Hi all! It's... It's been a while... I sincerely apologize. But hopefully I'm back for the summer! Yay! I'm almost done with this part of my education and will be able to move on from finances. It's not for me. At least I'll have a degree. Thanks for the comments from new people in April! I appreciate you liking this xD

Jazz was more than happy to be going home. This trip had gone from annoying to alright to bad to crazy in the span of three days.

"Ghosts," she muttered to herself in the back of the rumbling RV. "Honestly, everyone's going absolutely bonkers."

"Sweetie," her mother tsked next to her, "there were multiple witnesses, not just myself and your father, who saw them."

That brought her to another point.

"You're not mad at Dad? At all?"

"What's there to be mad about? He and Harriet were being controlled by a ghost."

"There's no such thing as ghosts, Mom!" Jazz angrily hissed at her mother. "Someone must have spiked the punch. You were all seeing things that aren't real!"

"What makes you think the punch was spiked?" Maddie wondered.

"I asked around, and everyone that night except for me had sampled the punch, and everyone except for me claimed to have seen ghosts. Most of your classmates only saw Dad-" Jazz gestured wildly at her father, who was talking with Danny as he was driving the RV, "-wreck the place! Did you even see Danny in the aftermath?"

Maddie scrunched her nose and shook her head.

"He definitely drank something that had been spiked! He was completely delirious! He was high, Mom!"

"If what you're saying is what happened, don't you think it's a little odd that everyone hallucinated the same thing?" Maddie knew how to speak with her daughter when she was like this, the only way to convince Jazz that she was wrong about something was if she found enough holes in the logic used to create her argument. Maddie stowed away what Jazz had told her what had happened to Danny: she'd talk to Danny later and see what he thought had happened.

Jazz knew her mother did this. She did it often. Jazz, however, usually won out in the end anyway because Maddie had never before claimed to have actually seen a ghost, and here she'd thought she'd seen two. And more importantly, she believed she had witnesses.

"-can't believe that Harri lost her job."

Jazz couldn't help but butt in. This was a perfect opportunity to try to show how crazy her family were becoming.

"Of course she lost her job, she tried to publish a crackpot story on ghosts. It's the Milkwaukee Journal, not the National Enquirer." Jazz aimed a glare at her mother, who rolled her eyes and settled on her bunk. She turned to look at the back of Danny's head, her glare softening to concern. Despite his semi-upbeat attitude, Jazz saw his shoulders hunch and simply knew what face Danny was pulling.

He'd had that face a lot more often lately. His eyebrows would scrunch together, not downward, but upward, and his eyes would glaze over… Jazz couldn't quite describe it. The closest emotion she'd ever gotten to describe it was 'melancholic determination'. His mouth would slightly purse forward as well, as if he was longing to speak. They'd always purse that way when he was about to correct someone.

Never in her life had she believed Danny to be unintelligent. None of the members of her family were dumb, not her, not Maddie, not Danny, nor even her father, despite the town's popular opinion.

Jazz knew what their teachers were saying about Danny. Disappointment, they'd say to each other, a bad egg.

They compared him to her. She hated it.

Because she knew that Danny knew it, too. It's a rather difficult thing to miss. She knew he'd gone through a phase in middle school where he'd distanced himself from her simply because she was his sister, and she'd been alright with it because during that same time she'd been very pushy.

She'd kept her distance, given him his space, with the few exceptions where she needed to know exactly what was going through his mind, but he still stayed away.

She eyed the back of Danny's head again, mentally picturing his eyes. Her brother would probably never understand how expressive his bright blue eyes were. His emotions were completely laid out, like an open book, within those vivid irises.

Jazz could never think of a moment where she could not read what Danny was feeling.

She couldn't believe her mother had just brushed off that Danny had been drugged. Danny had been high, he was high!

Jazz had heard a commotion from the ballroom and decided to check it out. Probably some stupid drama leftover from college.

