Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny was pretty sure he couldn’t take it anymore.

Jazz was dead. His parents were basically hollowed out because of it – he wasn’t sure if his father had spoken in weeks. Tucker was… gone. Sam left him, and Amity Park, after telling him to get yourself together, dammit. And he didn’t blame her. Hell, even Ember was worried about him, if her words the last time they’d fought were anything to go by.

(“Look, dipstick, normally I almost like fighting you! But now you’re making me feel bad. Seriously, are you okay?” He’d answered with a shouted “I’m fine!”, which turned into a ghostly wail, which petered off into a scream. All in all, not very convincing.)

Now he stood in Clockwork’s domain, because it was the last option he could think of that wasn’t final. Probably. When you’re already half-dead, it’s never sure.

“Please, Clockwork, I need to know.”

“You know the rules about looking into your future, Danny.”

“I don’t need the future. I don’t want it – I don’t see any way things don’t just get worse. Just… show me something. Some other way it could have gone. If there’s a multiverse, I need to know that somewhere out there, there’s a version of me who’s happy.”

The ghost held eye contact, and Danny found him getting oddly blurry.

Oh. Am I crying? I didn’t realize I could still do that.

He wiped at his eyes.

Clockwork nodded finally, and snapped his fingers like a clap of thunder. Scenes sprang up around them, windows into other timelines. “You may not like them all. I understand you’re hurting, but whether you believe me or not, things could be worse.”

Danny took a breath to steady himself, and began to circle the room clockwise, starting at his left.

Amity Park, empty and desolate, drifting in the Ghost Zone. A sword speared a ragged and desiccated body with silver hair. “You were defeated by the Ghost King,” said Clockwork from behind him.

Himself, huddled in the living room of Vlad Masters’ mansion, eyes even emptier than the ones that looked back at him in the mirror, burns like Lichtenberg scars crisscrossing his skin. “The Ghost Portal exploded when your parents first tried to activate it. You were the only survivor.”

A scene he knew all too well – the ruins of Nasty Burger, a familiar figure kneeling beside it. He moved on quickly, trying to shake away those memories, grateful for Clockwork’s silence.

A room like an artist’s loft, himself in ghost form floating cross-legged with a book; behind him, an open window revealed the expanse of the Ghost Zone. “After your identity was revealed, you withdrew from the world to a lair of your own in the Ghost Zone.” That me looks even lonelier than I am now.

Himself, scarred and scowling, crowned and seated on the throne of Pariah Dark, feet resting on the shoulders of a kneeling Dash in chains, Paulina to the side with a tray of food and drink. Before Clockwork could speak, Danny shook his head. “I don’t think I want to know.”

They continued, all equally depressing, until-

Casper High at night. Sam and Tucker, outside, in the usual mid-mission antics he remembered, though by age they seemed to equal his own current 18. Skulker rounded the corner, backwards, and sound came faint and echoey.

“Puny whelp!” he shouted, drawing a plasma cannon. Then, following him around the corner-

Dani?

The girl in his own ghostly suit, her silver hair to her mid-back, a bolt of energy bursting from her hand to knock the gun from Skulker’s grip. “Come on, do you ever learn?”

But that doesn’t make sense. Dani’s a kid. This girl’s the same age as Sam and Tucker.

The fight ended, of course, with Skulker unconscious. Then from behind a tree stepped Jazz, hair cropped to her shoulders, Fenton Thermos in hand. She captured the bounty hunter, and raised her hand for a high-five with the ghost girl.

“Woo! Nice job, Dani!” The ghost girl met it.

“Thanks, sis! Couldn’t do it without you.”

Sis?? Did we… finally adopt Dani, and now she’s doing hero stuff? Did I die in this world or something?

Clockwork chuckled, and Danny realized he’d said the last part aloud.

“Technically, you died in every world you have powers, Danny. But no, you’re as alive in that one as you are now.”

“Then what’s going on? Where’s me?”

“These windows always center on you, Danny. That’s the whole point of seeing other possible timelines.”

“Then… wait. Wait. Is that girl supposed to be me?”

Clockwork smiled enigmatically (as usual). “What do you think?”

Danny looked back at the window. At his friends and sister, laughing together. At the ghost girl, grinning, eyes bright, at ease in a way he hadn’t felt in years, maybe since before the Accident. At Jazz ruffling the hair of an annoyed-but-smiling Sam. Something buried deep came bubbling to the surface.

“I think… she has everything I’ve ever wanted.” Danny wheeled on Clockwork. “I want that, Clockwork. I don’t- the life I have now is empty. Of everything. I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

“You mean-“

“Clockwork, I came here because I needed some sort of hope, that even when I wasn’t around anymore, I was, or could have been, happy out there somewhere. I didn’t think I’d be asking this. I didn’t plan this. But please, isn’t there some way I can do it over? A big red Reset button or something?”

“You know there are consequences to time travel.”

“I don’t care about the consequences, Clockwork. Not if it means my family is whole. Not if my friends and I are together. I can handle any consequences on my part.”

The ghost sighed. “Very well, Danny. Yes, there is a way I can rewind things. You won’t remember much of this, or of your original timeline. It would cause too many problems – human, ghost, or halfa, the mind isn’t meant to hold two lives’ memories of the same events, and as things diverge it would only cause more issues. But I’ll give you what I can. I can’t promise you’ll reach the point you’ve seen in the window – with the change in your knowledge, that will be up to you. But you’ll have a chance.”

Danny smiled, for perhaps the first time in months. “Thank you, Clockwork. I know this is breaking all sorts of rules.”

“Eh, I’ve always been fond of you, kid. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though, if you happen to remember it. I’ll handle the Observants. Are you ready?”

Danny nodded. “Just one last thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I hug you?”

Clockwork smiled, this time an open expression. “Sure.”

Chapter Text

“Danny? Oh my God, Danny! Come on, wake up!”

A voice broke through the pounding static, soothing it, starting to pull her back to consciousness.

Her?

Yeah, she was pretty sure she was a her. That felt right. She had a feeling she’d pretended otherwise before, for some reason, but she couldn’t remember why.

And the voice – that was familiar. Fragments of things started breaking through her fog as her mind swam out of the darkness.

“Nnngh- Sam?” She pushed herself up, brushing hair out of her face, off her shoulders. “My everything hurts.”

Sam grabbed her in a tight hug. “Oh thank God, Danny, you’re okay.”

Danny. Right, that was her name. Short for… Danielle? Probably?

“What… happened, again?”

The other one – Tucker, her brain helpfully supplied as it continued rebooting – clutched his PDA nervously. “You were showing us the Fenton portal, and Sam convinced you to try turning it on.”

“Oh. Right. And my idiot parents put the ON switch on the inside.” Unfortunately, now she also remembered the blinding pain that had followed. She scratched at her scalp with her free hand, the other arm trapped by Sam’s hug. “Well… at least I’m okay?”

Sam sniffled, pulling back, looking concerned. “Are… you sure?”

“I think? I feel fine. A little cold.”

“Um, maybe you should look in a mirror,” Tucker said uneasily.

She frowned. “Tuck, what aren’t you telling me?”

Sam pulled her to her feet and shoved her toward the bathroom. “Just, um, just go look.”

She staggered in, going to flick on the light, and her arm phased through the wall.

“Whoa, what the heck?” She took a better look at her arm, then down at her body. She was in a black jumpsuit, with silver gloves and boots. Wait, wasn’t the jumpsuit white before?

She finally flicked the light on, and stared at her reflection.

Her eyes were bright green; her hair, down to her mid-back, was snow-white; her jumpsuit black, with silver accents, boots, and gloves.

“What the heck happened to my clothes?”

Sam and Tucker poked their heads in the doorway.

“Is that really your biggest problem?” the other girl asked, clearly waffling between worry and sarcasm.

“I mean, my hair and eyes are a weird color too. And there’s the fact I just phased through the wall. Which, now that I mention it, is probably concerning.”

“Uh, Danny, I think Sam was talking about the fact that you’re, y’know. A girl?”

She frowned, gesturing with her hands to indicate her entire body. “Uh, duh? Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her friends shared a shocked look, and the last bit of her memory came flooding back. The part about her being born a boy and pushing down everything inside herself that screamed otherwise, so well she forgot it herself. She swayed, going to steady herself on the bathroom counter, but her arm went intangible again and she slipped, bouncing her head off the counter before collapsing to the floor. There was a flash of light, and her body changed. Back to a boy, in a white jumpsuit. She curled up on the floor, eyes wide, clawing shakily at her clothes, her body, all wrong.

“…Danny?” Sam asked finally, gently, moving closer to put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head slightly, arms crossed, clenching her fists. “No. Nope. Need to- I don’t- forget I said anything.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn it, she was supposed to keep this down. She was good at keeping it down, not letting herself remember, not letting Dash get to her, not letting people in. Or, she was supposed to be.

“Hey, Danny, it’s okay.” She could almost feel the other girl giving Tucker a Look. “Nothing wrong with being a girl, right, Tucker?”

He kneeled down near them. “Yeah, Danny. It’s cool. You’re fine.”

