but I can't keep this up with the way your performances have been steadily dropping throughout the year." He folded his hands on top of the desk. "I know you can do better than this. You did at the beginning of the year and you still do whenever you actually turn your homework in. It's like… something is keeping you from doing it most of the time. Something outside of your control."

He took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to stare squarely at Danny again. "And so I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Whether you help me or not, but it's probably in your best interest, as well as being the path of least embarrassment, to help me out here." He let the promise hang in the air for a moment.

"So what's happened?"

Daniel stared at him for a long time, his wide eyes tinged with panic. With an odd laugh, he made it disappear. But when he tried to shrug the question off with another of his excuses, Lancer stared at him unimpressed until he quieted down.

Apparently he'd been so lenient this year that the boy had forgotten just how persistent he could be. Daniel had grown accustomed to being excused for another inexplicable bathroom break and wasn't ready for the interrogation sessions.

Lancer watched as the stony façade finally began to crumble. As Daniel finally decided that there was no way out of this room but to give him an answer, but to explain his sudden and drastic change in behavior, and tell him what in the world had gone wrong for them both to have to resort to this meeting.

Daniel's stare became less hostile the longer he stared at Lancer. And finally, he sighed and ran a hand against the back of his neck. When he looked back up, his gaze was sharp and critical.

Lancer had to fight not to fidget under the scrutiny. It was hard not to feel like his student was the one examining him now, but when the boy imperceptibly nodded, Lancer's chest swelled at the thought that, whatever the test had been, he had passed.

Danny licked his lips. "I… hunt ghosts," he said. "I hunt ghosts, okay?"

Lancer was proud of how little his expression changed. Because that admission was about the furthest thing from his mind, even though he'd thought through quite a varied list of far fetched explanations.

"I hunt ghosts," Danny said again, and his voice steadied with the repetition. "And I'm really good at it. Most of the time I don't get cuts or bruises, but sometimes I do," he held out his arm but shrugged like it was no big deal.

Lancer tried hard to process this. "You…?"

Danny nodded.

"I can… tell when they're nearby. I guess I've just learned the signs from growing up the way I did. Or, who knows?" he asked with a lopsided grin, "Maybe I've got a sixth sense or something. But anyway, I slip out whenever there's one by the school."

Lancer's eyes went wide and it took him a few moments to form his next question. "Whenever?" he asked, voice more ragged than he'd like, but hardly able to help it when the full implication of the casual sentence hit him. "You mean that every time you've ditched my class, there's been a ghost nearby?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Danny confirmed easily, as if he felt none of the horror Lancer did at the thought. "It happens a lot more than you'd expect. It gets old after a while, actually," he added with a grimace, the closest he'd come to a complaint all day.

Then, shrugging, he said, "But someone's gotta do it. And I'm already here. My parents are too far away for this stuff. By the time their equipment at home registered a ghost on this side of town, it would already be inside the school. Plus, they'd probably shoot the whole place up and I don't think you want the school demolished every other week," he said. "Although everyone else probably wouldn't mind," he chuckled.

Daniel was the only one finding humor in the situation.

"But I can take care of it. So I do," Danny said, like it was as simple as that.

Lancer stared at him with his brow furrowed in concern. Perhaps it was that simple to his student, but everything in him revolted at the thought that this teenager in front of him was shouldering the weight of a burden that would make even the hardiest—or craziest—of grown adults balk.

"All by yourself?" he asked.

Danny pursed his lips as he considered how to answer. "Most of the time," he said slowly. When Lancer's face melted into outright concern, he amended, "Sam and Tucker help too. But I bet you'd have guessed that anyway."

He stared at his hands clenched in his lap, wondering about how Sam and Tucker would react to his outing them like that. It was one thing for him to give up the half truth of his own secret—it didn't seem like he could get into more trouble than he was already in at this point anyway—but his friends had mostly been in the clear and detention-free up to this point, even if they did do everything together.