Her mouth dropped when she saw the destructed state of the room. Food was scattered everywhere, a table was lying upside-down on the floor, another was on its side, and the door that led to the mansion's gardens outside was swinging on its bottom hinge. She could hear frantic screams in the distance, slowly going farther away. Suddenly, the wall burst open and the RV, driven by her mother, skidded into the ballroom and then crashed through the door Jazz had just entered. The close proximity to the fast-moving vehicle (which caused a rather large burst of wind) nearly toppled Jazz to the ground.

Jazz remained frozen for a few minutes, recovering from nearly being towed over by her own mother, when she shook herself out of her state and used the adrenaline to run to where her parents were headed.

She found the RV, lodged in a hallway, but her parents had gone elsewhere by the time she'd caught up to the RV. She'd have moved on in her search if she hadn't heard a hysterical giggle behind a door further down the hallway.

She hadn't expected to see Danny in that state. She never wanted to see Danny in that state, and she never wanted to see it again.

"He-Hey Jazz," he giggled, collapsed against a wall inside what appeared to be a janitor's closet. Jazz had immediately taken in the wound on Danny's head, the bruises peeking out of his suit on his wrists, and the bruise on his face. His eyes, however, were what frightened Jazz the most. For the first time in her life, Danny's eyes were empty, without emotion. His eyes always showed some form of emotion because Danny always felt something.

"Did you know that- that Mom said 'scum'? Do you know what that rhymes with?" he leaned forward and whispered loudly, "It rhymes with 'butt'. Get it? 'Scum-butt'?"

And he burst into more hysterical laughing, lifting his shaking hands to rub his face.

"Danny?" Jazz asked. The boy laughed for a few more minutes before slowly lifting his head.

"Oh, heeeeyyyyyy Jaaaaazzzzzz," he grinned slowly.

"OK, something's definitely happened. Let's get you some help." She gently helped Danny get to his feet and mentally noted his imbalance and slow movements. "There's got to be a doctor somewhere at this stupid reunion."

Their movements were slow because Danny's knees kept toppling him to the ground or into Jazz. Jazz herself didn't think it a good idea to leave Danny by himself, so they stumbled through the mansion slowly, with Jazz calling for help every ten seconds or so.

It didn't matter, though, because half an hour after being found, Danny had started to come down from whatever high he'd been on.

"Jazz? Can we sit down?"

"Sure," she answered. Danny had been leaning more heavily on her, and she couldn't support his weight for very much longer. "Do you remember what happened?"

Danny paused, before looking away and mutter a quiet 'no'.

Jazz immediately knew that he was lying.

Something had happened while Danny was in Wisconsin. Sam could see it, clear as day, on Danny's face. He had that face he always pulled when he was overthinking something.

The girl eyed her best friend sitting next to her, slowly chewing his lunch brought from home. He'd hardly taken two bites, and lunch was nearly over. She glanced at Tucker who was sitting across them, tilting her head slightly towards Danny and lifting her eyebrows a little. Tucker moved his entire head to look at Danny, then back to Sam, then back to Danny again, and asked,

"What, Sam?"

Danny (Sam shouldn't have been surprised) hadn't even heard him. She rolled her eyes at both boys, then flicked Danny on the nose.

"Ow!" Danny blinked at the small, but sharp pang she'd caused, then glared at Sam. "What, Sam?!"

"You," she accused, pointing a finger at Danny, "are overthinking something. What on earth happened over break to cause that?"

Danny's eyes flickered back and forth between Sam and Tucker.

"He missed my birthday, that's what!" Tucker exclaimed. "How could your parents do that to me?!"

"You know I tried to talk to them about it, but Dad wanted us all to go to Wisconsin for their college reunion."

"Ha!" Sam exclaimed, "So something did happen! Spill, Danny, you're pulling your serious thinking face again."

"I-I was not-"

"You were," Tucker butted in, "Sam just noticed it before I did." He stuffed the rest of the bacon burger in his mouth. "Sphill, Dhannee."

"Yuck!" Sam gagged, "Tucker! No one wants to see that!"

"Yeah, Tuck," Danny took a large bite from his sandwich. "No one whants te see dat."

"Danny."