“Exactly. Come on, let’s get you up to your room to rest for a while, okay? We’re your best friends, Danny. We’re here to help.”

She let them pull her to her feet, each holding one of her hands, and followed stiffly after them up the stairs to her room.

###

After they got Danny to bed, Sam and Tucker stepped out of the room to talk in hushed tones in the balcony hallway. Tucker winced as wracking sobs came quietly through the door.

“Okay, I was not prepared to deal with any of this today.”

“Come on, Tucker, we gotta be there for her. Who knows how long she’s been keeping this bottled up?”

“Oh, no, Danny’s my best friend, I’m not going anywhere. I’m just saying it’s a lot for one day. Okay, she’s a girl now. And has been, I guess. That’s one thing. I also thought she died for a minute!”

Thinking back to the chill Sam had felt when they hugged, and the way Danny’s arm had phased through the counter, a shiver ran up her spine.

“Tucker, I think she might have. Or… like, half-died, and came back? You know how her parents are about ghosts, maybe they’re on to something.” Not to mention they built a giant green portal that’s glowing in the basement now. “Maybe she got some sort of weird ghost powers from that portal.”

Tucker started to say something, then frowned as a new idea came to him. “Actually, if ghosts can look however they want, that might explain why she turned into a girl. She seemed pretty out of it, so maybe it was subconscious?”

Sam nodded. “That’s as good a guess as any.”

The front door opened, and Maddie and Jack walked in. “Hey, you two!” called Danny’s mother.

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Fenton!” Tucker called back.

“We’re helping Danny with homework!” Sam said. “It’s really tough stuff, so we’re concentrating really hard.”

“Yeah, so, don’t come up here!”

“Good for you!” Jack said with a grin. “Study hard! Like I did in college!”

Sam wasn’t convinced that Jack Fenton had ever read a book in his life, but she didn’t say that; instead, she and Tucker beat a hasty retreat to Danny’s room.

Danny had gone back to what Sam decided to call her ghost form, seated on her bed with her back against the headboard, knees pulled up to her chin, head turned to gaze out the window. The white jumpsuit had been discarded by the foot of the bed, but her ghost form still wore black, looking just as she had when she woke up. Sam sat gingerly on the edge of the bed while Tucker closed the door.

“How did you…” what to call it… “go ghost again?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. Her voice was a little scratchy, but she seemed to have regained some composure. “I just… thought about it hard enough, I guess.” She looked down at her hands, which then turned invisible. She yelled and shook them until they came back into view, then took a couple of deep breaths. “So… what, I’m dead?”

“We think… kind of? Or, like, halfway?”

She huffed, but it sounded thick, as if she was about to cry again. Sam scooted closer and leaned in for a hug. She was bad at admitting fault, she knew that, but Danny was crying and Danny never cried and she knew how serious this was.

“Danny, I am so sorry. This is all my fault, it was my idea, and I half-killed you, and I brought up all these feelings you weren’t ready to deal with, and-”

“Sam, Sam, it’s okay,” Danny broke through. “You know I’m bad at staying out of trouble, I probably would have wound up checking it out eventually anyway.”

“That’s fair,” Tucker said, as he sat down in Sam’s abandoned spot at the edge of the bed. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “What? I’m agreeing with her.”

Danny choked back something that could have been either a laugh or a sob. “How are you guys so okay with this?”

“Okay with what?” Tucker said. “The being a ghost thing, or the being a girl thing?”

“Either! Both! I don’t know!”

Sam sat up and gave her one of her grandmother’s don’t-be-silly-bubeleh looks. “Duh, you’re our best friend, why wouldn’t we be?”

“I don’t know! I’m not even sure about this whole girl thing, why does this feel so right? I don’t – can I even just, be a girl?” Her eyes grew more wild as she talked.

“Sure, it’s called being transgender,” Sam said, shrugging. “Sometimes who a person is inside doesn’t match how they’re born.” She tapped Danny in the sternum. “I’d say this, combined with what you said during that temporary amnesia, is proof enough.”

“I spend a lot of time in chat rooms, but how do you know about this stuff?” Tucker asked. Sam shrugged again, figuring hey, they’re my best friends, may as well tell them.

“I’m bi, I make it a point to read up on stuff like that.”

“Bi?” Danny asked, and she was reminded of how sheltered her friend was.

“Yeah, bisexual, it means I like both guys and girls.”

“You can do that? Like girls as a girl?”

“Duh. Who you’re into doesn’t have anything to do with your gender.”

Danny just sort of stared into the distance for a minute, and Sam and Tucker shared a glance – Sam had started to worry she’d broken her – before she finally turned to them and spoke.

“Shit, guys, I’m a girl.”

Sam pulled her into another hug, and jerked her head at Tucker in a get-your-butt-over-here gesture. “We’re super proud of you, Danny,” she said, as Tucker awkwardly joined the hug. “It’s hard to admit stuff sometimes, to yourself and to other people. We’ll help you however we can, okay?”

She sniffled. “O-okay. Thanks, you guys.”

Tucker leaned back from the hug and slid closer to the foot of the bed. “Jeez, why are girls so emotional, anyway?” he said. Danny snorted and threw her pillow at him, knocking him backward onto the floor, where he let out a weak “ow.”

Sam cackled at that, and Danny started to giggle.

Tucker, grinning, shot Sam a thumbs-up from outside Danny’s view.

Chapter Text

Tucker eventually pulled himself off the floor and out of the room, citing “bathroom”, but the girls kept laughing for a long moment. Finally, Sam flopped backward on the bed.

“Alright, Danny, tomorrow you’re coming to my house for girls’ night.” Danny stared at her, and she shot a frown back. “What?”

The white-haired girl shook her head, leaning back against the wall. “Sam, we’ve known each other for like a decade, and you’ve never invited me to your house.”

“And I have my reasons for that. But the Girl Code trumps them.”

“‘Girl Code’?” Tucker said, coming back from the bathroom and closing the door behind him.

“Article 27, section 3, subparagraph 5,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“You made that up,” Tucker accused.

“Maybe.” She smirked at him. “You’ll never know, will you?”

The three of them kept talking, and did actually get some studying done. Sam nudged Tucker at one point when Danny was especially animated, and he grinned back – discounting the ‘being a ghost’ thing, they hadn’t seen her so alive in years.

There was a knock on the door, and Danny immediately went insubstantial, falling through the bed with a yelp of surprise as Tucker jumped up to block line of sight. Mrs. Fenton’s voice followed the knock.

“Okay kids, it’s probably time for Sam and Tucker to head home!”

Sam yanked her gaze away from the now-empty bed. “Okay, Mrs. Fenton! We’ll be out in a minute,” she called. Tucker was looking around the room, confused.

“Uh, Danny?”

She stuck her head out from under the bed. “I’m here.” Tucker yelped and jumped back, and she giggled.

###

Danny quickly helped her friends pack up their school stuff after she’d pulled herself out from under the bed. She reached for her doorknob and stopped, realizing she’d need to change back before she could leave her room.

Sam took Danny’s hand with a light squeeze. “Hey, you don’t have to walk us to the door or anything if you don’t want to.”

Danny shook her head. It would seem weird if she didn’t, and they were trying to avoid suggesting to her parents that anything was going on. “No, it’s okay. Just… give me a minute?”

They nodded, and she closed her eyes, focusing on psyching herself up to go back. Tucker took her other hand.

She let out a long, slow breath. Wait, did she even actually need to breathe? She shook her head again. Not important.

“Okay.”

She forced herself to leave her spectral form and saw a flash of light through her closed eyelids. She shivered, shifting a little at the change in her balance, then opened her eyes and avoided looking down. Sam and Tucker were watching her with equally concerned expressions.

“I’m fine-” she started, then winced. How had she never noticed how grating her voice was before? She swallowed. “I’m fine,” she said again, more softly. Sam squeezed her hand again, and she gave her a small smile, nodding, before they all let go and Danny opened her door. They walked down the stairs, her friends giving their thanks and farewells to Danny’s mom, and then Sam paused just before the doorway, turning to her.

“Oh, can Danny come over tomorrow? We had a little more homework we were going to work on. My grandma said it was alright.”

“That should be okay.”

“Cool.” The two girls high-fived and then followed Tucker out the door. As soon as it shut behind them, Danny grabbed both of her friends in a hug.

“Thanks, guys,” she whispered.

“Anytime, D,” Tucker said.

She waved to her friends, then stepped inside, closing the door with a sigh. Exhaustion flooded through her, making her aware that she still felt weak from her earlier French-kiss with Death. That, combined with her new awareness of just how wrong her body was, had her shutting her eyes and sighing again before she pushed away from the door to head upstairs.

“Sweetie? Is everything okay?” her mom asked, closing her book as she stood up.

Ugh I really don’t want to deal with this right now, how do I get out of this conversation-

“We got the portal to turn on!” she blurted, pushing the words out hastily so she didn’t have to hear them. Her mom stopped short, eyes lighting up. “It took a while so I’m kinda tired.”

