Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Edited 10.19.2014

Maddie had noticed, of course, the way her son had withdrawn seemingly overnight from them. The sudden drop in grades. The exhaustion. The rebellion. The jumpiness. The calls in the middle afternoon from his school asking her if she had taken him home after he had disappeared halfway through third period.

At first she had thought the solution was to spend more time with him. But, the more she attempted to pull him close, the deeper he dug the boundary between them until it had ceased to be a crevice and had become a canyon.

She knew that Danny was a teenager. It was his job to put as much space between him and them as possible. It still hurt.

Jack insisted it was normal, but Maddie was convinced that something else was going on with her youngest. Danny had never had straight A's, but he had never failed anything. At the rate he was going he was going to have to repeat Junior year. So what was it? Drugs? Fighting? Gangs? Danny didn't seem like the kind prone to that kind of deviancy. Anyway, Maddie had already scoured his room. Besides a stolen Fenton Thermos and a stack of uncompleted homework there was no drugs. She had checked everywhere. She had been thorough.

The only thing she had found was an odd blood stain near his bedside table. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't have provoked such a strong visceral reaction in her. But, that tiny incriminating speck of red had stolen the breath from her lungs.

Convinced Danny was caught up in some kind of fight club, Maddie had attempted to shadow him for months, but he had the uncanny ability to vanish. One minute he would be in his room, the next gone. She checked in on him in the middle of the night. Maddie couldn't remember the last time she had found him in his bed.

In those rare moments when he was there, he was still gone. At dinner he would shovel food into his mouth and excuse himself as quickly as possible, gliding up the stairs and out of his bedroom window. In his wake he left an empty void.

It was a month ago that Maddie noticed it: The way all of their ghost instruments locked onto Danny and tracked him as he moved around the house. 

They had plenty of ghost detecting equipment built into the walls. Lately, the house seemed to be unnaturally preoccupied with Danny. The instruments perked up and recorded brief snippets of information whenever he passed down a hallway or opened the fridge. At first she thought they were malfunctioning, but how could every instrument in the entire house malfunction at the same time?

Maddie loved her son more than anything, but she wasn't blinded by emotion. Like any self-respecting scientist she immediately recognized Danny as the lone variable. The instruments had started malfunctioning the same time Danny had withdrawn himself from her. Maddie knew it was no coincidence.

Danny was involved with ghosts. More specifically a ghost. Maddie knew which one it was.

She had never noticed until she had been two seconds away from blowing his head off (a mere three feet away— the closest she had ever gotten to him!) that his mannerisms, his face, his voice was as familiar as her own.

Danny always had a good heart. Easily exploitable. He would fight for a cause if he believed there was justice in it. There was only one ghost that had this whole city torn into sides. Only one that people claimed was protecting humans; only one that Danny might rally behind.

Just when Phantom had taken over her baby boy's body Maddie wasn't sure, but he had give her son back to her.

She was shocked to see just how far the enemy had infiltrated her own home. For just how long had she been talking to Phantom instead of her own son? How long had Phantom pretended to be a part of her family? How many meals had she made for him? How many movies had she watched with him? The thought of how many kisses she had given this demon made Maddie sick.

Whether Danny was willingly possessed or not, she did not care. Phantom would be expelled. If she was right, Danny will have been overshadowed for a solid six months. She wasn't sure if there would be any kind of physical— or mental— repercussions.

Maddie knew she had to tread carefully. Phantom was powerful, and she wasn't entirely certain his claim on Danny was without his permission. She had attempted small scale expulsions, like putting a few drops of anti-ghost serum in his dinner, only to have him sniff it and immediately feign illness to avoid taking a bite. She even attempted to lure him through the Catcher, but Danny already knew its purpose.

Then, this morning, the Guys in White had appeared at her door, viciously knocking it off its hinges. She had answered to the nozzle of one of their highly polished and extremely deadly ecto-weapons. They had demanded she turn Danny in, or else she would be arrested for harboring a fugitive. Of course, they had it all wrong. Danny hadn't done any of those things— at least not on his own volition. After Maddie had told them how her son was possessed they had been eager to help her.

She wanted her son out of Phantom's iron grip and back into her own arms. The GIW wanted Phantom. It was a win-win.

She sat nervously, not sure how to prepare for this type of intervention. Her fingers rapped across her knees as she sat— alone— in the kitchen. Her eyes trailed disinterestedly at her mug of tea that had long grown cold. Deep within the confines of the house she knew the GIW were setting up their own equipment in anticipation. The instant Phantom left her son they would capture him and take him back to their government facility. For months she had dreamed about capturing Phantom, until she had learned about his connection with Danny. All interest in studying Phantom had vanished and had been replaced, instead, with worry.

The GIW could have Phantom, as long as they didn't hurt her baby.

The front door cracked open as Danny (or Phantom?) crossed the threshold of the house. He paused, obviously sensing something was off. The house was silent, empty, waiting.

Maddie distantly heard the whine of guns powering up from the basement. She frowned. Why would they be powering up guns? They were supposed to extract Phantom from Danny, not shoot him.

They had specifically planned, together, that Maddie would attempt to coax Phantom out of Danny and if that failed they would use the Catcher. 

Perhaps it was just a precaution. A government thing. You know, red tape.