Danny and Tucker glanced at their best friend, who was glowering at the two immature boys. With their mouths still full of half-chewed food, they grinned widely at each other. The girl shuddered at the disgusting display, suddenly remembering what they'd been talking about previously.

"You almost got me there, Danny," she groaned. "But you're not weaseling out of this one."

Danny's back slouched when he realized the trick hadn't worked. As soon as he swallowed, he took another huge bite out of his sandwich and chewed as slow as possible.

Sam's eyes narrowed.

"You know you're going to tell us about it sometime, Danny," she growled. Danny simply nodded and continued his slow chewing until after the lunch bell rang.

Danny was (incredibly) able to ignore Sam's glares, notes, subtle kicks and nagging for the rest of the school day. Once the final bell rang, the halfa's luck was up as Sam was finally able to ensnare the boy and drag him to the best place for an interrogation: The Nasty Burger.

"OK, Danny," she glowered as they sat at a table in a corner, far away from the other diners, "spill."

Danny visibly gulped.

"Come on, dude, you know you can tell us," Tucker added. Danny's gaze fell to the table, but he nodded, then murmured something that neither Sam or Tucker could hear.

"You're going to have to be a little louder, buddy," Tucker commented, cleaning his ear with his pinky. Sam softened her glare, her annoyance at Danny slightly waning as she noticed how whatever was bothering him was affecting her best friend. Danny's cheeks turned a little pink, but he took a deep breath, then clearly said,

"I'm not the only Halfa."

Sam blinked, then blinked again.

How could there be another person out there like Danny?

"You mean… another half-ghost… like you?" Tucker asked, scratching his scalp through his beret. Danny simply nodded. "Who is he?"

"My parents' old friend from college who held the reunion, Vlad Masters."

"Wait, Vlad Masters?" Sam asked, astounded. She'd met the guy, several times, at boring social events her parents used to drag her to. "How long has he been a Halfa?"

"Twenty years, apparently."

Sam couldn't believe it. Vlad Masters, one of the richest men in America, was half-ghost.

"Well, that's great, isn't it? He could help you out with your powers!" Tucker exclaimed. He suddenly gasped. "Wait, there are TWO of you! I need to update the percentage of Halfas in the world!"

Danny and Sam stared helplessly at Tucker.

"Tuck, what are you talking about?" Sam asked.

"Oooohhh, I have got to show you this!" Tucker pulled out his PDA and started typing into it, then turned it around to show the screen to his friends. "See this number?"

Sam and Danny leaned closer to see the number '0.0000000153846153846154%' displayed.

"Tuck, what is this?" Sam asked incredulously.

"This-" Tucker turned the PDA back to him and started typing in it again, "-is the percentage of the world's population that are classified as 'Halfa'. Until now!"

He turned the PDA back to his friends again, the number '0.0000000307692307692308%' replacing the previous one.

"So… you're saying…" Danny trailed off, waiting for Tucker to finish.

"I'm saying that point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero three percent of the population are classified as 'halfas', or 'half-ghosts'. I'm rounding up because it's a really small number and the world's population is constantly increasing," Tucker smugly put his PDA away.

Danny merely groaned while Sam's mouth gaped open in awe of how nerdy Tucker really was.

"You know you could just say 'one in six and a half billion', right?" she wondered out loud.

"Two in six and a half billion," Tucker corrected, "but what's the fun in that?"

The goth could only roll her eyes as she turned back to Danny.

"So Vlad Masters is half-ghost. That's not a bad thing, right? Did he tell you more about what being half-ghost entails?"

Danny bit his lip and averted his eyes from his two friends staring expectantly at him.

"He… uhhh…"

His hand began rubbing the back of his neck. With that simple action, Sam's hope that Danny was no longer alone as a half-ghost was suddenly crushed. She knew what Vlad Masters was like.

"He didn't like you, did he?"

Danny's head fervently whipped from side to side as he laughed nervously. His mouth seemed stuck in a firm grimace.

"You could say that."

And Danny launched into telling his best friends what had happened at his parents' college reunion.