“Really?” At Danny’s nod, she gasped and hugged her. “That’s wonderful! I’ll go tell your father!”

oh thank god

After her mother’s departure, Danny pulled herself up the stairs with both physical and mental effort. As she reached the upstairs hallway, Jazz emerged from the bathroom, stopping her with a hand on the shoulder as they passed each other. She searched Danny’s eyes for something.

“Hey, are you alright? You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m-” she winced again at her voice, but pushed the feeling down, speaking more softly. “I’m just… dealing with some things.”

“Okay. You know you can talk to me, right?”

I do? Oddly, she did feel that way. She hadn’t, in a while, until now. Maybe it was a sister thing?

“I’m not sure I’m ready right now, that’s all. I’m working on it.”

“Alright. Well, if you change your mind, I’m here.”

“Thanks, Jazz.” On a whim, she leaned in and hugged her, then pulled away. “I know.”

She caught a glimpse of a startled expression on her sister’s face as she yanked open the door of her room. She kicked it shut behind her, then shifted back to her ghost form, letting it rush over her like a breath of cool fresh air, giggling at the sensation. She didn’t know if she’d be able to hold it while she was asleep, but she could sure try.

###

Danny awoke with a groan and pried herself upright. She had not kept up her ghost form all night, which probably meant it needed more concentration than she could give it while unconscious, or at least more practice. She still felt the, what had Sam called it, dysphoria, but that flood of crawling discomfort she’d felt after she first came out of ghost form had subsided to something that she was aware of without it taking the entirety of her focus. It still hurt, of course, but the same way it always had, so she felt like she could suffer through it briefly with the possibility of transforming back as a light at the end of the tunnel.

She was very glad it was Saturday.

She pushed herself out of bed, still wearing her typically-baggy t-shirt and jeans from the day before – she’d forgotten to take them off before she went ghost.

Nnh… they’re probably cleanish. She didn’t really want to undress right now.

She staggered into the bathroom and brushed her teeth without looking in the mirror or down at her body, then left the room. Healthy coping behavior! Yep.

Totally fine.

She headed downstairs to the kitchen. Jazz was sitting at the table, reading, her cup of coffee cold and forgotten. Danny poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down.

“Hear you and your friends got that portal thingy working?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Mom and Dad were down there all night. They just went to bed like half an hour ago, so it looks like it’ll be you and me today.”

Danny shrugged. “For a while, anyway. Probably going to Sam’s this afternoon. Homework,” she added, remembering Sam’s excuse the night before.

“That’s cool.” Jazz raised an eyebrow. “So, not that I care about our parents’ lunacy, but just out of curiosity, how did you get that thing working?”

Danny didn’t really want to think about it – though she liked the result, it had kinda hurt – but she couldn’t think of any reason not to answer, so she shrugged again.

“We plugged it in.”

Jazz burst out laughing and buried her face in her book to muffle it. She was still snickering when Danny finished her breakfast and went back upstairs. She closed the door to her room, locked it, and sighed as she returned to her ghost form, then shook herself like a dog, hugged herself, and smiled.

“Okay,” she mused, dropping crosslegged on the floor, “I’m sort of a ghost, right? I know I turned intangible last night. I turned partly invisible. Maybe I can do it on purpose?” She dug a notebook and pencil out of her backpack and turned to a blank page. She brushed some hair out of her face, paused to revel in the fact that she had enough hair she needed to brush it out of her face, and started making a list.

      To Try

     -Intangibility

     -Invisibility

     -Flight? Ghosts can fly, right?

“Hmm. Not much of a list, but it’s a start.” She stretched, and as she felt the shifting of her jumpsuit, another thought occurred to her. Slowly, hopefully, she reached behind her back – gosh, I’m so bendy! – and found the zipper of the formfitting jumpsuit. She tugged, and it came down.

She could take the jumpsuit off!

###

Danny slipped her notebook in her backpack, slung it over her shoulders, and left her room. She slid down the banister, alighting at the bottom of the stairs. Pushing the straps of her backpack forward with her hooked thumbs, she grinned at Jazz from under her baseball cap.

“‘Kay I’m heading out sis see ya later!” she rushed, then tugged open the front door.

“Danny? Your voice sounds weird-” Jazz’ voice was cut off as Danny closed the door behind her.

Okay, she thought, looking down at her hands. Now… invisibility on purpose?

She focused on the idea of being unseen – like she tried to do every day in school to avoid Dash – and suddenly it was like she’d discovered she had a tail, something she could control, at least with some practice. She gave a breathless giggle as her hands flickered, then disappeared, along with the rest of her body.

I can turn invisible. I can turn invisible!

“Okay, Danny, so far so good. Now… how about flying?”

She’d had dreams about flying, all her life; flying, and floating weightless in space, ever since she first looked through a telescope and learned about astronauts. She knew, a little, what it felt like to be weightless; she’d had brief glimpses on roller coasters, and in high places when the wind was strong. She leaned into that feeling, letting herself fall forward, and then she stopped, floating inches above the sidewalk.

It might be barely, it might be almost a technicality, but she was flying!

A triumphant cheer bubbled from her lips as she rose higher, flailing slightly to keep her balance, as if on an elevator the size of a skateboard deck. Higher and higher, until she was above the rooflines of the surrounding buildings, floating invisible in the domain of the birds. She leaned forward again and began to move, slowly, then faster, faster than walking, then faster than she could bike, speeding above the streets.

Maybe a little bit fast. Ease up, ease up!

Her control over her flying cut out altogether, along with her invisibility, and she fell two feet to bounce twice on the rooftop she’d been passing over. Her ghost form cut out and she shuddered as she stood and brushed herself off.

“Okay, that’s alright, I needed to turn anyway. Let’s try that again. Going ghost!”

Whew, much better.

She managed to turn on her invisibility again, except her lower left leg; a couple of shakes made that disappear too. She tried to call up that feeling of flying, leaning forward, but it slipped from her grasp, and she just managed to catch herself before her face hit the roof.

“Crap. Umm…” She looked around; no door down from the roof that she could see, which meant her choices were pretty much 1. Fly away or 2. Try to get someone to call the fire department and then have to explain how she got on the roof.

Okay, 2 was out.

So I have to get off this roof myself.

Only one idea came to mind. If she couldn’t call up the feeling of falling again, she’d have to force herself into it.

This is a horrible idea, but I don’t have a better one.

She bounced a couple of times on the balls of her feet, took a deep breath, and ran forward, throwing herself off the roof.

Almost immediately, she began to glide, and with some effort, she took control of her movement again and continued, slower, on her way to Sam’s house, only flying into a couple of walls on the way before she reached the address she’d been given.

“Okay, now to try landing.” She began descending carefully, her control wavering, until she lost it, turning visible and dropping suddenly about a foot and a half above Sam’s front doorstep.

“Ouch!” she yelped, rubbing her butt as she stood. “So close.” She rang the doorbell, and it opened a second later.

“Danny!”

“Hey Sam!” she said with a broad smile. She tugged off her hat, letting her white hair fall untucked down over her shoulders.

“Danny? Did you just – oh my god!” Sam hugged her tight. “You can wear normal clothes in your ghost form! That’s awesome!”

“I can fly too!”

“You what?”

“That’s how I got here!” Danny said, taking an actual look around at the large foyer. Her jaw dropped. “Whoa. This is your house?”

“I know I should have told you and Tucker this a long time ago, but my family’s kinda… filthy rich.” She chuckled nervously. “Weird, huh?”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah… my great-granddad Izzy was an inventor,” Sam explained, looking embarrassed. “He invented that machine that twirls cellophane around deli toothpicks?”

“If you’re rich, why not tell anyone? Or hang out with people besides Tucker and me?”

“I don’t want people to like me just because I have money. You two like me ‘cause I’m cool.”

“We do?” Danny said with a smirk. Sam snorted and shoved her.

“Dork. C’mon, you can drop off your backpack in one of the guest rooms.”

“‘One of’?”

“Filthy rich?”

“Right.”

“Anyway, this’ll be fun! You can spend the night, we can talk, watch a movie, maybe work on your look.”

“Um. I know my parents aren’t exactly the most attentive, but I feel like they’d have a problem with that.”

Sam waved it off. “It’s cool girl, I worked it all out with Tucker last night. Just tell them you’re spending the night at his place, if they call he’ll just tell ‘em you’re in the bathroom or something.”

On the one hand, girls’ night with Sam. On the other hand, lying to my parents.

Danny gave her a thumbs up. “Sweet! I’m in.”

###

Sam opened the door to her room and ushered the ghost-girl in.

“Welcome to my lair!” she said cheerfully, closing the door behind them. Danny stood there and blinked a couple times; her eyes glowed an eerie green in the dark, and her skin was also faintly luminescent.

Whoa, that’s wicked cool.

“Uh, Sam? What are you looking at?”

“You glow in the dark. It’s kinda cool.”

Danny held up a hand and stared at it.

“…whoa.”

“Oh, right!” Sam said. “Lights.” She flicked the switch by the door and warm light filled the room. The room still seemed dark, but that was more an effect of the dominant color being black rather than an ambient light issue. She crossed the room to her walk-in closet and flung open the doors.

“Alright. I think we should be roughly the same size, and I have plenty of stuff you can try.”

