Weeks passed and Vlad and Danny spent most of their time in the lab trying to find a cure for Danny's predicament. Danny reached out to Sam and Tucker to let them know he was okay, but left out his current predicament. He didn't want to worry them, and if it came down to it then he would tell them before it got to be too late. He just hoped it didn't come to that. Naturally they had asked him all kinds of questions about Vlad, life with him, if he really was okay, and then had reluctantly backed off; but not before forcing Danny to agree to meet up for dinner the next night.

Meanwhile, Vlad could see Danny slowly growing worse and worse. He did a good job hiding it, it was no wonder the entire town hadn't been able to piece together his secret. If he hadn't been made aware of Danny's condition then he wasn't even sure if he would have caught on if he hadn't known what to look for. Now Danny was starting to look more and more pale and gaunt every day. He was weakening as well, but did what he could to reserve his strength. His ghost side didn't require food, so his appetite was slowly diminishing as he got worse and worse.

Danny walked down to the lab, a glass of water in hand, "swallow hard, kill sadness with science..." he hummed under his breath before walking over to see if Vlad had made any progress. "Any updates?"

"Maybe..." Vlad said as he carefully injected a fluid into a sample of ectoplasm. They had been playing around with one formula that should stabilize his ectoplasm by providing a crutch for a lack of better terms to it's genetic structure. From there his DNA should be able to re-bond the way it was supposed to with the structure of the ectoplasm... in theory, at least. They waited with baited breath to see how it reacted, the past few attempts had ended badly with puss like substances or bloated ectoplasm; the worst reaction so far had dissolved the ectoplasm entirely.

Slowly the sample started to glow brighter and brighter, then dimmed before dying entirely. "Odd." Vlad huffed before returning back to the formula sheet he was working on and trying to figure out what ingredient had caused it so they could remove and reformulate it. "It's close, we just have to find the last ingredient that isn't too caustic to the sample."

Danny nodded and glanced down at his water. "When we do find it, then what? Would it be a one time shot or would we have to medicate it away?"

Vlad shook his head. "We'd have to monitor your levels to determine if a one time shot would be all that was needed or not." He turned to Danny and stood up, deciding he wanted some tea. "You're the first case that this has happened to in this way, so we have to take it one step at a time. We'll get there." He said, placing a hand on Danny's shoulder before heading upstairs to make a cup of tea. He made his tea, thinking over the formula as he did so when a thought occurred to him. He picked up his cup and went downstairs, plugging another ingredient into the formula and running it through his computer to see if the chemicals would react well together. They did. He turned to Danny and motioned to a jar that was on a shelf behind him, full of white flowers with black dots on its petals. "Could you bring that over here?"

Danny nodded and grabbed the jar, bringing it over. Vlad reached in and took one out, carefully crushing it and going through the process of liquifying it. He added a small drop to the fluid and mixed it in before carefully applying it to a fresh sample of ectoplasm. He watched intently, barely noticing as Danny turned to the entrance of the lab and frowned, carefully climbing the stairs to follow a sound he had heard.

The ectoplasm glowed brightly before settling back into a healthy glow. Vlad ran it through his tests to see what the fluid had done and found the ectoplasm was incredibly stable. "Daniel, I may have found it." He said before turning to find he was alone. He frowned and stood up, following Danny out of the lab and searching the mansion for him. He wasn't anywhere inside it seemed, so he transformed and flew up through the roof to get a better view of the grounds the mansion was on. He scanned his yard before catching a familiar sight down the road. A large vehicle was driving quickly down the road, heading in the general direction toward Amity Park.

With a clear as day green F written on the side of it.

I uploaded this on my birthday! Sadly, thanks to COVID-19, I'll be spending my birthday at home in my pajamas and trying to avoid the people I live with.

Also, I tossed in a small little easter egg. I'll message anyone who caught it! Here's a hint- it's a song lyric. It's not the one that Danny was humming, either. That is another hint though.