They both gagged when they heard how Vlad was constantly hitting on Maddie Fenton. They were absolutely horrified when Danny told them how Vlad had beaten the crap out of him that first night.

They both turned a little green when Danny told them how Vlad had tried to make Maddie think that Jack was cheating.

"I think that was when I really realized that Vlad Plasmius and Vlad Masters were the same person. Mom stomped on Master's toe, and that gave Dad the chance to warn Mom about Plasmius."

"That's intense, man," Tucker muttered, taking a half-hearted bite of his mostly unfinished burger.

"What happened then?" Sam nudged Danny, prompting him to continue his tale.

"Well, Vlad wrecked the place with Dad's body, so I forced him out and got Dad out of there. But… I don't even know why I did it, I guess I thought I'd get more energy or a burst of power, or something…"

"What did you do?" Sam and Tucker both asked in tandem, before Sam's eyes shuttered closed and she muttered, "Please tell me you didn't."

"I sort of… drank the pure ectoplasm that the Dairy King gave me," Danny admitted sheepishly, his hand finding its way to the nape of his neck.

"How could you be so stupid?!" and "What did it taste like?" resounded in Danny's ears at the same time. Sam stared at Tucker in disbelief.

"Tucker!"

"What? I was just curious!" he defended himself, turning towards Danny. "Seriously man, what did it taste like?"

"Uhhhhhhh-"

"Don't say it," Sam turned her attention to Danny again. "I don't want to hear it."

Danny's eyes moved back and forth between his best friends. Eventually, he said,

"I'll tell you later, Tuck. Anyway, things got weird after that."

"Of course it got weird, you consumed an unknown substance, how could it not go wrong?" Sam muttered darkly under her breath.

"Well, a few minutes after that Vlad ambushed me. It wasn't really until that moment that it really clicked, you know? That Masters and Plasmius was the same person. So…"

"You taunted him, like you usually do with people that are stronger than you. What happened after that?" Tucker commented.

"Hey! I don't…" Danny thought about what he was about to say, then conceded to Tucker's point. "OK, I do taunt people that are stronger than me, but Dash doesn't count anymore because I'm technically stronger than him now."

"Yeah… now," Sam chuckled. Danny glared at his friends but continued the tale.

"I guess he freaked out or something because my last clear memory from that night was him bashing my head against the wall."

"He did what?!" Both Sam and Tucker exclaimed.

"He hit my head really hard against the wall. I can't clearly remember what else happened before Jazz found me in human form. Apparently, she thought I was high or something."

"Like, high on drugs?" Sam gasped.

"Yeah," Danny snorted. "She's convinced someone spiked the punch because everyone at the party claimed to have seen ghosts and everyone had sampled the punch."

"Wait, you're saying that she still doesn't believe in ghosts?" Tucker guffawed.

"She's been denying that ghosts exist for years and she's never been wrong before. She's not used to it," Sam explained.

"Yeah, on the trip back she used my 'high' as evidence that the punch was spiked and that everyone was hallucinating the ghost," Danny explained.

"Mass hallucination of the same thing… even that's stretching it a bit," Tucker commented.

"It's not stretching it a bit, it's stretching it a lot. Mass hallucinations aren't even a thing in scientific communities. If Jazz is claiming mass hallucination, then she's scraping at the bottom of the barrel for excuses that ghosts aren't real," Sam exclaimed.

"So that leaves one question unanswered…" Tucker said, rubbing his hands together conspiratorially, "What are you going to do about your archnemesis?"

Sam sighed.

"Tucker, how many times do I have to tell you we're not in a comic book?"

"You shouldn't say it at all because we totally are?" he retorted.

"I'm not arguing over this again. But he has a point, Danny, what are you going to do about Vlad?"

"Nothing, really," Danny answered. Techno-geek and Goth both found their jaws on the floor.

"And why not?!" Sam screeched silently.

"We made a truce to not spill each other's secret and to leave each other alone," Danny replied. "We'll never hear from him again."

Sam stared at Danny incredulously.

"You know you just jinxed it."

"Darn it."