“I’m not going goth,” Danny said, shifting uncomfortably.

“You sure? ‘cause you could totally pull it off.”

“Sam! I’m just- I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Fine, no goth. For now.” She paused. “I’m gonna be super honest, I’m kinda crap at fashion stuff when it doesn’t involve eyeshadow and mostly-black outfits, but I will do my best to adapt!” She dove into her closet, seeking out something she was pretty sure she had that sat between her usual style and the hyper-girly stuff her mom perpetually tried to get her into.

There it is. Pair of black jeans, one of her usual skirts, white top she hadn’t gotten around to dyeing yet, and for underwear an unopened package of black boybriefs and an unworn bralette, that should be roughly the right size. She chucked each out to the bed as she found it.

Sam looked at the rather pitiful selection, then back toward her closet.

Yep, I do not have a non-goth wardrobe for her. Maybe I can convince her to go shopping? Alright, what else, Sam mused as she walked back into the bedroom. Hmm… I have plenty of unopened makeup… She looked at Danny from a couple of angles.

“I was thinking I might be able to do your makeup, but your skin tone is a lot closer to mine when you aren’t in your ghost form. There’s this weird shadow.”

Danny chewed her lip for a moment, thinking, then sighed. “Okay, I’ll… I’ll try it.”

She took a deep breath, then released her ghost form. She looked nervously at Sam, so Sam ignored her expression and appraised what she had to work with.

“Mm-hm, I can work with this. Sit here.” Sam gestured to the chair in front of her vanity, an effort of her mother’s that she had to begrudgingly admit was somewhat useful, though she’d had to repaint it from a frankly hideous pink.

Danny sat, hugging herself a little, and Sam turned the chair around and dragged over another one so they sat facing each other.

Hmm… maybe a little foundation to even things out… eyeliner… mascara possibly… that coral lipstick mom gave me for my birthday… blusher? I’ll see when I get there.

She grabbed the cosmetics she’d decided on and set to work. She was better with makeup than she let on; she did still want to look good, after all, she just wanted to look good for herself instead of other people. So it didn’t take her too long to finish; Danny’s face was still pretty androgynous, so there wasn’t too much to soften, she just needed to tip the line. Then she worked on Danny’s hair a bit; it was still a bedheady floofy mess, rather than a regular floofy mess, but she tamed it a bit and got it into a less masculine style.

When she’d finished, she sat back and looked at the overall effect. Neck up was perfect; clothes could use some work, though the person in them still looked like a girl.

“That should do it. I don’t really have much of a wardrobe aside from gothy stuff, so tomorrow I’m taking you shopping.”

“What- in public?” Danny said, eyes wide. “I can’t-”

“Danny!” Sam spun her chair around by her shoulders and held her facing the mirror. “Nobody will know!”

Danny gasped and pointed at the mirror, staring like it had just done a musical number.

“Bwuh.”

“Yeah. See?”

“I-” she finally stammered, “I look like me!”

“Yeah, your ghost form doesn’t even need to change that much, you’re still pretty either way.”

Danny blushed. Sam felt her own face warm a little, too.

“Okay,” she said a little quickly, standing up to replace her chair, “go ahead and get dressed. You can use my bathroom if you want.”

“Um, but- but you already did my makeup in this mode?”

“Yeah. Look, Danny, even when you aren’t in ghost mode you and I actually have really similar body types. You just wear all those loose clothes all the time, which, frankly, has never been a good look on you. Get dressed and try it this way; if I’m wrong, or you wanna go ghost afterward, you can. ‘Kay?”

Danny was still for a moment, then nodded sharply, picked up the pile from the bed, and went into the bathroom.

###

Okay, Danny, you got this. If Sam says it’ll look okay, then she’s right.

She looked at her face in the mirror and smiled, the nerves washing away. She made a couple of faces, and giggled at herself.

Somehow, she hadn’t spent too much time in front of a mirror in ghost mode, but now, as she really looked at herself, even in her ‘boy’ form, she saw how much she looked like her sister. That gave her the warm fuzzies, and she shivered.

She laid out the clothes on the counter. Black jeans, a white shirt, a skirt, and underwear.

She hadn’t gotten undressed since the accident, either.

She took a deep breath, then dropped her jeans and pulled off her shirt, careful of the collar. Her eyes flicked to her reflection. She’d expected to be disturbed by it, her subconscious dredging up flashes of boys she’d seen in the locker room, but she still looked mostly like a girl, albeit flat-chested. She worried that a lot of that look was the makeup, but for now she’d take it.

She started with the bra; it took her a few tries, until she thought to hook it in front of her and spin it around. She did the change of underwear as quickly as she could, then pulled on the shirt; the way it hugged her torso made the little shape added by the bra obvious. She stepped into the skirt and pulled it up, then twirled, giggling as it flared out.

She looked at her reflection, smiling wider than she could remember doing in a long time. She might technically be in her boy form, but her reflection was still her.

She yanked open the bathroom door and flew into a startled Sam for a hug.

“Thank you, Sam.”

Chapter Text

The girls dropped onto Sam’s bed after the hug, and she held up a bottle of ‘Black Coffee At Midnight’ nail polish with a small smile.

“Wanna paint your nails?”

Danny’s eyes widened, and she took in a breath, looking between the nail polish and her splayed fingers, then nodded with a determined expression.

“Let’s do it.”

“Alright, I’ll do your right hand, then how about you try and do your left?” Sam suggested, rolling the bottle between her palms. “After that we can order pizza.”

Danny watched intently as Sam worked, starting at the nail base and going toward the tip, leaving her fingertips feeling cool and heavier than she expected, even before the second coat. Then the goth girl passed her the bottle of polish.

“Your turn!”

Danny was good at delicate work – when she could actually manage to sit still and concentrate on it – and she carefully copied Sam’s actions until her fingernails were an even pitch black. She held her hands out, comparing them.

“How do they look?”

Sam whistled. “Nice job, Danny! You sure you haven’t done this before?”

“Nope!” She thought for a second. “Well, unless Jazz used me for practice when I was little, but I don’t think so.”

When I tell Jazz, will she do this with me, too?

‘When’?

Well, I will someday, won’t I?

They headed downstairs after that to the foyer, where Sam picked up the phone and dialed the pizza place, and ordered two medium pizzas, one veggie and one pepperoni. She hung up the phone, and the doorbell rang less than a minute later.

“Whoa! Who’s the delivery boy, a cheetah?” Danny said.

Sam opened the door to a teen in a Crustys’ uniform and mandated silly hat, holding their pizzas.

“Here you go, girls.”

Danny couldn’t remember a stranger ever calling her a girl before, and rather than anything coherent her brain went !!! aaaaa! :D. She couldn’t stop her wide smile, not that she wanted to.

“Thanks, Kevin,” Sam said as she handed him a tip.

“Thank you, Sam!”

Danny did a double-take as Sam closed the door.

“Did you just tip that guy ten bucks?”

Sam blinked and looked at the empty hand the bill had occupied. “Did I? Whoops. Thought that was a one.”

“You know, somehow, this-” Danny gestured vaguely- “explains a lot.”

Sam rolled her eyes.

They were interrupted by the arrival of an old lady with half-circle glasses, wearing a blue plaid maxi skirt and a sweater that Danny tentatively identified as periwinkle, riding an electric scooter.

“I thought I heard someone down here,” she said, smiling. “Who’s your friend, Sam?”

“Grandma, this is my friend Danielle, she’s staying over. Danny, this is my Grandma Ida, she’s the best.”

“A pleasure to meet you, dear.”

“Nice to meet you too!”

Sam’s grandma reversed her scooter and started to drive away down the hall. “I’ll be bowling if you girls need me,” she said with a wave.

“Okay, Grandma!”

Danny blinked. “Bowling?”

“The bowling alley’s downstairs, next to the movie theater. Let’s take the pizza down, I’ll show you.”

Next to the- sure, fine, why not.

###

“Holy Toledo!”

The red-carpeted stairs the girls descended led to a room that actually was best described as a movie theater – Danny was pretty sure the TV on the wall was almost the size of the screens at the Multiplex. She hadn’t even realized they made TVs that size. The room itself was a good fifteen or twenty feet from floor to ceiling, maybe thirty by thirty feet square, with a pair of plush red theater seats and accompanying footstools; a few pillows were scattered near them next to a rolling cart. The walls were a dark blue-grey color, with gold trim at the top and bottom, and in various places hung illuminated posters for Citizen Kane, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, and Jaws. Opposite the TV, to Danny’s right as she stepped off the stairs, was a freestanding counter with a popcorn and a soda machine, which Sam walked over to and set down the pizzas; behind that, against the right wall, was a massive sound-system.

“…too much?” Sam asked, leaning against the counter with her arms folded. She looked nonchalant, but Danny could tell she actually cared about the answer. Danny shook her head and smiled.

“I’m just processing. This is gonna be fun!”

Sam relaxed a smidgen and went behind the counter to pull out a couple of plates. “Cool. Oh, and say hi to my Grandma!” She pressed a button on a remote, and the entire wall the TV screen was on slid out of view, and behind it was a four-lane bowling alley. Ida turned in her scooter seat and waved, grinning.