"Mom?" Danny's voice rang out, confused, as he moved through the living room. "Dad?….Jazz? Helloooo? …Anyone home?"

"In here, honey," she answered, taking in a deep breath. She was strangely excited.

Danny appeared in the kitchen door. He paused, eying her warily, sensing something was off. Maddie took in his tired eyes and his disheveled hair. Was she talking to Danny? Or Phantom?

"Where's everyone?" he asked her.

"Out," Maddie answered. "Sit down. We need to talk."

She kicked out the opposing kitchen chair.

Chapter Text

Edited 10.19.2014

"Sit down. We need to talk."

Danny studied her with uncertain blue eyes. He didn't move from his spot near the kitchen doorway. For a second Maddie was sure that he was going to make up some sort of lie, an excuse, anything to get out of the house. Instead of fleeing, however, he took three long strides to cross the distance between himself and the chair.

"Alright," he said, pulling it the rest of the way out with a squeak before plopping down into it, slumping casually. He rested his hands on the tabletop, fingers nervously drumming along the formica. "Whats up?"

Maddie studied all of his mannerisms, stomach clenching at just how well Phantom could mimic her son. Or perhaps Phantom had acted as her son for so long she herself had forgotten what Danny used to be like, before all of this. Did that make her a terrible mother?

"Roll up your sleeves." Maddie pointed at the sweater he was wearing. It wasn't dreadfully hot outside, but it wasn't cold either. The seasons were caught somewhere in-between, almost summer. Her Danny had always been warm-blooded. Now, whenever Danny allowed her to touch him— however briefly— she was shocked by his uncharacteristically cold skin.

"Mom." Danny— no Phantom— frowned. "What's this all about?"

"Your sleeves," Maddie ordered, voice rigid. Anger coursed through her at the sound of this thing calling her mom.

His eyes narrowed distrustfully. "...No."

Maddie reached out to grab his wrist, but he retracted his arms from her so quickly they were almost a blur. Maddie stared at the spot they had been in before, startled. Nobody moved that quickly. Nobody human, at least.

Danny seemed to sense her unease and he rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a long-winded sigh.

"Ok, ok, fine," he relented. "Look- Just don't... freak out on me."

"I'm not going to freak out, sweetheart," Maddie told him, knowing she was lying to herself. "I just need answers." That's all she wanted. Answers.

Danny shifted back in forth in his seat for a moment as he bit his lip. It was a habit that he had kept from childhood, this need to wiggle around when uncomfortable. She had used to affectionately call him puppy when he was a toddler. Maddie knew it was why he had been so spoiled compared to his sister. Maddie's resolve always broke at those huge watery too-blue eyes. Danny had wormed his way out of many timeouts; recently many groundings. It wouldn't work this time. Maddie knew it wasn't really him. It was an impostor wearing Danny's skin.

Possession of this kind, for this duration, she had thought improbable if not impossible. Phantom seemed to have some sort of access into his host's memories. It took a great deal of cunning and intelligence to fake human emotion like this. The sight of Phantom attempting Danny's puppy stare at her made her only more determined.

Danny kept his gaze locked on her as he rolled up his left sleeve, then his right.

Mottled angry bruises wound up his arms. Purple, green, yellow, even flecks of red where blood had blossomed up underneath his skin. Maddie went weak at at the sight of her child's battered body. Then cold hard fury replaced it. Fury beyond anything she had ever felt before. Phantom had done this to her boy. How dare he. How dare he mutilate and abuse Danny's body. Was it not enough to use Danny for his own ends?

"I can explain—" Phantom started, but trailed off when Maddie moved suddenly across the countertop.

She took his hand gently and turned it over, running her fingers along the marks as if to will them to heal.

"Who did this?" she whispered, already knowing he would lie.

"Just some guys at school. Really, it's no big deal..."

He tried to edge his hand out of her grip but her fingers tightened around his wrist. She ignored the way he flinched as she pressed into the deep bruises.

"Mom.." He looked up at her, confused. "What is really going on?"

"Don't—" —Maddie choked— "Don't call me that." She couldn't stand it.

"...What?"

Phantom's face fell, his eyes searching. Maddie almost broke. He looked so much like Danny. It was Danny's face looking at her all lost and confused and afraid.

"I know," she told him, not letting go of his wrist.

Ringing silence; only interrupted by the relentless tick-tick-tick of the kitchen clock and the surreal laughs of children playing outside in the sun. They seemed like a world away. The air in the kitchen was tense.

"What do you know?" Phantom finally asked, ripping his hand from her grasp.

She had no chance; he was deceptively strong. Maddie realized that he could have pulled himself out of her clutches whenever he wanted to, but he had let her hold onto his arm this whole time. Just how strong was he? She was suddenly deeply afraid of him.

Good thing she had the GIW hiding around the house as backup. Phantom was far more dangerous than she had ever imagined. By herself, she stood no chance. The only reason he hadn't wiped her out in the first place was because he needed this family alive and whole to blend in— to masquerade as human.

Maddie was just another one of his pawns, just like Jazz and Jack were.

"I know about you, Phantom."

Maddie watched his reaction and knew she was right. She had been right all along. She yanked her ecto-gun out from underneath the table, hands shaking, as she aimed it at the ghost.

So much for coaxing.

