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Danny sat on the roof of the Ops Center, trying to ignore the sounds of his parents yelling at each other down in the house.  The evening was clear on this Christmas Eve, and he was hoping to see some stars, despite the light pollution.  The increased light pollution.  Curse the ten million different Christmas displays.  And Christmas, just in general.  

There was the sound of an ecto-gun going off in the house, and something breaking.  Danny rolled his eyes, then rubbed them.  Christmas couldn’t be over soon enough.  He didn’t know how Jazz dealt with all of this.  

He looked up again.  The sky was a dusky color, and, if he remembered correctly…  There.  The first star.  

“Star bright, star light, first star I see tonight,” mumbled Danny, hoping that a touch of whimsy would do something to break through his general holiday malaise.  “Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

He sighed again.  What did he wish?  Not that the fighting would stop.  That was impossible.  He knew better.  But what else…?  Oh, yeah.  There was another problem that haunted him every time he laid down in bed or finished a meal.  

“I wish Dani was somewhere safe,” he said.  

.

Desiree hadn’t come to Amity Park looking to make trouble.  Not this time.  At least, she hadn’t come to make trouble right now.  She’d just wanted to boost her powers with some Christmas wishes - all of them granted in the spirit of the wish, of course!  She didn’t want to wind up on the wrong side of the Truce.  

But this?  This was a little too good to pass up.  

She knew better than to say it out loud, but, well, she mouthed the words.  

As you have wished it, so shall it be!

.

Dani Phantom was minding her own business.  And, okay, maybe her own business involved a lot of pickpocketing, maybe some breaking and entering, just a little bit of shoplifting…  Okay, it was mostly shoplifting, but it wasn’t like stores were people, and this chain was owned by Vladco, so, really, it was like child support or whatever.  

Danny didn’t know how child support was supposed to work, so Dani didn’t either.  Most of her memories were effectively his, after all.  

The point was, she wasn’t bothering anyone and just going through her normal day when a portal just opened up underneath her.  

She fell in, of course.  

.

Dani fell.  Before she fell very far, she transformed, but by that point she had already fallen through the portal, which promptly vanished, just in time for Dani to run into the curved wall of glass that had been behind it.  She stopped and looked around.  

The room she was in… wasn’t a room.  It was a round glass bottle.  One held by–

“Desiree!” shouted Dani, raising her hands in preparation to fight and ignoring how the bottom of her foot was already dripping ectoplasm.  The genie-like ghost was floating beyond the glass, her hair loose and a red shawl draped across her shoulders.  The room beyond was dark and filled with pale green smoke.  “I wish I was out of here and kicking your butt!”

“Hello, dear,” said Desiree, “I am afraid I cannot hear you.  The glass, you see, and you are so, so small.”  She tapped the stopper that closed off the bottle.  

Dani scowled.  Her shins were starting to melt.  

“Now, I am sure you are wondering what wish landed you here.”  She smiled and circled.  “Your cousin.  So incautious, wishing for you to be somewhere safe, not thinking at all about what that would mean.  But rest assured, you will be quite safe in this little bottle, just as I was in mine.”

She tilted the bottle back and forth.  “Although, if you had a wish…”

Yeah, Dani had some wishes.  Mostly ones that involved giving Desiree a black eye or making her back off.  

“But, oh, if you are anything at all like that cousin of yours, how could I trust you not to attack me the moment I took out this cork?”

Dani’s rings flickered into being briefly around her waist, but she banished them.  Even if she was melting, she wanted the protection from ghost powers her ghost form provided.  She didn’t trust Desiree at all.  

“But it is truce time,” said Desiree, tilting her head, her red eyes glinting.  “The time when ghosts refrain from fighting or harming one another.”

“This is what you count as refraining from harm?” demanded Dani, incensed.  Despite wishing to kick Desiree’s butt earlier, she knew what the truce was - barely - thanks to Danny’s memories.  So, she knew what had happened to Ghostwriter when he’d broken it.  She just hadn’t realized the truce was now.  She hadn’t been keeping track of the date.  Things like that were sort of a luxury for people like her.  