“Hi girls!”

Danny, a little dazed, waved back as the wall lowered again.

“Um, how did she…?”

“There’s an elevator,” Sam explained.

“Oh.”

She decided to eat something.

“Help yourself to drinks, too,” Sam said as they both served up, and Danny took her suggestion. After that, they picked a movie, and moved over to the seats, which turned out to be about the comfiest furniture Danny had ever experienced.

“Whoa.”

“Pretty nice, huh?”

###

After the movie, and eating their fill, and Danny calling her parents to say she’d be at Tucker’s house, and watching a second movie, they went back upstairs, left the pizza in the refrigerator, and went up to Sam’s room with a bowl of ice cream each.

Sam’s room was less of a shock the second time, and Danny was able to actually notice the smaller details beyond just the dark color and the heavy red curtains – things like the record player and stack of records on her desk, the keyboard and headphones on the floor slightly under the bed, and the poster on the wall for the movie A Clockwork Orange. The candles on black candlesticks and the skull on the side table, she’d noticed the first time. She also realized that the black wrought iron canopy bed frame was actually stylized like spiderwebs. Honestly Danny thought all of it was really cool, though she wasn’t sure if it was exactly her style.

Sam brought in some bedding they could lay out on the floor, where they listened to Sam’s goth rock records and chatted about normal things – school, Sam related her latest conspiracy theory and told Danny more about her family, and after Danny removed her makeup Sam helped her practice doing it on her own. She didn’t know if it was her hairstyle, or the filter of having seen herself with makeup, but Danny was surprised and happy to find that even with her makeup off she could mostly see a girl in the mirror. Sam pulled out a Ouija board at one point, which they joked around with as Danny pushed the planchette around to spell out silly messages, and eventually they both dropped off to sleep.

In the morning, they had breakfast (when the toaster started floating, Danny looked for something to fend it off with, but Sam seemed unconcerned and just said it was from Denmark – which explained nothing, but Danny decided to just accept it), and then prepared to go clothes shopping. Danny vacillated for a while but decided she’d be more comfortable in her ghost form, and once she was she got dressed in the clothes Sam had given her the night before. They did fit differently – she had a little more in the hips in her ghost form, and a slightly slimmer waist – but not very differently, which was something Danny hadn’t expected but made her pretty happy because it meant that any girls’ clothing she got would fit her either way.

Sam measured her comprehensively for reference, then called a cab – it arrived about as quickly as the pizza had – and they headed to the mall.

###

“Crap, it’s Paulina!” Who was still very pretty even all the way from the other side of the food court, but Danny so did not want her to find out about any of this, and the terror was putting a dent in her usual attraction.

“Chill, we won’t be going into any of the same stores, unless she’s suddenly grown a personality and started shopping at Live Subject.”

Sam, somewhat reluctantly, decided to start them off with a slightly more mainstream clothing outlet for the basics and move on to Live Subject (or, as Sam put it, ‘the fun parts’) afterward. Sam insisted the latter wasn’t her attempt to turn Danny goth, saying that when she wanted to do that they’d go to an entirely different store.

They picked through the girls’ section, Sam looking for the basics while Danny followed behind her, trying not to shrink in on herself to the point of implosion; she’d never let herself actually look at clothes in the girls’ section, it had never been okay, and now that she was able to she felt simultaneously giddy and adrift. Maybe starting with something close to what I’m used to, she thought, as her eyes caught a familiar combination. She split off from Sam to grab a shirt, and a pair of jeans that looked like they’d fit, and then showed the choices off to her friend. Sam raised an eyebrow.

“Danny. Girl. That is exactly the same outfit you always wear.”

“Is not! These are from the girls’ section!” she protested. “And this shirt has red sleeves instead of cuffs,” she added, shaking the article in question.

Sam shook her head. “Alright, fine,” she conceded. “But if you get that, you’re getting some in black too.”

Danny pouted. “Really.”

“Who’s the guide to female fashion here, you or me?”

Danny sighed. “You.”

“Exactly. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” The goth girl started to turn away, then glanced back at the jeans Danny was holding and smiled. “And you can get skirts if you want, you know.”

Danny stilled, and her eyes flicked down her body. Her currently visibly female body. “Oh… oh yeah!” She grinned. “Cool.”

When they got to the underwear, Danny felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment.

“Do, uh, do I have to be here?” she murmured. Sam frowned.

“Danny, I don’t know a whole lot about ghost biology, but look me in the eyes and tell me you’re comfortable without one.”

Danny shook her head. “It’s not that, I just… I’m worried someone’ll start pointing at me and yelling ‘that’s a boy’.”

Sam took her by the upper arms to get her point across. “Danny, you’re in your ghost form.”

“I didn’t say it was logical.”

She did manage to suppress her embarrassment as she selected a few sports bras and a couple of normal ones, and a while later, Danny was looking at their packed cart in shock. It had not seemed like that much when she was trying things on.

“Sam, I- I can’t afford all this.”

“My treat.”

“But you’re already gonna be keeping it all at your house! I don’t-“

“Danny.” Sam said. “Filthy rich, remember? I could buy a jet if I wanted to. This is the least I could do for my best friend. Now come on, this was just the first stop.”

###

Paulina frowned as they walked into the store. This new direction Avoncrook & Fitz was taking was a lot gloomier than the advertisements looked. And so dark, it was practically goth! Eww! It was almost like a different store!

“Woww, they’ve really redecorated,” Star said.

This is fashion? Paulina thought, continuing to frown as she pulled something partway off the rack to examine it. Her words were almost sacrilegious, but on the other hand, this looked like something that… what was her name? Pam, that goth girl, would wear.

Star ‘ooh!’ed and wandered off.

###

The girls had barely walked into Live Subject when Danny froze.

“That- it’s Paulina!” the ghost girl stammered. Her breathing picked up and moved swiftly toward hyperventilation. Sam grabbed her hands, palm to palm, interlocking their fingers.

“Danny, breathe.” She demonstrated, and got Danny to follow along, until she’d managed to calm down. “Ghost form, remember? You’re a girl with shockingly white hair, she’s not gonna recognize you.”

“You’re right.” Danny took a deep breath, in through the nose for four, hold it for seven, exhale for eight. She’d heard her sister reciting that often enough to remember. “Okay, I’m alright.”

“Good, ‘cause here she comes.”

Danny somehow stopped a whimper and tried her best to hide behind Sam.

“Goth girl,” Paulina greeted, looking bored.

“Eco-goth, actually.”

“What’s an eco-goth?” Star asked.

“Whatever I want it to be,” Sam non-answered. “What are you doing in Live Subject?”

Paulina blinked, and her eyebrows pulled together as she looked around.

“Wait, you mean this isn’t Avoncrook & Fitz?”

Sam snorted. “What? Definitely not. They moved a bunch of stores around like last week, didn’t you notice?”

“I was on vacation,” Paulina defended. “Come on, Star, we’re leaving.”

“But- I like these socks!”

“Then buy them and let’s go, before we get any more infected with Pam’s goth-ness.” On the last word, Paulina waved a hand disdainfully in Sam’s direction.

“My name’s- oh, nevermind.”

“And you-” Paulina glanced at Danny, who froze. “-get some sun, you look like a ghost. Ever hear of a tanning salon?”

Paulina turned away and strode out, followed by Star, and Danny sort of reverse-gasped – psaged, perhaps – and squeezed Sam’s hand tightly.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked, squeezing back.

“I guess I have a pulse, because it’s definitely pounding,” she said, her free hand resting on her chest. “What is an eco-goth, anyway?”

“Oh, that.” Sam smiled. “Uh, did you ever see that movie, Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost? It’s kinda cool, because they invented the term ‘eco-goth’ for the Hex Girls, it wasn’t a defined thing before that and nobody ever bothered to define it after! Which means it can really mean whatever I want it to. If I say it means vegetarianism and a lot of black, nobody can argue.”

“That’s actually really cool.”

“Right? Anyway, let’s see what we can find you.”

Somewhat to Danny’s surprise, she actually found some things she liked, mostly accessories like the pack of hairties each with a tiny dangling cartoon skull or ghost (she thought it was funny), but also a space-themed black hoodie with purple words reading ‘Give Me Some Space’.

After their shopping spree, the girls went back to Sam’s house, where they put it all away and then just listened to music for a bit before Danny, eventually, changed back into her black jumpsuit – just in case she had to fight any ghosts without warning – wait, why would I have to fight ghosts? - and had to change out of her ghost form and go home.

###

“Good morning, Danny,” Jazz said early on Monday, looking up from her book.

“Mnf. Mornin’,” Danny said, scooting into a chair next to her sister and rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“I like your nails.”

“Hn?” She glanced down; the black nail polish! I was gonna take that off last night! I totally spaced it! She shoved her hands into her lap and stared down at the table. “I- I, uh-“

“Did you do them yourself?”

“Sam- Sam helped.” She glanced up tentatively.

Jazz nodded. “They look nice.”

She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap, and ran one finger over her thumbnail. She’d kept the polish smooth, and what had gotten on her skin had come off while she was asleep. “Um. Thanks.”

