Danny didn't know why he was so fascinated by the squirrels.

Maybe it was the accident a few weeks ago, that had brought him closer to death than he'd ever thought he'd be for a long time… Or maybe it was just natural curiosity—he'd never been this close to a dead body before, after all.

There were three of them- no, four; a fourth was hidden beneath a fallen leaf, maybe even from the same limb where they had fallen. Tiny, fragile, babies that were still bald when they had fallen from the nest and landed on the hard ground outside Danny's bedroom window.

He knew he shouldn't touch them- they were dead, and therefore dirty, even if they could only have been there for a few minutes, not long enough for that cat that his mom sometimes fed in the backyard to find them. Or the neighbor's dog.

He picked one up anyways and was surprised; he had expected them to be limp, maybe even still a little warm, but instead it was stiff and cold and heavy. Heavier than something that small and that cold ought to be, anyways. He wasn't sure if it was a texture, or a feeling or a smell, but the fingertips that head the tiny, broken, squirrel were screaming at him, telling him information that he didn't know how he knew but was somehow sickeningly familiar.

Dead.

He dropped it, stepping away, suddenly more horrified than fascinated, and then immediately regretful of breaking the tiny body further.

He left for school and avoided looking under the tree when he came back.

A month later, there was an ambulance parked outside his neighbor's house when Danny came home; Mrs. Jones had had a stroke.

She died on the way to the hospital.

The rest of her family was older than she was, and most of them lived in apartments, or other places that didn't allow pets, so...

After about a week of begging, bribing, and, finally, compromise, Danny and Jazz adopted their first pet.

Her name was Molly, and she was a mut, already six years old, and shaggy. Danny was supposed to be her primary care taker, but most of that responsibility ended up falling on Jazz, when Danny was too busy with patrol or ghost invasions to take her for walks. Still, she was happy and sweet, and pretty soon the Fenton's couldn't remember life without a dog barking at bikes and pedestrians and a certain ghost-boy.

And, somehow, they learned to live with the fact that she would sometimes sneak under the fence and back into the now empty house in the middle of the night and howl.

Almost 2 months later, his father sat him and Jazz down to tell them their great uncle had died. He'd fallen down the stairs and hit his head; apparently he died instantly.

They lived in Florida, though, and it was the middle of the school year, so Jack left for about a week to be with his family. Jazz and Danny had only ever seen him every couple years, after all, so they weren't complaining about not getting to go to the funeral.

It was weird, though- they'd just seen him, not a month ago, at Thanksgiving, and he'd been fine. And now they were just, never going to see him again…

Aunt Alicia came into town to help Maddie out; they were in the final stages of some experiment, and she didn't have enough time to keep it running and look after Jazz and Danny (not that they really needed looking after, but Jazz had finals and someone had to make dinner).

At least, that was the excuse; anyone could tell that the sisters missed each other, and it was no secret that Alicia was not overtly proud of her sister's choice in husband. It was a nice chance for them, even if it came under such horrible circumstances.

The next week, Molly didn't wake up. She was lying at the foot of Danny's bed, like she always did, and at first he thought she was just asleep… He'd woken up late, which was unusual; she usually licked his face promptly at 7:00 am, every morning, but he wasn't worrying about that. He was worried about finding the clothes he needed for the day.

He was almost out the door when he stopped to scratch her head and she was cold. That was when he realized she wasn't breathing. He put his hand on her chest, searching for the strong, steady, heartbeat that was usually there beneath the thick coat of almost red fur.

Nothing.

He called for his dad, and they buried her in the back yard.

3 weeks later, Danny found his mom crying on the floor, the phone in her hand. Aunt Alicia had had a heart attack. She'd been found the next day by the farm hand, who was calling her next of kin.

The funeral was a sad affair, and Danny would have much rather mourned in silence than stand and shake the hand of everyone who'd even known his aunt, but he knew it helped his mom, so he stayed. Jazz would probably have been more of a help, but she was too upset to come down.

The only good news was that Karen, Danny's cousin, was 4 months pregnant, and, even though he didn't tell anyone, when he put his ear to her stomach, Danny could hear a tiny heartbeat.

"Put this out for the cat, would you?"
"Mom! You spilled ectopurifier on that- it's probably poisonous!"
"I thought you didn't even like that cat, don't you keep saying we should call animal control?"
"That doesn't mean you should kill it!"
"Relax- it's eaten this stuff before!"
"What!?"

The door swung closed, cutting Danny off from the conversation between his mother and sister. He set the plate down outside the door and sat next to it, waiting. Pretty soon it showed up—a black, medium-sized cat, so thin you could see its ribs—which was why his mom had started feeding it in the first place.

It approached cautiously, slowly, and Danny held out his hand, letting it sniff him. It had gotten used to Danny by now, but never let him pet it—maybe this time?

Danny, very slowly, reached out to pet it behind the ears, matted, but soft black fur spread out beneath his fingertips, and—

The cat collapsed.