Desiree swirled the bottle again.  “So, perhaps I will take the risk and let you try to wish yourself out of your… predicament.  In the spirit of the truce, I will even keep to the spirit of your wish.  Consider it a Christmas wish.”

There was a catch here.  Desiree talked like Vlad, and with Vlad, there was always a catch.  There was no way that Desiree would just let her wish herself free. 

More of Dani’s foot melted off.  That could be the catch.  

Probably not, though.  

“And while you are thinking, think of your cousin getting you into this mess, and all those people who are safe and warm and full at home…”  She tapped the glass wall of the bottle.  “Just think.”

Okay, there was the catch.  Desiree expected her to make trouble for Danny.  Well.  She wouldn’t.  So, there.  

But… now she was thinking about the things Desiree had said.  She was thinking about Danny, and how he’d been thinking about her, and had wanted her to be safe, and she was thinking about all the people who were home for the holidays… with their families.  

Then, Desiree popped the cork off the bottle and smiled broadly.  “What do you wish for?”

Dani bit her lip and put her hands on the bottle wall.  She wished– She wanted– “I wish my family was together - like a real family - for the holidays.”

Desiree threw back her head and laughed.  “As you have wished it, so shall it be.”

.

Dani woke up in a bed.  It took her a few minutes to realize why this was strange.  Once she did, she sat straight up, completely awake.  

This–  This was Vlad’s house.  She recognized the moulding and the furniture style and color scheme.  But…. other than that…  She looked all around the room.  There were posters on the walls, and they weren’t Packers themed.  They were mostly for bands, ones that Dani liked, when she’d been able to hear them, but there was one for that skateboarder she’d heard of, Tony Hawk, a couple for spacecraft, and a huge, detailed world map.  The desk had a computer and a bunch of video games, and there were little things scattered around the room.  Toys and gadgets, art projects and models.  A bookshelf was full of books whose titles were things like Deep Sea Exploration and Hidden Wonders of Eastern Europe.  

Feeling dazed, Dani climbed out of bed.  How had she gotten here?  Had Vlad kidnapped her and set this up to try and, what, buy her forgiveness?  That didn’t sound like him, except for the part where he would get to avoid saying sorry.  

Except, the last thing she remembered was Desiree…  And that wish…

Well, if Vlad tried anything funny, she’d– Do something.  Probably.  She ran an ectoblast over her fingers to test how stable she was.  That seemed to be… okay.

Time to investigate.  

She eased the door open and peered out into the hallway.  It was empty.  She stepped out.  

“Dani?  Why are you still in your PJs?”

She jumped.  She didn’t know how she’d missed him before, but Danny was standing there, wearing a vest and dress pants and tying on a bow tie.  

“Um,” said Dani.

“I know it’s kind of stupid,” said Danny, rolling his eyes.  “But Dad likes it when we’re all ‘put together’ for Christmas pictures, and we can do that for him, I guess.”

“Oh, um, right,” said Dani.  

She was going to beat the heck out of Desiree.  Spirit of the wish her butt.  At what point had she wanted some kind of alternate universe where Danny called Vlad Dad.  

“Are you okay?” asked Danny.

“No– I mean yes,” said Dani, quickly.  How could she ask what she wanted to know.  “Is there, um.  I’ve forgotten, um.”

“The Fentons are coming at two,” said Danny, patiently answering at least one of them.  “Dan’s coming by at three, since he wanted to go to Johnny’s truce party, everyone else is coming at five, for dinner.”

“Uh,” said Dani.  

“Or did you want to know if you’re the last one up?  Yeah.  I’m pretty sure the rest of our sextuplets beat us down.  At least, I heard Dusty thumping around.  Are you sure haven’t caught a cold or something?”

“I’m fine,” said Dani.  “I’m just going to go.  Get changed.”

She retreated back into the room and shut the door.  Then she sat down.  Sextuplets.  Six.  That’d be everyone, all the clones, including the ‘perfect’ one, plus Danny.  Who knew who Dan was, though…  She shook her head.  It didn’t matter.  None of this mattered.  She should be out looking for Desiree to get her to fix this.  

But… Would it really be so bad if Dani waited to find her until after Christmas?  It wasn’t like Danny liked Christmas with his family all that much.