Jazz smiled, took another sip of her coffee, and went back to her book.

Chapter Text

A month passed after what the three of them started to call The Accident, with Danny testing out her powers further, and even fighting some weak octopus-like ghosts that came out of the Fenton Portal, which – now that it was on – appeared to open and shut somewhat at random. It was not a comforting thing to have in one’s basement, but she didn’t hold out much hope for her parents’ ability to fix it considering they hadn’t even managed to turn it on. She was okay with fighting the ghosts, though – after all, it was the family business, now she could punch them, and frankly, she was better at it than her parents – and by the end of the month, she’d reached the point where she could walk through walls, turn invisible, and fly, sometimes even on command.

Other times not so much, like when her hand went intangible while she was eating breakfast, dropping her spoon into her cereal.

“Eep!”

She quickly hid her hand under the table and looked up to see if her family had noticed. Her father, looking determined, was holding up the device her mother had been working on.

“The Fenton Finder is done!” he declared triumphantly. “This baby uses satellites to lead you right to the ghosts.”

We have satellites?

Wait.

Uh-oh.

“It uses what to track what?” She’d stood up at some point, which she was sure wasn’t suspicious at all.

He activated it, and a computerized voice spoke. “Welcome to the Fenton Finder. A ghost is near. Walk forward.”

Not good! She began backing away from the table, her parents following as their invention led them directly to her. A wall thumped into her back. Very not good! She looked up at her parents, who looked down at the device in confusion.

“Ghost located. Thank you for using the Fenton Finder.”

“What?” said her father. “That can’t be right.”

Ack! Hide! She felt the telltale sensation of invisibility and glanced down. She’d vanished. No wait! Unhide! Unhide! There we go, she had her body back. Not the one she liked, but at least she wasn’t invisible now. Now to get out of here.

“I, uh, I need to… go… school.”

“That’s not all you need, Danny!” Jazz said, closing her book and striding toward them. “You need guidance! And parents who can provide it.”

“Sweetie, I know what we do doesn’t make sense sometimes, but you’re only-“

“Sixteen,” she said, cutting their mother off. “Biologically! But psychologically, I’m an adult! And I will not allow your insane obsession with ghosts to pollute the mind of this impressionable little child!” Danny began to back away as her sister ranted at their parents, but she was tugged back into a half-hug. “Come, you abused, unwanted wretch. I’ll drive you to school.” She glared at their parents as she pulled Danny away. Danny loved her parents, but not for the first time, she was struck by the frightening thought that Jazz might be the closest thing to a responsible adult in the family, and she was a teenager. And, ever since the Accident, she’d had some sort of nagging feeling that Jazz would be okay to bring into confidence. She wasn’t sure why – sure, they used to be closer, but that was years ago. Still, it felt like a voice was telling her it would be fine.

She didn’t bring it up in the car, though, and let her sister rant about their parents’ ‘refusal to grow up’, while Danny ran a finger over the clear nail polish on her thumbnail. After they got to school, she stayed quiet through her first few classes, letting Sam and Tucker talk while she thought. Eventually, in the hallway on the way to lunch, her friends went silent, and she decided to speak up.

“I think I should tell Jazz,” she said, climbing the stairs. “All of it.”

“Jazz?” Sam scoffed. “Miss ‘Junior Grownup’? I know you were close when you were little, but wouldn’t she just tell your parents?”

“I don’t think so? I just feel like it would be easier with another person in the loop. I mean, it’s been a month since the accident, and I still barely have any control! If somebody finds out, I go from geek to freak around here!”

“Kinda like what you’re doing now?”

She glanced down when Tucker spoke, and yelped; her entire lower body had gone intangible and sunk through the floor. Her friends quickly grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back up until her legs went back to normal.

“Exactly like that! I’m actually glad I have these powers, I can escape into my ghost mode when the whole ‘guy’ thing gets to be too much.” She hugged herself with a shudder, and Tucker patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. She gave him a smile, then sighed as they kept walking. “I just wish they weren’t so much trouble. And Jazz knowing would be an extra person to help cover for me.”

Her friends made some noncommittal noises of support, but as the three of them walked into the cafeteria, Danny could feel an unrelated argument impending. Part of that was the large banner stating ‘Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian Week’, and her sinking feeling Sam had something to do with it.

“Um, Sam? Care to comment?”

The goth girl grinned. “The school board finally agreed to try a new cafeteria menu. I wore them down.”

Tucker gasped in horror; Danny couldn’t tell if it was mock or not.

The lunch lady dropped what appeared to be grass on a slice of bread onto her tray. She looked at Sam. Sam stared at her tray.

“What.”

Once they sat down, she looked at her ‘food’ for a while, before tentatively taking a bite’s worth on her spoon. “Sam… I know you’re against eating anything with a face, but don’t you think this is a little extreme?”

Sam looked down at the platter herself, frowning. “It’s not exactly what I expected, but… it’ll probably be good if you try it?”

Tucker made a whimper that sounded suspiciously like “Don’ wanna.”

Danny glanced past Sam to see Mr. Lancer approaching, and elbowed Tucker; he ignored her and kept staring at his lunch.

“Ah, Miss Manson!” said the teacher, smiling. “The school board wanted me to personally thank you for ushering in this welcome experiment to our cafeteria.”

Tucker perked up as Lancer rounded the table, and started sniffing as he began to stand. “Meat! Near!”

Lancer began backing away, laughing unconvincingly. “No! No, the rumors of a new steak buffet in the teacher’s lounge are entirely unfounded, I assure you!” He glanced at Sam, added a totally nonsuspicious “Thanks again,” and hurried away. Tucker dropped back into his seat and crossed his arms.

“Yeah, thanks for making us eat garbage, Sam.”

“It’s not garbage!” Sam said, looking affronted, though she undermined her point by poking tentatively at the offering on her tray. “It’s… recyclable organic matter!”

Danny and Tucker shared a glance, shook their heads, and in unison said “it’s garbage.”

“Sorry, Sam,” Danny added with a shrug, before a shiver ran down her spine, a puff of breath showing in the air before her. She screwed up her face. “Uh, guys, ghost sense going off,” Danny started, and was then immediately struck in the back of the head by – yep, that was mud.

“FENTON!” yelled a familiar voice.

“Great timing, D,” Tucker groused.

“Gee, sorry, I’ll see if we can reschedule,” she said with a smirk, standing and brushing at the mud as Dash stormed over.

“Hi, Dash.”

“I ordered three mud pies,” Dash fumed, “and do you know what they gave me? Three mud pies. With mud! From the ground! All because of your girlfriend!”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Danny rushed out, and “I’m not Danny’s girlfriend!” Sam said at the same time. Uncaring, Dash grabbed Danny by her shirt and lifted her off her feet. Really she should be used to that sort of thing by now, especially considering she’d fought ghosts, but there was still a thread of fear roiling in her stomach as the blond boy yelled. She hoped it would go away eventually.

“These are the best years of my life! After high school, it’s all downhill for me! How am I supposed to enjoy my glory days eating mud?”

Well, at least he’s honest with himself. High school has-been waiting to happen.

Oh, god, please don’t let my life be Heathers.

“It looks like, uh, topsoil, actually,” Sam said, shrugging. Dash threw Danny back toward the table.

“Whatever!” He shoved his plate of mud toward her face. “Eat it! All of it!”

As she tried to look for an escape route, Danny’s eyes caught a translucent figure in the kitchen. Is that…? That didn’t look like one of the half-shapeless ghosts she’d fought before. If it was a ghost, it was a full, apparition-y, human-shaped ghost. Which was not of the good. Nope, gotta deal with that ghost, I do not have time for this.

She grabbed her plate and flung it in Dash’s face. “Dirt fight!” she yelled, and dove behind a table as Sam and Tucker tipped it up. The student body took up her cry, and the three of them crawled away from the chaos toward the kitchen door.

“FENTON! YOU’RE GONNA PAY!”

“Guys, I think we’ve got our first full-on dead-person-y ghost,” Danny said, ignoring the jock. Tucker and Sam exchanged winces.

“Does that mean they’ll be harder to deal with?” the boy asked.

“If I’ve been fighting the weak sorta-ghosts so far, then… probably.”

“Great,” Sam said sarcastically. “Well, at least you’ve got backup.”

When they reached the door, Tucker and Danny peered around it to take in the scene.

“Hm, shouldn’t be too bad,” Tucker said. “She looks kinda like my grandmother.”

 “Shouldn’t she be haunting a bingo hall?” Danny snarked, as Sam closed the door behind them.

The ghost, a stocky grey-haired woman in a lunch lady’s outfit, turned at that and gave them a gentle smile. “Hello, children. Can you help me? Today’s lunch is meatloaf, but I don’t see the meatloaf. Did someone change the menu?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said, pointing at Sam. “She did.”

“Tucker!” the girls hissed, each giving him a scolding swat to the shoulder. They were startled out of saying more when the ghostly lunch lady’s eyes went red, hair flickering on like a gas-stove burner.

