A/N

I'm sorry this chapter took awhile, and I have no real excuse for why it did.

I want to take my time with this story, so there will be chapters that take forever to write and I can't avoid that.

Xenophobia

Chapter Two

Vlad showed only complete surprise and true joy when he got the call from the hospital.

He was still surprised of course, that his ecto syrome actually worked as quickly as it did. He expected it to take longer than only a couple hours, or was it only half the night? Vlad received no sleep and even though he used to run late nights, it had been years since he stayed up all night and took no naps during the day in preparation.

He woke up the oldest remaining Fenton and decided to shape his face into a look of indifference, wanting to surprise her with the news about her brother.

Jazz was never a morning person and considering it was about three in the morning, the teenager didn't take it lightly to be woken up from her much needed rest for the important tests she was supposed to take in five hours. It was understandable that she immediately threw a pillow at Vlad's face, but because she had her eyes closed, she didn't see him smack it out of the air with ease.

"Jasmine, what have I told you? Just because you're not a morning person doesn't mean that you have to take it out on everyone else." He bent to pick up the teal pillow. "Now if you would kindly throw on some clothes, I would like to head up to the hospital. There has been a new development with your brother."

Jazz immediately perked up. She opened her eyes and twisted in her bed to look at Vlad with huge eyes.

He then proceeded to get his revenge and throw the pillow back in her face.

She started shouting at Vlad, saying that she "wanted more information" and "that couldn't possibly be all that the hospital told him".

Vlad quickly retreated and didn't dare give Jazz the chance to see his smirk playing on his face and they delight dancing in his eyes, knowing that the smallest news about her brother would make her hurry.

After figuring it out that it was a lost cause to keep yelling after him, Jazz quickly stopped and jumped out of bed. She managed to keep her balance, and rushed around the room like a mini whirlwind, trying to find the comfiest clothes to slip into that weren't dirty.

It hardly took her five minutes, when she burst out from her room and raced down the steps to the lower landing, and almost plowed down her godfather who was waiting with the keys to the car in his hand.

"Well, shall we?" He asked rhetorically.

Jazz replied by racing to the mansion's door, flinging it open, and raced to the waiting car that was already heating up even without the keys.

Vlad chuckled some more at her antics but he could understand why she was acting the way she was. She must have seen some small sign of his happiness. He would have to be more careful with the next days to come if his suspicions were indeed correct about the other Fenton child.

He walked a little quicker, wanting to get to the hospital just as bad as she wanted to.

As soon as he took a seat in the car, Jazz began pestering him about the sudden need to go to the hospital for her brother.

Vlad continued smirking as he turned the keys in the exhaust and pulled out of the gates surrounding the mansion. He didn't want to bother his personal chauffeur this early in the morning and he was more than capable of driving one of the non-limo cars that he owned just for that reason.

The drive took a total of ten minutes and throughout the entire way, Jazz never stopped pestering. Vlad was a patient man, but even then he could only take so much. He didn't want to ruin the moment for Jazz. He molded his face into one of indifference and quietly led the curious and slightly angered Jasmine into the hospital.

He walked up to the awaiting nurse who was already expecting them.

"Mr. Masters, Ms. Fenton, he's waiting for you in the usual room. Right this way." The short brunette women promptly turned on her heels and started walking towards the intensive care wing at a brisk pace.

Wasting no time, Vlad and Jasmine followed her, quickly matching her pace as she led them past corridors and patient room after patient room.

Eventually, they reached a door that read,

Room 13b

Current Patient:

Fenton, Daniel J.

Nurse on Duty: Alex Thompson

The curtains were closed on the door and the window that was used for the nurses to keep an eye on the comatose boy.

The nurse, Betty as her name tag read, stepped to the side and opened the door for them. She leaned her head in a bit and called out, "Honey, you have some people here to see you."

Jazz rushed past the nurse and burst into the room, already have a sneaking suspicion of what, or who the nurse was just talking to.

Vlad leaned towards the nurse and whispered, "Thank you for this. You are truly a blessing."

He didn't stay and see the slight blush that graced her cheeks as he walked past her into the room.

As he walked through the door, he caught sight of a red-haired girl hugging a black haired boy. While Jazz was crying and seeming to be crushing the poor kid, he hugged her back calling out her name, over and over, confused.

The doctors who were still in the room finished grabbing the last bit of data and quickly and quietly left the room.

"Jazzy?"

"Oh, Danny you're awake!"

"Jazzy?"

"Thank goodness! I thought that you would never wake up!"

"Jazzy, where's—"

"We've been waiting so long!"

"Ja—"

"You wouldn't believe everything you missed!"

"But, Ja—"

"We live in a new house and it's huge, Danny!"

"What?"

"I even saved you a room that has the perfect view of the sky through it!"

"Jaz—"

"You missed the last episode of that stupid show you loved to watch, too! Just you wait until—"

"JAZZY! Where's mommy and daddy?"

Vlad stiffened. He knew the boy would have questions.

Jazz stopped hugging the confused boy. She sniffed, wiping away tears before answering. "Danny I… I don't know how to say it… they're gone… they, um… they're… gone"

The supposed eleven-year-old boy looked confused. "But… when are they coming back?"