She couldn't help it. She had thought she could deal with this rationally. Level-headed. Talk to Phantom like he was an actual person— reason with him, try to appeal to his ghostly obsessions. But, when confronted with how this doppelgänger had hijacked Danny's life and desecrated his body all reason fell apart, clattering upon the tile floor. The sight of those bruises had been a cold slap in the face. She felt the protective mother in her coil like a snake, warning rattles in her ears as she prepared to strike.

Phantom was startled. He looked like his entire world had just shattered. Fingernails clenched onto the edge of the kitchen table; bones turned wobbly as he rocked against a tsunami of realization. He slumped slightly to the left as if to pass out but instead righted himself at the last minute and recoiled away from her as much as his chair would allow.

"Whoah, whoah. Hey— hold on. What are you doing? You can't." His voice weak and strained. "You've got it wrong."

"Oh really?" Maddie hissed between bared teeth. She wondered what kind of fantastical story this demon would make up in order to protect himself. She tilted the gun. It was merely a precaution - she wouldn't risk actually shooting Danny's body. It was a bluff.

"You've got it all wrong. Let me explain," he repeated slowly, voice low. He reached out and placed a hand on the end of the gun, blocking her shot.

"Get out of him," Maddie demanded. She swallowed to force down her hysteria and shoved the gun forward, threateningly digging it into his palm. "Give me my son back right now."

Phantom looked bewildered for a moment before clarity dawned upon his features. He raised his hands up in surrender and tilted his head back, giving a sharp bark of a laugh. The laugh was dark. It made Maddie's skin crawl; spiders trailing a scuttling procession down her spine.

"Give him back? I'm not.. I'm not possessed. It's me, Danny."

"It all makes sense. Danny Phantom, Danny Fenton. How did I not notice before? How you act more human than any of the others. How all the ghost detectors go off around Danny. How Danny suddenly seems like a different person. It's because you replaced him. How clever, to hide inside a human host."

"I'm not—" He shook his head. "Mom, it's not that simple."

Maddie flinched. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?" Phantom glared at her. "It's your name isn't it?"

"I am not your mother."

He stared at her, wounded. Maddie wondered if Phantom had pretended to be part of their family for so long that he actually believed it to be true.

"Of course you are," he mumbled.

"This game of yours has gone on long enough," Maddie continued cooly, regaining control of her emotions. They had temporarily escaped from her, galloping wildly in her heart. She felt herself slip back, however, into her rational self. It settled as an uncaring fog. "It's time to move on to... wherever ghosts move on to, instead of stealing from the living."

Phantom shook his head, eyes closed.

Maddie tilted the gun again, taking closer aim. "Time to stop pretending to be human and show yourself."

"I am Danny. I'm not possessed and I'm not dead. But, I am part ghost," Phantom whispered. "You have to believe me."

A soft clatter resounded from downstairs. Phantom froze, spooked.

"What was that?" He turned to her, eyes wide.

"You say you're the good guy," Maddie continued, ignoring his question. 

He blinked a few times before turning his attention back to her— overwhelmed. "I am the good guy. Or at least I try to be."

"You want to protect this city?"

"Of course."

"This family?"

"More than anything." He looked at her warily.

"Then do the right thing," she told him warm and soothing. She lowered the gun  an inch. "Leave Danny out of this. Please."

"I can't. We're not two different people." His eyes dropped to the table as his voice cracked with emotion. "I'm sorry, Mom. I should have told you and Dad a long time ago... Maybe it would never have gotten to this point. The accident last year, with the Portal—"

The click of the gun cocking cut him off and he looked up wildly at her in shock.

"No more," she told him, unwilling to listen. Nothing this impostor told her could be trusted. Phantom would say anything to stay a part of this family, to remain a hidden threat. Already he had been lying to her for almost a year. Hatred was brimming through her, threatening to spill out, but her hand was steady. "I can't listen to your lies anymore. I can't pretend to love you anymore. You are not my son."

"Yes, I am!" Phantom yelled. Maddie's fingers clenched around the steel of her gun at the force behind it. The kitchen dropped several degrees as Danny's blue eyes flashed a terrible neon green. "Why won't you just listen to me! You think you know everything, but you DON'T!"

He took in a deep breath, calming somewhat. His eyes were still glowing. Inhuman.

"So, what if you're wrong?" he asked her, quieter this time as he leaned forward until his forehead was mere inches from the end of her gun. He wasn't afraid of her. He didn't think she had the guts to do it— to shoot him. He was calling her bluff.

"Will you pull the trigger? Even if I'm possessed— which I'm not— you're still killing your son."

He was right. Her resolve shook. She searched his face, uncertain suddenly of her own conviction.

"You can't be my son," she whispered. "Danny's not dead. Danny's not a ghost." The mere idea of it was enough to flood all the strength out of her. "He can't be— It's impossible. You can't be both Phantom and Danny. You can't be both dead and alive...Can you?"

Phantom moved abruptly, sinuously, grabbing the gun out of her hand. He took advantage of her momentary shock by twisting her wrist painfully until she let go of it. Maddie panicked at his speed, at his agility, and his iron cold grip; with a gasp she tried to stumble back out of her chair, but her foot caught and sent her twisting and tripping, landing hard on her hip with a horrible crack as her hipbone gave way.

"Mom—!" Phantom was suddenly above her, wearing Danny's concerned face as he bent over her. "I'm so sorry— I didn't mean— Shit, you're hurt—"

"Stay back," she warned. "Don't touch me."