“You changed the menu?” she snarled. “The menu has been the same for fifty years!” Fire flickered around her and swirled above as she growled, inciting wind to do the same.

“Well, then it’s past time for an update!” Danny said, pushing her friends behind her. “I’m going ghost!”

She flickered, and light flashed, leaving her in her ghost form. Giddy from the sheer rightness after the rest of her day’s discomfort, she leapt into the swirling vortex to float in front of the angry ghost, pointing a finger at her. “Sorry, lunch lady! Your catering contract is closed!”

The lunch lady was unimpressed. She gestured to the masses of dishes piled around the kitchen’s sink, and they began throwing themselves at Danny.

Oh crap! She squeezed her eyes shut. C’mon, intangible-

Something tickled faintly, and crashing sounds came from behind her. Opening her eyes, she glanced back to see scattered broken dishes, and grinned. Yes! Intangibility, on command!

Sam yelped; another fleet of dishes were speeding toward her. Danny shot down, and called up all the reflex training her mom had put her and Jazz through when they were little; something about her current form (being a ghost? being a girl?) seemed to boost her reflexes further, letting her catch each and every plate in neat stacks.

“Whew,” she started, then saw the second wave heading for Tucker. “Yipe!”

Catching these was harder, and she even had to resort to catching one of them in her mouth. She darted to the counter to leave the dishes there – having already started a food fight, she didn’t want to leave more for the janitor.

“Well, if this hero thing doesn’t work out, I guess I can always work as a busgirl,” she noted wryly.

She paused a moment to admire her reflection in the startlingly clean plate. Were they always this clean? Because if the ghostly lunch lady could get them this clean, Danny thought maybe she should stick around.

Motion behind her in her reflection twigged her to the next problem, and she swung around as the stoves began to rock in place.

“I control lunch!” the lunch lady cried. “Lunch is sacred! Lunch has rules!” Her flames went out, and, the picture of innocence, she asked brightly, “Anybody want cake?”

Sam and Tucker nodded.

“TOO BAD!” she roared, retaking the former look. “Children who change my menu do not get dessert!”

She flew up and away through the ceiling, but Danny didn’t have time to chase after her. The stoves waddled forward, spitting green flames from their open doors. She and her friends dodged, barely, away from a coordinated burst. The stoves, now – somehow – looking angry, added a burst of speed, going from waddling to flying.

Danny had to think quickly. The only idea she could come up with was – she’d managed to turn things she was holding intangible. Could she turn her friends intangible?

Nothing for it!

She grabbed them by the shoulders, leapt backward, pulled up the feeling of intangibility, and shoved it at her friends. They passed untouched through the wall, which cracked after their passage from the impact of the stoves. She lost her grip on the intangibility, and on her friends, and all three of them tumbled to the hallway floor.

She giggled and punched a fist in the air. “Yay! It worked!”

Sam, very obviously annoyed, gestured at the situation in general. “This is what I get for thinking like an individual?”

Before Sam could continue, the hallway started to shake, and the florescent lights overhead crackled and went out. The lockers lining the walls rumbled, and the doors flew open, their contents throwing themselves into the hallway and toward-

The Lunch Lady floated at the end of the hallway, the school supplies flinging themselves at the wall behind her. Danny got ready for round two.

Tucker started sniffing.

“Steak!” Tucker said, zeroing in on the flying meat like an excited bird-watcher. “Rib-eye… no, porterhouse! Medium-rare!”

As he spoke, food – sandwiches, roasts, porkchops, steak, sausages, bacon – flew down the hallway past them. Unlike the school supplies, the meat began to plaster itself to the Lunch Lady, building up like a suit of armor.

Danny and Sam exchanged a glance. “Ew.”

“But where did it come from?” Tucker said, stunned. Then he frowned and glared toward the faculty lounge. “Lancer.”

“Yeah, let’s worry about the teachers’ hypocrisy later, Tucker!” Sam suggested.

“Prepare to learn why meat is the most powerful of the five food groups!” the lunch lady shouted. The last of the meat had adhered to her, forming something less ‘suit of armor’ and more ‘meat colossus’. She switched into her innocent act again, and offered Sam a cookie. “Cookie?”

Sam shook her head.

The lunch lady blinked, then, with a growl of “Then perish!” lifted one meat-claw to attack- Sam!

“No way!” Danny yelled, sliding in front of Sam. “The only thing with an expiration date here is you!” With the last word, she pointed at the ghost, and a beam of ectoplasm-green energy shot out from her hand and rocked the Lunch Lady back on her heels.

“Whuh?” Danny managed; beyond that, she was so startled she even dropped out of her ghost form unconsciously, something that hadn’t happened bar actual unconsciousness for almost a week.

The Lunch Lady roared something unintelligible and grabbed Danny in one hand, throwing her backward into someone and both of them into the lockers. Danny pushed out of the paper-pile explosion that followed to see the ghost flying away – and taking Sam along for the ride.

“Come on, change back!” Tucker said unnecessarily. “We gotta go!”

Danny was just about to, when a human-sized hand seized her by the back of the collar.

“You two aren’t going anywhere,” Mr. Lancer said, as he yanked them to their feet. Dash was standing behind him, looking a lot like he’d lost an argument with a pile of dirt; unfortunately it did nothing to hide his victorious smirk.

“Told ya you’d pay, Fenton!”

Chapter Text

After catching Danny and Tucker, Lancer dragged them to his office, followed by Dash, who took up a position leaning against the wall by the door with his arms folded, gloating.

Lancer pulled a pair of files from a filing cabinet and flipped through them.

“Tucker Foley,” the vice principal started. “Chronic tardiness, talking in class, repeated loitering by the girls’ locker room.”

Danny shot Tucker a look. He had the grace to look contrite, though she wasn’t sure she bought it.

“Danny Fenton,” Lancer went on, “34 dropped beakers in the last month, banned for life from handing all fragile school property, but no severe mischief before today.” Yeah, having intangible hands is not good for science lab, who’d’a thunk. “So, gentlemen, tell me…” he continued, Danny’s effort to ignore the sting aided when he slammed his hands to the desk and leaned forward, “WHY DID THE TWO OF YOU CONSPIRE TO DESTROY THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA?”

“Wha- Dash started it!” Danny objected, though somehow she already knew it wouldn’t help. “He threw-”

“Four touchdown passes in the last game, and is therefore exempt from scorn,” Lancer said, though he was frowning at the gloating jock when he did; Danny wasn’t sure what that meant. “You two, on the other hand, are not. I’ll map out your punishment when I return.” Shaking his head, he left the room, pausing in the doorway to add, “Mr. Baxter, watch the door.”

Dash backed out of the room after the vice principal, smirking at Danny and Tucker as he slowly closed the door.

As soon as they were alone, she and Tucker stood up.

“We gotta find Sam,” Tucker said. “For some reason, I feel like I got her kidnapped.”

Danny scowled, shoving against his shoulder. “Maybe because you told the ghost she changed the menu?”

“Hey, I-” Tucker opened his mouth to respond, then stopped to sniff. “That steak is still in the building!” he said. “Two hundred yards, tops!”

Two hundred yards… hmm…

“We’ll get back to that,” Danny warned him, stepping over to the wall of TVs hooked up to the school’s security camera system. She scanned the screens, looking for- hmm, basement, full of boxes of meat, is that weird? Eh, it’s high school. And then she saw it.

“Tuck, look - meat trail,” she pointed out, as the boy joined her. “Blech.”

Remembering how her hair had whipped around her face in the wind earlier, she dug in her pocket, pulled out a hairtie with a little glow-in-the-dark ghost, and shifted to her ghost form to quickly put her hair up in a ponytail.

“Way better. C’mon!” She grabbed Tucker by the arm, made them both intangible, and he yelped as they fell through the floor.

They wandered briefly through the dark basement hallways until they found the ‘meat trail’, then followed it until it led them through a doorway. On the other side, boxes of meat were stacked floor to ceiling. Tucker gasped.

“Sweet mother of mutton!” He threw out his arms, trying to hug the entire wall of boxes, a rapturous expression on his face. “I’d dreamed of it, but… I never thought I’d live to see it!”

Danny stared at him. She loved him like a brother, she really did, but… “How is it, that I have the ghost powers, yet you’re the weird kid?”

Tucker shrugged. “Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

Danny snorted, then shushed him as voices came from around the corner. They crept forward and peered out.

The Lunch Lady – meat-free – floated in the middle of the room, facing Sam, who was buried up to her neck in a pile of meat.

Cold, wet, slimy… eeugh! Danny shuddered.

“My dear child, meat is good for kids! It helps them grow and makes them smile! Why won’t you eat it?” She sounded genuinely distraught as she offered Sam a drumstick, and Danny wondered…

She was still pissed, at Tucker for getting Sam targeted, at the Lunch Lady for kidnapping Sam, but it was less… immediate, for some reason, here in this gloomy hallway, in a body she felt comfortable in. She felt less angry than she used to be. And this ghost wasn’t like the octopus-monster ones she’d fought already; she was a person. Maybe she could reason with her?

“We don’t need meat,” Sam argued. “That’s fact!”