"But we're really good at what we do. And there's no one else to do it," Danny added, looking up to find the English teacher staring at him with an expression he couldn't place.

He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable with the direct stare of his teacher and vice principal. At this point, he wasn't entirely sure how Lancer was going to react, and that worried him. He'd gambled that the fact he was ghost hunting wasn't that big of a deal, but from the looks he'd gotten during his speech, he was realizing that that angle wouldn't play.

He ran through the list of options in his head, wondering how he could salvage this—because he couldn't stop ghost hunting. He wouldn't, no matter what anyone said.

But now that he had come clean to this extent, it would be a thousand times harder to actually get out whenever his ghost sense went off if Lancer decided he needed to keep him safe and contained.

Images of being kept in the classroom or accompanied straight and back to the nurse's office flashed through his mind. Security cameras in every hallway so he'd have to place to transform without blowing his secret. And that was something he still wasn't willing to do, not yet.

"And…" Danny started, not even sure what he was saying now. "It's not like I want to get out of homework and stuff, but… my neighborhood's kinda ghost central so half of the time when I do my homework, a ghost dog eats it anyway."

He tentatively grinned and Lancer stared at him.

Danny looked down at his hands again, voice subdued but edged with steel. "Plus… when I'm actually doing something this important, homework kinda doesn't seem like a big deal anymore. So I'm sorry, but yeah," he said, looking up with sharp blue eyes. "I'm not going to stop."

Lancer looked at the boy seated before him with new eyes. Admiration, certainly, for a young man doing something Lancer never even suspected needed to be done. And doing it so well that no one needed to know how often and how close they were to danger.

The enormity of the task he had taken upon himself was hard to fathom and, yes, while Danny should never have to do something like this, it was clear that he knew what he was doing and was able to do it well. Able to do it far better than his parents, even, if he was able to fight ghosts and return to school during the next period without destroying half the town and with only the occasional bruises to show for it.

He sat in silence for another few moments, trying to understand the enormity of this revelation and what it meant he needed to do.

It was still nearly impossible to imagine that this teenager had set himself up as the school's protector against the creatures that his parents were so obsessed with. It made sense, though; it explained everything, and it humbled him more than anything else he'd seen in his teaching career to think that he—and everyone else in the school—owed their safety to this boy and his two semi-delinquent friends.

Danny began shifting awkwardly in place, trying not to make it obvious that his eyes were flickering between his hands, his teacher, and the door. Wondering if he'd just dealt himself a death blow, if he was going to be assigned detentions for the rest of his school career, or, and his heart started sinking as he realized the possibility, if Lancer was going to call in his parents and explain this to them in a conference.

If he did that, Danny realized that he'd never hear the end of it, never be free from his parents foisting jumpsuits and weapons and safety measures that would backfire by targeting his ghost half upon him until the day he died again.

Danny glanced up quickly when Lancer cleared his throat, trying not to think of his teacher's next words as a death sentence.

"Is there… anything I can do to help?"

That was… that was definitely not what he had been expecting and Danny tried not to gape at Lancer. "Wha…?"

"Is there anything I can do to make things easier?" he asked, already evaluating the possible options before him. "I'll make sure every teacher knows to let you go… to the bathroom… without a problem. And excuse your detentions, of course, unless you'd like to set up a time to get your homework done and turned in before a ghost has had a chance to interfere."

Danny stared at him. "I…?"

"If you need any other arrangements, let me know. I expect that you won't abuse this power to blow off your assignments if you just don't feel like doing them, but," he leaned forward, "Danny, you are doing a brave thing," he said, and Danny was surprised at the emotion in his voice.

"I am honored to have you as my student," he continued, and Danny could only blink as his teacher's voice grew hoarse. "I want you to learn. And I want you to have a life. But I understand that you're not going to stop. And that, right now, in all likelihood, you and Mr. Foley and Miss Manson are the only ones able to do what you're doing," he admitted, loathe as he was to realize the truth of what he was saying.