"MOM! Jesus, calm down. If you would just let me—"

"FUDGE!" she screamed in terror. Her nails scraped against the cold tile as she tried to desperately drag her body away from her attacker.

Phantom paused, hand stalling in mid-stretch to help her up. Guilt melted into confusion.

"Fudge?" he repeated, thrown. "What are you—"

He didn't need to finish his sentence; it was answered for him almost instantaneously. The high-pitch whine of a dozen guns powering up at once pierced the kitchen as red lasers trained on his chest above his heart. He glanced down in shock at the wavering red dots, before looking back down at Maddie.

Maddie had never seen that look of profound betrayal on her son's face before.

Not her son, she reminded herself. This was not her son. Not yet.

"Freeze, Ghostboy. Hands up where we can see them. You are surrounded. I repeat, you are surrounded. Do not attempt escape. There is none." Seven GIW agents plucked their way into the kitchen, crouched low, guns trained.

"What did you do?" Phantom growled down at her, voice accusing. He raised his hands slowly up over his head, obedient for the time being.

Maddie realized no matter how powerful Phantom was, he could never truly comprehend— never even fathom— just how much Maddie would move heaven and earth to save her family. How she would swim across the Pacific if Danny was on the other side. How she would rather burn alive in eternal damnation than allow Phantom to control Danny for one more day. He had never been a mother, and as such he had absolutely no idea the kind of indomitable force he was dealing with.

"I did what I had to," Maddie whispered, dizzy in shock as she held a hand to her injured hip. "I did what any mother would do. I will give everything, do anything, to free my baby from you. To protect my son."

Chapter Text

A setup. His own mother had set him up.

Danny was stunned.

Really, he probably should have realized this was coming. It wasn't exactly like Maddie hadn't given him all the signs. The way his mother had been sending him mutinous glances all week, how she had attempted to put poison in his food and lure him through the Catcher. He should have put two and two together and realized the dangerous conclusion his mom had cemented in her mind.

He should never have underestimated Maddie's intelligence. He had been relying on the fact that Maddie hated Phantom, and loved Fenton - hoping that therefore she would never put the two together. He never thought about what this looked like from afar to a renowned ghost hunter. How there was an explanation for Phantom and Fenton's strange connection that still left Danny's character unquestioned. That placed his human half as the victim.

The irony of all of this was too much for him. He felt a bout of giddiness bubble up in his chest and he couldn't help it; he laughed.

There was a volley of clicks as the GIW agents cocked their guns, unnerved by his reaction.

His own mother - ghost expert - had misread all the signs. And of course she did. Of course she thought he was possessed. How could she not? Danny had never told her the truth and so, in her mind, ghost hybrids didn't exist. Could never exist. And the more Danny attempted to convince her otherwise the more she thought he was lying. That, of course, was the catch-twenty two. The inherent trap inlaid in the very definition of being possessed, after all. Danny empathized with all the victims of the Salem witch hunt; with all the mental patients mistakenly locked away as psychopathic. Only now did he understand this kind of hopeless frustration.

He realized he may have missed his window of opportunity to come clean to his parents and have them believe and accept him. The idea that he was possessed had taken root like a weed in his mother's mind and there was little he could do to prove to her she was wrong. Everything he said or did would be seen as manipulation.

This stung more than her betrayal. He felt as if he was losing his own mother.

"Turn around." An agent ordered.

Danny couldn't. He looked down at her, seeing all that fear and terror in her eyes. His mom was afraid - of him. He tried to bring himself to hate her, but he couldn't. He blamed himself. This was just as much his fault as hers. She had done this all to protect him, unknowingly doing the exact opposite.

"Please." Maddie panted, gazing up at him, "Just let Danny go."

He shook his head slightly, hands balling into fists above his head.

"Turn around." The agent ordered again, this time with more steel in his voice.

"What's the magic word?" Danny asked sardonically. His wit only earned him the cold press of a gun to his shoulder.

"Turn around. Now." The agent twisted the metal into his back.

"Alright, alright. Geeze, you guys really need a sense of humor."

They seemed to all collectively sniff that Danny was two seconds from either attempting to run or attempting to fight. All the chorded muscle in his back was tensed against the muzzle of the gun.

"Setting me up by using my mom? Isn't that underhanded, even for you guys?"

"Do not try to resist." The agent warned him.

"How'd you guys figure it out?" He asked despite himself, ignoring how the gun pressed into his right shoulder insistently, "Or did my mom do all the heavy lifting?"

"Your blood." The agent replied, clipped.

Danny thought he had been careful to avoid leaving anything behind, but he supposed that he had no way of knowing everywhere his incriminatingly unique blood fell.

With a tired sigh Danny spun slowly to face the whole lot of them. He felt as if he was forever turning his back on his mother as he did so.

The gun retrained to his left shoulder, barely retreating as he moved. He was certainly outnumbered. But, he wasn't about to just go quietly. He knew he had to be fast. He only had a split second to transform and go intangible before he would be riddled with holes. It didn't matter if they saw him transform now, it was all over anyways. The GIW would stake out his school, his friends, his family. His life was utterly destroyed. They would be relentless in their pursuit of him and they would harm anyone that stood in their way. Danny knew he had to run. Disappear, and never come back. There wouldn't be time for any goodbyes. He hoped Jazz, Sam, and Tucker would understand. He hoped his mother and his father would eventually forgive themselves, and him.