A gust of wind swirled up, the Lunch Lady’s hair fluttering, and Danny’s hairtie proving itself useful as her ponytail whipped into Tucker’s face instead of her own.

“SILENCE!” The Lunch Lady returned. “You need discipline, manners, respect! You know where that comes from?” she finished with a final gust of wind. “MEAT!” The wind stopped, and, calm again, she prompted, “Chicken? Or fish?”

“Tuck, figure out a way to get Sam loose,” Danny decided. “I’m on Grandma.”

Tucker, with a lazy smile, pulled a knife and fork out of his pockets. “Wayyy ahead of you.”

God, her brother was a dork.

Danny flew forward, stopping behind the Lunch Lady, on the opposite side from Sam.

“Hey, um, excuse me?”

The ghost turned and looked at her.

“Yes, dearie?”

“Hi! I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot. So, question. What if we served meat, like the regular menu, but people had the option to have something instead of meat?”

The Lunch Lady looked frustrated. “Why would anyone choose to not have meat?”

“What about people with a meat allergy?” suggested Sam, who now had both shoulders showing.

The Lunch Lady turned to look at her, and Danny drifted forward so she could see everyone’s faces.

“Meat… allergy?”

“Yeah!” Sam said. “Some people get sick if they eat meat.”

Danny seized on that idea. “How can they get a balanced diet if someone makes them eat things that get them sick?”

“But… the menu,” the ghost protested.

“We can keep the menu! Just add more! So everyone has something they like!”

“Some people’s religion doesn’t let them eat meat!” Sam added, getting into it. “They should be able to eat a full meal, too! And some people just don’t like the taste of meat, or the texture!”

“More for me!” Tucker piped up, continuing to eat away at the pile.

By her blank expression, the Lunch Lady didn’t look like she’d ever heard of the concept. She blinked twice, said “Hmm,” and then dropped through the floor like she’d suddenly conceded to gravity.

“Is, uh. Is it over?” Tucker asked.

“I… guess so?” Danny couldn’t help feeling like there was meant to be more to this.

“Great. Now get me out of here!” Sam demanded.

Well, if I managed it earlier…

Danny flew over, grabbed her friends by the shoulders, and turned then intangible, then they all flew up through the ceiling to emerge on the lawn outside the school.

“Aw, man,” Tuck said, looking forlornly back downward. “All that meat...”

“Phew, dizzy.” Danny swayed on her feet a little; apparently, phasing through walls and fighting ghosts took a bit out of her. She probably would have passed out if she’d actually had to fight the Lunch Lady again. As it was, she still dropped her ghost form.

Sam steadied her and let Danny lean on her shoulder, glaring at Tuck.

“Tucker, look at her, she’s about to fall over! Your carelessness almost got us killed.”

Tuck scoffed. “Me? I almost got us killed? The only reason this happened is because you had to be unique. You had to take the meat away!” He stormed off, and added over his shoulder, “And I'm going to get it back!”

“You want to change that menu back?” Sam yelled after him. “YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME TO DO IT!

Danny groaned. And we were so close. But given how stubborn Sam was… even if she didn’t like the menu she was going to stand her ground. Oh well. The ghost is gone… I’m sure everything’ll be back to normal by tomorrow.

The way her stomach sank belied that.

###

As Danny walked up to Casper High in the morning, she took in the view before her and sighed.

“Orrr maybe it’ll be worse.”

To either side of the front doors of the school, students were massed on the lawn; on Danny’s left, the crowd held handmade signs with pro-meat and anti-veggie slogans on them, and a couple of the culinary arts kids were grilling, burgers and franks and steaks. Tucker stood on a makeshift plywood stage with a megaphone in one hand.

“WHAT DO WE WANT?”

“MEAT!”

“WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”

“NOW!”

“For too long have we suffered under the yoke of grass on a bun!” Tuck went on. “We must cast off these shackles of veganism!”

This met with resounding cheers.

To Danny’s right, the crowd was made up of rasta kids, hippies, goths, and punks, waving anti-meat or pro-veggie signs, and Sam, atop a school bus, who was yelling into a megaphone of her own.

“They try to mock us with topsoil on toast! But we will not falter! We will enlighten this populace! A school lunch with vegan options! Say it with me!” she finished, to cheers. “VEGGIES NOW! VEGGIES FOREVER!”

“VEGGIES NOW! VEGGIES FOREVER!”

Danny looked back and forth between the two sides, stunned. Sam and Tucker must have noticed her, dropping down from their respective platforms to come to her, though their glares stayed focused on each other.

“You guys put together two protests in one night?” Danny finally sputtered.

Tucker folded his arms. “Meat-eaters, Danny. Always ready to fight. And our high-protein diets give us the energy we need to do it quickly.”

“Vegetarians are always ready to protest,” Sam said, hands on her hips. “And because we don’t have to waste time cooking our food, we can move even fast.”

“Uh… you guys don’t think this is a little extreme?” Danny suggested. Both of them shook their heads.

“No choice, Danny,” Tuck said. “You’re either with me-”

“-or you’re against him!” Sam finished, both of them leaning closer to her as they simultaneously yelled,

“So whose side are you on?”

“What is WRONG with you guys?” tore out of Danny’s throat, and she threw her hands up. “You- you’re supposed to be friends! Why are you- you- rrrgh!” She made strangling motions with her hands. “I can’t.”

With that, she wheeled and stomped off around the side of the school, eyes burning, determined to take the side entrance and ignore the idiots out front.

“I thought we got over this already,” she grumbled, rubbing at her eyes. Then, while she was distracted, something smacked her in the head. “Ow!”

She looked down, and saw a silver cylinder in the grass at her feet.

What the… the Fenton Thermos? she realized, picking it up.

Looking up, she saw her father, slouched like a puppet with its strings cut, being consoled by her mom as they walked away from the school. Jazz was staring after them.

“Uhh, Jazz?” she asked, walking over to her sister. “What…?”

Jazz looked at her, then after their parents.

“Well, Dad had the insane idea that I was a ghost, or, possessed or something, and then when I yelled at him for attacking me, he… decided I was right? And gave up on proving ghosts exist?”

Danny stared at her blankly, and Jazz huffed. “I know, right?” She sighed and shook her head again. “Anyway, hopefully Spike is still-” she stopped when she saw the empty picnic table. “Damn it! We were right on the verge of a breakthrough. Now I’ll have to look all over the school for him, if he even still wants to try after seeing that.”

“Okay. But, uh, Jazz?”

“What’s up?” she said, distractedly, looking around for whoever it was.

“When you’re done helping him with his breakthrough, can you give me a hand with Sam and Tuck?”

Jazz blinked and looked down at Danny.

“The dueling protests?”

“Yes!” Danny said, gesturing with the Thermos. “They’ve gone nuts, and there’s no way I’m gonna side with one of them over the other!”

Jazz sighed. “The breakthrough can wait. Come on.”

“Thanks, Jazz,” Danny said, relieved, and followed her sister back toward the front of the school.

“Tucker! Sam! Get your butts over here!” Jazz yelled, and, with the automatic obedience ingrained by years of her serving as both of them’s surrogate older sister and thus the knowledge of what that tone meant, they did exactly that.

“What?” Tucker demanded, and

“If you hadn’t noticed we’re kinda busy,” Sam snapped.

“You made Danny cry,” Jazz retorted, pulling her to her side and ignoring Danny’s surprised “Hey!”.

Instantly, the anger drained out of her friends as they both looked at her. She hadn’t thought she’d cried enough for it to be obvious, but it seemed she was wrong.

“Oh god, Danny, we’re so sorry,” Sam said, Tucker nodding frantically. “We, I mean, I just-”

“What’s all this about, anyway?” Jazz asked. The three younger teens started to explain the situation, leaving out the ‘ghostly lunch lady’ part, until Jazz interrupted them. “Okay, wait wait, why are you both mad about, ‘grass on a bun’? Sam, I thought that was what your whole protest was for?”

Sam shook her head.

“No! That’s not vegetarian – it’s not even vegan! I mean, other than on technicality – but nobody would actually eat that! I made suggestions, but obviously nobody actually read them. The whole idea is that there are so many options they could be giving in the cafeteria – tofu, or black bean burgers, or salad that isn’t fried!”

“So… you both hate the new menu?” Jazz said. “Then what’s the issue?”

“You’re right!” Tucker said, looking stunned. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”

Jazz nodded, satisfied.

“We’re fighting each other when we both want the same thing – a better menu!” Sam agreed.

“Which means…” Tucker continued, to be joined in synch by Sam,

“We should take the fight to the teachers!”

“Wait, that’s not what I-” Jazz started, only to be cut off by Sam and Tucker beginning to yell into their megaphones to organize their protests. Jazz slumped, sighing, and Danny patted her on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Jazz.”

“You’re welcome, Danny,” she said, morose.

###

With a large chunk of the student body organized to support it, meat was back on the menu – alongside a test case of reasonable vegetarian options. By the next day, when she walked down the line at lunch, Danny received actual meat on her tray, that actually looked better quality than it used to be; she looked up to say thanks and froze.

The ghostly Lunch Lady smiled at her, winked, and turned to serve the next student.