I don't own DP!!! But I sure wish I did... Post Phantom Planet.

Chapter 1

"Danny, there's something we need to tell you," Maddie's usually calm voice sounded slightly strained.

"What is it?" Danny asked, completely oblivious to whatever it was his parents were going to tell him.

"Well, it's two things actually," Jack explained.

"Okay..." Danny said, beginning to pack his backpack for school. He had gotten a week off from school after the Disasteroid, but tomorrow he had to face the music.

Unable to say what she had planned to say first, she went on ahead to the second one. "Um... we're going to be foster care for a girl your age starting tonight."

"Cool," Danny interrupted, thinking that was all.

"Uh... and um... well... you're... adopted," Maddie said, fumbling over her words.

"Haha, yeah, right," Danny said sarcastically.

"We're serious, Danny," Jack said.

"Yeah, next you'll be telling me I have a twin sister who lives in California," Danny laughed.

"Flordia, actually," Maddie informed him, causing Danny to freeze. His parents liked to joke around, but their jokes lasted about ten seconds before they started cracking up; it had been thirty.

"Y-you're serious, aren't you?" he asked. Jack and Maddie Fenton nodded solemnly. Danny stood there, frozen, until the foster care girl arrived three hours later at eight p.m.

"Hi," he answered the door. A man in a black suit and a girl with a scar over her right eye and a cast on her left wrist.

"May I speak to the property owner?" the suit asked forcefully. "This is Ryan."

"Mom, Dad!" Danny called towards the basement. His parents came running up to greet the girl. While they talked to the man in the suit, Danny took the girl into the living room.

"Hey, Ry," Danny said. "I'm Danny." He held up a fist, expecting that Ryan would punch it back. Instead, she jumped back fearfully. Danny instantly realized what a jerk he had just come off as. Child Services didn't take Ryan away from her family for fun.

"Ryan, you're going to be staying in Danny's room until we can get the spare bedroom ready," Maddie approached them kindly. Ryan nodded and followed Danny up to his room, neither of them hearing the conversation the adults were still having.

"She hasn't talked since she was seven, when we first found out about her," the suit explained, "and before then, we don't know. We tried to get her out of there faster, but the parents were pretty good at playing innocent. It wasn't until we caught her parents in the act that we could get her out."

"Oh, that's horrible," Maddie commented. Why on Earth would anyone want to hurt their children?

"We'll take good care of her," Jack assured the man in the suit.

That night, Ryan refused to speak to Danny. "So are you excited to go to Casper High? It's pretty cool there. Most of the teachers are okay. Heh, and if anyone tries to bother you,you can just come to me and I'll make them wish they had never been born." Danny waited one long pause in-between each sentence, expecting a reply. Eventually, Ryan got down onto the air mattress and turned off the light. It was only eight-thirty, and Danny was pretty sure she wasn't sleepy. In fact, with his hearing intensified by his ghost powers, he could tell by her heart-beat that she was anything but sleepy. "Well, I'm gonna go patroling," he told Ryan, alerting her that he knew she was awake.

"And the girl, Ryan, hates me; she won't even talk to me," Danny complained to Sam and Tucker through the Fenton Phones.

"Well, you did say you looked like you were gonna punch her," Tucker pointed out.

"Yeah, and I don't really think the scar and the broken wrist were early Christmas presents from Santa Claus," Sam said. "She's there to feel safe, and you ruined her trust in ten seconds flat."

"That's gotta be a new record," Tucker joked.

"I'm trying to be nice and- okay I admit it, flash the hero card a bit- every time she shuts down," Danny said.

"Maybe she's not intrested in a hero, Danny, but a friend," Sam said.

"Danny and Sam, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-"

"Oh, shut up!" Danny and Sam objected in unison. Now that they were dating, Tucker teased them mercifully and much more often. Danny's ghost sense went off suddenly.

"Oh, come on!" he complained. He had gone the entire way without any ghosts, and now, he was right next to his bedroom window, and it chose to go off. He turned invisible and flew into his bedroom, hoping that the ghost hadn't hurt Ryan. Instead, he found Cujo in his eight-foot-tall form, getting pet by Ryan. He was about to pull Cujo into the Fenton Thermos, but stopped when he heard what he heard.

"Hey, boy," Ryan whispered so softly, that even with his advanced hearing, Danny could barely hear. "Good boy," she said.

Danny chose to turn visible at that moment. "You know the good thing about dogs: they listen to you and don't say mean things back, and if you find the dog that's right for you, it'll never hurt you, and will always be there for you*," Danny said. "I won't say mean things back or hurt you.*"

Ryan turned back to Cujo, who soon turned back to puppy form, surprising Ryan slightly. She brushed a strand of black hair out of her face and continued petting Cujo.

A/N: Okay, so first off, yes, I know I've started another fic. The sentences with the stars by them are semi-quotes from Smallville- which I don't own- that I tweaked to fit Ryan's situation. The first three people to reply get to make up charachters who have possibility of being Danny's real sister (no, Ryan isn't gonna wind up being Danny's sister... or is she?). So... please review!