With a breath he tugged at his ghostly core, transforming with a sharp rush and snap. There was a surprised gasp behind him, from his mother witnessing his morph into Phantom up close for the first time.

Then all hell broke loose.

Spooked and convinced Danny was going to try something, fifteen high-powered anti-ecto bullets peppered through the Fenton's kitchen. Wallpaper and splintered wood sprayed into the air as the bullets created small craters in the cabinetry. Maddie gave a sharp yell, ducking underneath the kitchen table, staring in horror at the spot where Danny - Phantom - had been standing. It was now vacant. The only thing left behind was Danny's green and red mixed blood, splattered along the white tile. It looked so similar to that spot up in his bedroom.

"Stop! Don't shoot him!" She was screaming, but it did no good. The first round of fire ended as all of the agents paused to reload their guns.

Danny was hit.

He could feel the sharp ache in his shoulder where he hadn't gone intangible fast enough. Already the anti-ecto material the bullet was dipped in was spreading; fire ants biting down his arm. Danny knew he needed the bullet removed, quickly, or else the poison would spread. Green ectoplasmic blood smeared his palm as he applied pressure to the wound.

He took advantage of their momentary vulnerability to go on the offense.

Danny flickered back into visibility, still standing in the same spot he had been before. Ignoring his injured shoulder he grabbed the kitchen table and, with all his strength, threw it at four of them. They gave a yell and attempted to dive out of the way but the table crashed, pinning them for the moment. The heavy metal leg had gashed one of them across the temple, rendering him unconscious. Without pause Danny was already taking three lightening quick strides and collided a sharp punch to the head of the agent that shot him. The man sagged under the weight of Danny's assault, eyes rolling into the back of his head. Thirteen more to go.

Danny spun, floating, and viciously blasted a pair of agents to the right, watching them crumple into each other soundlessly. Eleven more to go.

There were shouts as a few agents scrambled for other weapons. One in particular raised a very familiar device. One of his family's ghost nets. Danny turned intangible, letting it fly harmlessly through him before he grabbed the offending agent by the forehead and slammed his head back into the wall. Ten more to go.

He continued his assault without emotion, putting all his energy into this round of hits, giving them no time to get their guns reloaded. He was aware of his mother staring at him, watching, as he disabled each agent with the cold detachment of a soldier. He knew that she was probably shocked to see this side of him. Danny had always been afraid of what her reaction might be to see him in full ghost attack mode, eyes glowing, pointed teeth bared, brimming with power as he sniped each target down with precision. He knew that this was not helping his case. If anything, his actions right now were only further proof to Maddie that Phantom had possessed her son. He realized he didn't care. Not anymore.

Then, Danny heard the click and whine of at least three guns powering up again and he immediately retreated, switching back to defense and fading out of sight into his surroundings like a chameleon.

He left panting agents and uncanny ringing silence in his wake.

The agents wildly looking around the room for who was still standing and for where their target had evaporated to. Danny had been so quick and ruthless that most of them were still reeling in shock, trying to regroup. The floor was littered with unconscious bodies.

"What are you doing?!" Maddie was saying, propping herself up against the back wall after Phantom had ripped the protective table off of her, "You were told not to hurt him! That's my son's body he's in."

The three agents were picking their way out from underneath the broken kitchen table. One of them was holding an injured arm. The other raised his watch to his lips.

"Ten agents unconscious, Agent K's shooting arm is injured." He reported, looking over at his comrades, "Target is wounded and resisting arrest."

Resisting arrest didn't exactly describe what had just transpired.

The agents looked around at each other, only five left standing. They had severely underestimated not only Phantom's power and speed, but also his intelligence. He was playing them. Unlike most ghosts, Phantom knew when to fight and when to retreat. There was the uneasy vibe in the air that he was waiting for the prime opportunity to pounce again and finish them off.

From above there was the soft thumping of a helicopter and a bright light shone down on the lawn, searching for Danny should he attempt to run. Backup had arrived. The street outside was devoid of life. The children that had been playing hopscotch before had been herded inside by their frightened mothers, leaving only childlike chalk drawings in their wake.

It wasn't the first time FentonWorks had disrupted the neighborhood. But government helicopters?

"It's still in the room." One of the agents remarked nervously, breaking the silence.

They were talking about him. Danny blinked in surprise, before realizing the steady dripping of his blood down his arm was giving his position away. He was loosing so much blood. He may be invisible, but the moment his glowing green ectoplasm dropped off his fingertip and onto the floor he was tracked. He had to flee - fast.

Danny quickly attempted to phase through the kitchen wall, but the minute he touched the windowpane he felt like he had been electrocuted. His intangibility slipped away from him like water, along with his invisibility and flight. Powers shorted, he abruptly appeared again, crashing down heavily onto the countertop as gravity reclaimed him. Dirty dishes clattered, shattering porcelain bits across the floor.

"Ghost shield." Agent K grinned a toothy grin. All the guns swiveled and locked onto him again, "This house is full of surprises. When we said there was no escape, we meant it."

Even his own home was being used against him. Well, against Phantom.