Teenagers should not have to shoulder that kind of responsibility. And yet, the fact that these three had done so, for months, without complaining or falling down on the job, proved that they were far more capable than most people were at tasks of far less importance.

He had been relying on them for his safety, trusting in them for his protection for months without realizing it. Becoming aware of the fact made him want to ease their burden, but did not diminish the reality of their situation.

"If there is anything I can do to make things easier, or to increase security around the school for peace of mind or for keeping ghosts out, let me know and I'll arrange it all," he said, the promise evident in his words, even if he wasn't sure what could actually be implemented in a school but knew full well the roadblocks and dismissals he would face when trying to argue for anti-ghost weaponry in front of the next school board's budget meeting.

But he would do whatever it took to ensure the safety of his students. Of all of them, but most importantly, of the three who stood on the front lines.

Danny opened his mouth to answer then closed it, wide eyes locked on his teacher in amazement.

He'd never entrusted his secret to someone in authority. Vlad had abused it as soon as he'd discovered that the son of the man he hated most in the world was just like him. And he didn't dare open the issue with his parents yet because there were just too many ways it could go wrong even if they did continue to accept him as their son.

But now, this teacher he didn't even really like was taking him seriously, honoring his course of action, and not treating him like a kid but giving him his blessing to continue on with his dangerous but necessary work. And not only that, but asking to follow his lead in order to make things easier for him.

Never in a million years had he expected anything like this. From anyone, let alone Lancer.

He truly didn't know how to respond, but felt his eyes starting to prickle.

Lancer looked alarmed at this turn of events and Danny quickly blinked the tears away before he completely lost his composure. Swallowing heavily, he nodded a few times before finally settling on, "Thank you."

Lancer paused for a moment, trying to understand what was really happening here, before relaxing into a broad smile. "Of course," he replied, wondering why his student was really so surprised.

Once it became clear that Danny was still a little overwhelmed by what had just happened, Lancer started rooting around his desk to give him some time to collect his thoughts.

He finally located a stray business card and a pen that actually worked and began writing.

"This is my home and cell phone number," he said, sliding the information across the desk. "Call whenever you need. I don't have a life, so I should pick up," he laughed. "And my office will always be open to you, for whatever reason. If you to discuss a new system, need help on an assignment, or…" he waved his hand to indicate the endless possibilities.

Danny grabbed the card and clutched it in his hands. "Thank you," he said again. After an effort to rally himself, he said, "I'll… I'll let you know what I can think of."

"Yes, please do," Lancer said. "I'm sure there are dozens of inventions in your parents' basements and a hundred things we can try but I can't pretend that I'd be able to make heads or tails of any of them."

Lancer stood up from behind his desk and Danny followed suit, hurriedly pushing out his chair as his teacher walked toward him.

Lancer stuck out his hand and waited as Danny realized that he was looking to shake his. "Uh, right…" he said, as they shook hands. Then he picked up his bag and turned toward the office door.

"Oh," he said, turning around as he remembered one more thing.

"Yes?" Lancer asked.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about how to phrase his request. "I would… really appreciate it if you didn't worry my parents too much about this?" He waited for a horrible moment for Lancer to change his mind about how he'd handle this if he came to the –correct—conclusion that his student's parents had no idea what he was up to.

"They'd never let me hear the end of it," he added.

The corner of Lancer's mouth twitched upward. "Very well, Mr. Fenton," he finally agreed, and watched as Danny heaved a barely concealed sigh of relief before walking out of his office.

Drawing from the head canon that Dash has an abusive dad and mother who wouldn't be able to take custody. It's floated around the phandom several times and I realized halfway through this fic that it would be really interesting to include, even for just a moment, because it would explain why Lancer seemed to be giving him such preferential treatment without making him a bad teacher, haha.

Also. My sincerest apologies on not having updated UltraViolet in so long. I haven't officially put it on hiatus because I really am trying to continue it but *insert long tragic back story here* it's… really hard to write right now.

But hopefully this dose of Lancer could tide you over until the next chapter of UV materializes?