Jazz seemed to be at a loss for words, so Vlad expertly introduced himself into the conversation, stepping out of the corner he was standing in to watch the happy reunion.

"Daniel… I'm sorry but they can't come back. They're… how would you say? Lost? They can't come back and we can't find them because they're not here anymore. I'm incredibly sorry, little badger."

Instead of fully realizing what Vlad said, the young boy seemed to look even more confused. "Who are you? What did you do to them? Where are mommy and daddy!"

"Danny, they're gone, just like he said and um… he's been taking care of me and you for a while now. He's our godfather."

"Godfather?"

"Yeah… he's like this person who acts like your family when your parents go away like h—how mom and dad did…"

"So he's supposed to take care of us until we find them?"

"Not exa-"

"Yes, Daniel. That's an accurate description."

Danny took his legs out from under the hospital bed blanket he previously was using before and stood up next to the bed on the floor, and ran over to hug the man.

The black haired boy turned to look at the man. "Well...thanks for taking care of me… 'replacement daddy'?"

"You can call me 'Vlad', Daniel."

The boy's nose scrunched up. He stopped hugging, but kept his arms loosely wrapped around the man."Call me 'Danny'."

"I think not, little badger."

It took a while to get the young boy accustomed to his new form of living. At first, he didn't notice the overall height difference he was experiencing, but as soon as he did, he started freaking out, and Vlad had to ask the nurse on duty, Alex (who turned out to be an acne-ridden young adult who had red hair), to help explain to the mentally three-year-old what happened and why he was suddenly eight years older.

Once the boy accepted the fact that he was somehow older than what he thought he was, he became interested in the news that they had a new home. He chose not to ask why they had a new house because he started to become aware of the fact that if he did, he would find out what really happened on the last day he could remember. It was as if his mind was slowly catching up with the rest of his body…

He asked even more questions about the things he missed on the car ride home and Jazz gladly filled him in. Vlad kept his distance, knowing that it would take some time before the boy accepted him as his 'father'. He gritted his teeth at the thought that the big oaf was still technically the children's father, but over the years he managed to create a bond with Jasmine that grew slowly as he had to grudgingly accept the fact that he truly wasn't her father.

It was easier to create a bond with a child that looked like a mini version of her mother in her college years, but now he would have to create a bond with the other child that he spent so much money on that looked a little too much like that blundering fool that most likely created the accident that killed his old flame that never really died down.

The boy was curious. He seemed to have a need to learn more, and that could work in Vlad's favor to show that he was the better father. Of course, he would never make the boy say those words out loud, but he hoped that over time, the boy would slowly realize that his bumbling oaf of a father wasn't really a father figure at all.

Once they reached the gates to the mansion, the boy unbuckled himself and leaned towards one of the windows of the car and comically squished his face against it to get a better look at the mansion.

It was impossible to not crack a smile at the boy. It would certainly take a while for the boy to fully adjust and improve enough to attend school, but Vlad would deal with the steps when they needed to be dealt with. The time would come when the boy would finally be at the right mentality to finally accept him as his new and permanent father figure.

Just like Vlad thought, it took a while for the boy to adjust. It took a whole year until Daniel felt like he finally wanted to start the harder learning process. Throughout the former year, Vlad and Jazz took turns working with him and reteaching him everything he needed to know, and a couple grades of elementary.

Throughout that time, Danny started finding what he missed out on, and the most important to the boy was space. Apparently, NASA decided to declassify Pluto as a planet which greatly surprised him, even if he didn't pay attention to it much.

Occasionally he was left alone at the house other than the handful of servants that his godfather hired. In that time, he would go outside into a relatively big backyard and enjoy the sky. Sometimes he would even sneak out at night and lay down on the softest spot of grass and watch the stars.

When he got bored, he would spy on his neighbors through the crack in the fence. There was a greenhouse that took up a small part of the yard, and sometimes Danny would see a girl dressed in purple and black leave the house, and while avoiding the sun as much as they could, walked their way over to the greenhouse, and she would spend hours upon hours in there.

It was interesting for Danny to watch since he didn't get out that much because of his studies and it was nice to know that there were people out there that were his age, even if he still thought it was weird that he missed eight years of his life…

Three years after he woke up, Vlad decided to make the decision.

Daniel managed to catch up in his education completely, and he now had the mental capacity of his true age, which the white-haired man was extremely proud of.

They grew closer together over the years, but Vlad kept a wary eye out in case his syrome ever managed to take effect. Occasionally, he would test the boy unknowingly to see if he managed to gain anything from the ectoplasm, but every test failed.

It would active sometime or other. Vlad just had to be patient.

In the meantime, it was time to tell the boy he could finally go to school.

A/N

I have no idea when the next chapter will be written as my life is getting more complicated as it gets closer to the end of the school year.

Every review, follow, and especially favorite for this story makes me so incredibly happy and proud of what I wrote. Thank you to you all for doing that for this story!

Each time I get one, I want to write more for the story, even if I'm busy and that's fun to experience.

Please review and tell me what you think.