"Bet you weren't expecting this." Danny gritted as he let go of his ghostly core and felt the thrum of humanity overtake him. The pain in his shoulder nearly tripled, hot red blood pouring out as he gave a sharp groan. With his good arm he simultaneously grabbed the toaster off the counter, ripping it from the socket, and smashed it through the window. Glass embedded deep into his palms as he prepared to jump through the pane into the bush below. Just as he moved to launch a strong hand on his ankle yanked him back.

"Wait- Please-"

Dizzily he looked back, seeing his mother's gloved hand around his leg. His foot was raised back instinctively, to kick this person into submission, but he paused - unable to kick his own mother.

It was all the time the GIW needed to get near enough to him. Danny felt the hot prods of a taser race from the back of his neck down his whole body and he blacked out for a few moments of blinding agony. When he came to he was being hauled off of the countertop by two government agents and slammed heavily onto the kitchen floor. His head connected to the tile with a thud, but he felt outside himself. As if he was watching this happen. This wasn't real.

He tried a last ditch attempt to go ghost, but that taser combined with blood loss, the poisoning effects of the anti-ecto bullet still imbedded in his left shoulder, and the shock of the ghost shield rendered him useless. The agents pinned him, but it didn't matter, his limbs were still spasming from the electric shock.

"Be careful." Maddie was saying, her voice strangely calm above him, "Let's take him downstairs and get this over with."

Danny knew exactly what she planned on doing. She planned on ripping the ghost right out of him. And it could be done; he had done it himself before by accident, with the Catcher. But it would leave him half a soul, half a person, permanently destroyed.

"Mom." He managed out, finding his voice as his muscles started to work again, no longer twitching, "I'm not possessed. I have ghost powers. A year ago I accidentally turned the Portal on from the inside. It infused me with ghost DNA. I am Phantom. We're one in the same. You cannot split me apart. You need to believe me. You have to believe me. I'm Danny. I'm your son. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before."

The confession tumbled out from his lips, his voice so quiet he hoped she had heard him. Maddie's frame jerked in surprise, her face looked at him in confusion. He could tell that maybe - just maybe - the raw emotion in that confession had swayed her.

There was a sudden pressure on his shoulder wound as Agent K ground down his foot. The agent was obviously enacting his own revenge for his injured shooting arm, twisting his heel down into the bullet hole. Danny couldn't help it, he cried out in pain, seeing spots and feeling like his arm was being dipped in molten lead. He gritted his teeth together as, for one sickening moment, he was certain he would vomit.

The other agent grabbed both of his limp arms by the wrists and wrenched the back, clipping handcuffs around them while Agent K moved his boot from Danny's shoulder to the back of his head, pinning it against the cold tile as if he was a wild animal. Danny had no doubt those handcuffs were anti-ghost handcuffs.

Danny felt a wave of hatred race through him and he prayed that K's shooting arm was permanently damaged from that table.

"Daniel James Fenton, aka Danny Phantom. Also known as Invisobill and the Ghost Kid - you are under arrest for attempted murder, impersonation of a government official, armed robbery, assault of a police officer, evasion of-"

"Seems like I've been even busier than I thought." Danny muttered, but quieted when K's boot pressed into his temple hard enough to make his head scream out in protest.

This couldn't be happening. Danny stared forward blankly at the puddle of his own blood that was spreading underneath him. The agent's voice grew distant, tinny, surreal. His rap sheet seemed to be never-ending. Half of the stuff they were saying Danny was positive he hadn't even done, he was just taking the fall all the crimes committed by the collective ghost population of Amity Park. This had to be some sort of nightmare.

"Danny? Is that really you?" Maddie's voice.

He was going to wake up. Any second now.

Danny was roughly tugged upright by his shoulders until he was standing, not without help, in between Agent K and his comrade. Much of his strength was gone, bled out on the floor. The other three agents still had their guns out, aimed at him nervously. His mother looked about ready to pass out, hand still over her hip as she trusted her weight to the refrigerator door.

"Isn't this the part where you read me my rights? Like on Cops?" Danny knew he was well on his way past shock at this point. This situation shouldn't be funny to him. He wasn't in his right mind.

"We're not cops." The agent on his left snapped, offended.

"…Under Illinois State ruling Rover vs. Erikson, any entity comprised of ectoplasm, in any way shape or form, are not protected under the United States Bill of Rights. That includes you, Invisobill." Agent K spat. He showed Danny his tainted green and red blood that was staining his white boot.

"There's gotta be a loophole in there somewhere." Danny replied cheekily, giving Agent K a very charming– abet murderous– smile. He was rewarded with a swift blow to the head from the butt of a gun. He kept any snarky comments to himself after that.

"Subject detained. Repeat, subject detained. Bring in retrieval and medic squads."

Suddenly K gave a brief motion and two of the other agents abandoned their posts to turn on his mother. They grabbed her roughly by the hair, not needing more than a quick jab in her injured hip to have her subdued.

"Don't touch her!" Danny screamed, his voice twisted, inhuman. A sudden burst of protective strength flooded through him from reserves he didn't know he possessed. Clarity, like a brittle winter cold snap, battered away his shock-induced complacency.

"Madeleine Fenton, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting known fugitive Daniel Fenton aka Danny Phantom. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the…"

Danny watched helplessly as the agent closest to his mother took out a pair of silver handcuffs.

