How Do You Know?

Unknown-nin345: Hello there faithful readers. Welcome to my Danny Phantom one-shot that takes place during the episode "Girls Night Out" when Jack and Danny are out fishing on Lake Eerie. The idea for it came to me right after the episode when my mom walked by my room while she had 'The Good Stuff' by Kenny Chesney playing on her phone. Somehow from there my mind wandered off to come up with this.

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.

Warning…Warning: This story features a serious Jack Fenton. You have been warned.

Jack Fenton, ghost hunting extraordinaire (at least when he gets serious), was grasping at straws for a conversation with his son that wasn't about ghosts when he suddenly asked, "Hey! How are you and that Sam person doing?"

Danny Fenton, a.k.a. Danny Phantom (half-ghost, duly deputized superhero), was about as surprised as you could get by the out of the blue question. In fact the teen could only manage a somewhat strangled, "What?" as an answer.

"Oh you know…that gloomy girl you like, uh, like!" Jack finished somewhat lamely as he turned his gaze back to his still fishless fishing line.

"Uh, she, I don't, I mean I kind of, but I'm not sure if I exactly like, well sort of," Danny trailed off as he considered his 'relationship' with Samantha Manson. A thought hit him so he looked over his shoulder and asked, "Hey dad, how did you know that mom was…you know the one?"

Jack Fenton was silent as he stared out over the water of Lake Eerie. Danny thought he had fallen asleep again when the older man suddenly started speaking, "You know Danny up until I met your mother I didn't care one lick about ghosts." Danny looked up at his father with wide eyes and dropped jaw. "For a majority of my life up until college the only real passion I had was for football and I was pretty good at it too. Got myself a scholarship because of my skill in the sport. Unfortunately, in my first college game I received an injury that would have had me confined to a wheelchair if I ever got hit in that spot again too soon. One night, as I was moping around because of my injury, I just happened to pass by one of the unused science labs and there she was. Hard at work on one of her inventions to prove to everyone that ghosts exist."

Danny stayed silent, it was rare for him to have a serious conversation like this with his father and he didn't want to say something that would spoil the mood.

Jack shook his head as he continued to speak, "People will sometimes say that couples are fated, or destined to be together. I don't know if I believe that but I know that when I saw your mother that night, the whole world seemed to fade away. Eventually she noticed me in the doorway and we started talking. It didn't take her long to have me totally convinced that ghosts existed and I decided to drop football and devoted all my time to studying ghosts so that I could spend more time with your mother. There was just something about her that made me want to move the entire world just to see her smile."

"I know there are times when I forget things, when I act like a complete fool, and that sometimes I eat a little more than is healthy. But that's who I am, and that's who your mother grew to love." Jack looked down at his son. "There's a song I once heard that seems to describe perfectly how I would be when I was first with Maddie, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name. What I do remember is this: the good stuff about being in love is the first kiss you share with her. It's when you drop the ring as you're down on one knee, because your hands are shaking that much. It's holding her hand as you stand at the head of the aisle on your wedding day. It's eating burnt supper the whole first year but you ask for seconds anyway. It's looking down at the baby girl or boy she hands you and says 'Here's your child'. It's living every moment of every day just to see her smile."

Jack wiped at his suspiciously misty eyes and went on, "You worry about her and want to do what you can to protect her with all of your being. And no matter how hard you try, you just can't bring yourself to imagine a life without her by your side. That's how I knew, the moment I met your mother that she was the one Danny. I hope someday, you get to meet a girl who makes you feel that way." After ruffling his son's hair, Jack turned back to his fishing line.

Meanwhile, Danny was astonished by what his dad had said. The black-haired teen closed his eyes as he thought back on everything he went through with Sam. He found his emotions associated with his memories coming quite close to what his dad had described, not to mention he already knew what his life would be like without Sam (no Danny Phantom for one thing!). The half-ghost teen still wasn't one hundred percent sure about his feelings regarding his gothic best friend, but he was at least a little bit surer than before.

Suddenly, a cold sensation swept through him as his breath was suddenly visible before his eyes. 'Well, more time to think about this later,' Danny mentally decided as he looked up only to spot Skulker hovering in the air above the small boat.

End Fic

Unknown-nin345: Well how did you like it? Like I said earlier, the inspiration for this really came out of nowhere. I wanted to showcase a more serious side of Jack that we don't get to see all that often.

Oh, and just so you all known, yes…surer is a word. At least my spellchecker seems to think so.

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