He jumped back, trying to see what had happened, but it just… died.

The second he touched it. It unsettled him, feeling unnerving and unnatural.

When he told his family, they assumed it was the food. He didn't mention that it hadn't eaten.

And they didn't notice when Danny, ever so carefully, avoided their touch.

When Maddie got the call that her niece had miscarried—the baby already 5 months along—Danny was starting to think he was cursed.
He didn't tell anyone—they'd say it was stupid, or irrational, or superstitious, but that didn't change the fact that 3 people were dead in a little over six months. And all had died within a few weeks of seeing Danny.

Ever since The Accident.

He remembered the way he'd felt—he'd been so sure it had happened, so sure he was dead.

But then he wasn't.

What if he was supposed to be? What if he was supposed to have died and all this was somehow his fault?

What if—Well, there wasn't much he could do about it. He tried to push it from his mind.

Danny was out later than was safe—for a human.

He ducked into an alley to transform into Phantom and fly home—except there was a homeless man there, right near the entrance, covered in dirt and sweat and general grime.

Danny turned to go, but the man called out to him, and grabbed his arm with more strength than Danny expected, given his frail form—and collapsed, his body giving out beneath him, falling to the ground.

Weak and frail—just like the cat.

Danny didn't stick around to see if he got up; telling himself the man was fine.

When, the next day, the man's death was in the papers, Danny did something stupid. He googled Vlad Masters.

He found his parents, his grandparents, his siblings, his cousins—And, after hours of research and digging, Danny was sure—5 years after Vlad had been hospitalized, almost everyone related to him was dead.
His apartment had a fire, killing 4 people.

The survival rate for every hospital he visited hit record lows.
And almost none of these people had money, which meant Vlad had no reason to kill them.

They just died.

Danny had started wearing long sleeves.

Sam and Tucker assumed it was because of his ice powers- and he made sure that they thought that. He also made sure that his ice powers made it uncomfortable to stand too close to him, to threaten frostbite if they actually touched him.

Except, one day in chemistry, when he rolled up his sleeves, Sam brushed her hand against his, and he jumped back, pulling his arms to his chest. When they asked he lied—saying her touch was hot, that she'd burned him, and they believed him. They didn't try to touch him after that.

The next day, Sam stayed home—too sick to come to school.

It had been 3 months since anyone had died—at least, anyone that Danny could blame himself for. He wouldn't touch anyone, and completely avoided them when they got sick, guessing that it was easier if the victim was already old or weak. He could tell his family had noticed, or, at least, his mom had; his dad seemed as oblivious as ever.

He still wasn't sure whether or not Jazz believed the story he'd told Sam and Tucker.

He'd started using his ghost powers to hide from Dash. He was terrified it would happen anyways, even though Dash was young and strong and healthy—that one day he'd touch Danny and just fall dead, the way the cat had, and the old man, and the caught moth he'd tested it on.

He had started noticing the animals that were dead on the side of the road, unsure if their number was increasing, or if Danny was just getting paranoid. He was getting sick of the birds who kept running into his window—both at home, and in class—and even though he put up stickers and closed his curtains it didn't stop. Sometimes the birds got up and flew away, sometimes they didn't.

Every time it happened, Danny's eyes strayed to the closet where his dad kept the rifle, unsure just how selfish he was being, forcing others to take the blame because he should have died.

They were having a rough year, Maddie knew. And Danny seemed to be taking it the worst of anyone. He'd started withdrawing, coming in later and later, missing curfews and skipping school. His grades were slipping, in spite of the allowances the teachers were giving him, knowing how hard it would be to go through this.

She'd tried talking about it with Jack, but he hadn't seemed to notice. He tried to tell her that Danny was mourning, and going through teenage stuff, and she shouldn't worry but he was her son. And she couldn't remember the last time he hadn't ducked under her hug.

"Maybe you could talk to him?" She asked Jack, "He won't talk to me—I've already tried. Maybe if he just knew we were both here for him?"

He'd agreed, and when Danny came home that afternoon he was trapped in a big, Jack Fenton bear hug, and nobody could escape that—

Except suddenly, he was on the ground, Danny standing there, frozen, looking horrified, and Maddie rushed over, checking his pulse. She couldn't find it and he wasn't breathing.

"Danny, call 911." She knew CPR, and she pressed down on his chest, blowing air into his lungs, checking periodically to see if it had had any effect, but it didn't seem to be working. She heard footsteps running upstairs and she wondered why he didn't just use the one in the kitchen—probably shock.

And then Jazz came in and she had her cell phone, and Jack still wasn't breathing, and then—BANG!

It sounded like a car had backfired, but Maddie wasn't paying attention to that because Jack was breathing, and his heart had restarted, and he was okay.

They let Maddie ride in the ambulance to the hospital, so it was Jazz who found her brother's body.