Chapter Text

Danny watched as a series of emotions flicked across his mother's face before it settled into a grave determined frown. If he didn't know his mother the severe look would have been almost comical. Clearly, the GIW operative that was moving in to handcuff her hadn't known Maddie for as long as Danny did. He didn't know he was about to get his ass handed to him. If the GIW hadn't just ruined his life, conned his mom, and shot him in the arm, he would have felt almost sorry for the man.

"Do you understand your rights?" The GIW officer asked.

Maddie was pushing herself slowly off of the fridge with the control and stealth of a fourth degree black belt. Her movements were barely noticeable, but Danny noticed. The feline shift in stance, the way she strategically placed her injured hip away from the agent so it couldn't be used against her again.

"Hurry it up, V." K intoned, pulling a little at Danny's arm. Danny couldn't help but groan as his shoulder complained. The pounding in his arm was like a constant scream. Although he was quickly loosing feeling to his fingertips. He knew that was probably the poison.

"I said do you understand your rights?" V grated, "What are you both? Deaf or something? Or just stupid?"

Danny winced. Calling his mother stupid was probably the last thing you ever did. Sure, she had been a little slow on the uptake to figure out Danny's condition, but really, Danny was certain that him telling her he was half-ghost was about same as if he had told her he was a unicorn. If anything his mother was logical and scientific to a fault. In her mind, believing he was possessed was much more realistic than half-ghost. Even now, Danny wasn't so sure he had gotten through to her.

"You shot my son." Maddie told the operative. It was said like a promise, a vow.

It was all the warning she gave before she grabbed V's wrist and twisted, hard. There was a crack as something in his arm dislocated and the handcuffs clattered to the floor. Maddie simultaneously drew out the gun that was embedded in the arm of her jumpsuit while pressing a button underneath the kitchen countertop. Loud alarm bells went off as the Fenton house went into full lockdown. The windows and doors sprung to life, bars shooting down through the sheetrock as an ominous chorus of clicks resounded, doors barring themselves.

"Bitch!" V spat, holding his shoulder. He looked like he was about to say something else, but he was quickly silenced by a ruthless kick to his head. Maddie stepped over the unconscious body and aimed her gun at the two agents that were holding Danny in place.

Both of the agents were stunned. Neither of them had expected Madeline Fenton to be not only a ninja, but be wearing a potentially lethal jumpsuit. Of course they knew she was a scientist, but she was also a woman – a housewife! Really, where did those guns even hide on that skin tight suit?

Danny immediately moved kick one of the agents in the nuts, taking advantage of their momentary shock. The man on his right let go of him with an enraged yell before there was the soft pop of an air powered gun and the agent quieted. Danny's eyes widened, for a brief moment believing his mother had shot to kill, but then he saw the hypodermic dart sticking out of the guy's thigh and realized Maddie had just put the agent to sleep.

Agent K finally seemed to shake himself out of inaction and found himself the last agent - out of fifteen - left standing. He wound his arm around Danny's neck, tightly drawing him close so that Danny's back was to K's chest, essentially eliminating himself as a target as he put Danny in between himself and Maddie. Danny choked, stumbling, as K's took a few steps back and pulled out his own gun - a gun that was meant to put his mother to sleep, for good.

"I thought you were cooperating, Fenton." K spat.

Danny wasn't sure which Fenton he was referring to, but he guessed his mother.

"You shot him." Maddie repeated, voice cool in the face of a loaded gun. Danny felt true terror race through him as he heard K cock the trigger. He knew the agent would shoot to kill. Maddie was stalking forward though. Was she crazy? Danny's blue gaze was wide, catching the mad glint in Maddie's eye as she crossed the wrecked kitchen, stepping on broken glass, downed operatives, and pieces of the dining table.

Agent K backed up still, despite himself. He had never quite had someone react to his gun the way Madeline Fenton was. The whole point of threatening with a gun was to prevent someone from getting any closer.

"Stop right there." He told her, unnerved. His shooting hand shook, blood dripping down it from where it had been mangled by Phantom's previous assault. "Stop or I'll shoot."

He wrenched Phantom closer to himself, knowing Maddie wouldn't shoot her own son, but that still didn't stop him from getting a little afraid of the way the woman was closing in on them, teeth bared. Crazy. The whole lot of these Fentons were absolutely batshit insane. He stumbled back a few more steps, Phantom giving a hiss at his injured shoulder, before K stepped on something that depressed.

The alarm system suddenly paused, but the echo of the screeching horns was still ringing in agent K's ears. Danny jumped as a sudden booming voice resounded in the kitchen. Danny instantly recognized it.

"Fenton Anti-Intruder Scan initiated." The voice intoned. Danny had never heard his father's voice sound so serious. Nor had he ever known his own home had this kind of technology in it. However, they had never had to activate the two-pronged defense system before. Maddie was grinning ear to ear. Clearly she had been counting on K to stumble back onto this specific kitchen tile that was booby trapped.

"Creep Sweep go!" Jack's voice enthusiastically informed the trio. Danny froze, unsure of what was happening, or what was about to happen. Agent K was just as apprehensive. For a long moment the three of them waited with baited breath, but nothing happened.

"Jazz's room, clear." Jack's voice suddenly resounded and, a few seconds later, "Danny's room, clear."

Danny understood immediately. The house was programmatically searching each room for intruders to dispose of. Of course his parents would have the system do Jazz and his rooms first. The kitchen was probably last on the list.

Agent K seemed to realize he had some time left. He wildly waved the gun back over to Maddie and without warning shot at her.

"Main Bedroom, clear."

"Mom!" Danny screamed, bucking and sending his head back to connect with a sharp thud against K's jaw. K gave a yell, but didn't let go of him, instead he tightened his grip around Danny's neck until he saw stars, unable to breath. Danny looked across the kitchen, seeing his mother had not been hit. There was a deadly bullet hole in the fridge. K's shooting arm had been damaged enough to affect his aim. Danny felt relief flood through him.

"Living Room, clear."

"Turn it off." K demanded. His shooting arm was trembling violently. "I may not be able to aim at you, but I don't need to aim hit this shot."

Cold steel rested on Danny's temple near his eyebrow.

"Lab, clear."

"You wouldn't." Maddie hissed. The man was bluffing. He had to be. If the agent killed Danny he killed Phantom. And wasn't that the whole point of this? To take Phantom - alive?

Suddenly the kitchen whirled to life and the space was bathed in red light. Danny watched as a laser descended from the ceiling and did a quick sweep of the room. For a long moment no one breathed. They hardly blinked. A thread of doubt suddenly wound its way through Danny's mind. What if the house was looking for ghostly intruders, not human intruders? If so, Danny was screwed.

The laser retracted. Nothing happened. And then.

"Maddie detected. Danny detected." His father's voice was almost happy to have found them. "Fifteen unidentified intruders found. One threat recognized."

Danny felt K's arm tighten even further around his neck, surprised. If Danny could see the operative's face he would have seen the peppered red dots of at least three different guns trained on his head. There was a sharp snap and then Danny felt K's arm go limp, releasing him from his choke hold.

The kitchen door unlocked as K fell, although the bars on the windows to outside remained under lockdown.

Danny coughed out stale air from his lungs as he stumbled, hitting the back wall and looking down. There was a tiny pinprick of blood on K's forehead like a minuscule needle or bullet had hit him; his eyes permanently wide with shock. As Danny watched the bead of blood lazily dripped around the curve of his forehead.

"Is he?" Danny tried to ask, voice still strangled.

Did they actually kill someone? Danny felt the rest of his strength flood out of him at the thought and his vision pitched. A strong latex covered hand grabbed him before he kissed the ground. His mother lowered him until he was sitting against the wall before she moved around the kitchen. He watched as Maddie fished around Agent K's lifeless body, withdrawing a set of keys. Within seconds his hands were free of the cuffs, but they remained limply at his side.

"We have maybe fifteen minutes." Maddie's voice was cool, unemotional.

Fifteen minutes? Till what? Danny was struggling to keep up with everything that had just happened, his brain was clouded in shock and blood loss. Only one fact seemed to punctuate through. They had just killed a government agent! Well, the house had. Danny was pondering if you could convict a smart house of murder before he dimly realized his mother was dragging him to the threshold of the basement steps.

Danny wrenched his arm away from her, stumbling back. He had enough self-preservation still in him to remember Maddie's previous mission. To remember that the Catcher was down there, poised to rip him in half. He was still unsure if his mother believed him or not. If she still wanted to exorcise him.

"Come." Maddie commanded, almost like she was speaking to a disobedient dog, "Now."

Danny would have been offended by her tone, but short commands were about the only thing he could decipher at the moment. Already the hallway was spinning, warping. The poison made it hard to think, much less understand what was being said to him. Danny shook his head - half to refuse his mom, half to try and clear it, finding hardly any strength to speak. His legs felt numb, his entire arm felt like it was no longer there. His body was slowly disappearing; all feeling lost.

Maddie kicked the door to the stairs open, holding onto her injured hip, face pale, hands shaking.

"You have to come with me." She told him, "That bullet needs to be removed."

Danny panted sickly. The orange and blue blur of his mom drew closer, almost to touch him. He couldn't help it, he flinched back from her drunkenly.

"Stay back." He warned, but his voice sounded thin and weak even to him. There wasn't much he could do anymore but concentrate on breathing and standing.

"Danny, please." Maddie's voice. Danny realized dimly she was calling him by his name, not Phantom.

"You can't." He tried to tell her, letting her grab him around the waist and pull him awkwardly down the stairs. He felt his hold on consciousness slipping out of his numb fingertips. His body felt heavy and not his own, impossible to move with each passing second.

His eyes drifted, scanning her face as he felt his back hit the cold examination table. This was it, he thought to himself. Finally, it was happening. The glint of a scalpel and the snap of rubber gloves. Fuck it, he thought. He prepared himself for dissection, feeling strangely okay about the whole idea. At least the poison had already numbed him. What luck.

At least, so he thought.

Until his mother dug into his wounded shoulder and pain - like a snapping tendon - screamed through his arm. He felt a screech get pulled from taut lips and his mother slam him forcibly back onto the table. He hadn't even realized when he had attempted to bolt off of it.

"I know, baby, I know." Maddie was whispering, "But you have to stay still. I need to get it all out." A gloved hand was pressed against his forehead to pin it to the table and restrict his movement, but the hand stroked his hair comfortingly.

Danny writhed and twisted desperately as Maddie dug, only staying on the table by the sheer power in Maddie's chorded muscle and a few straps. With a growl Danny felt as his mother's fingers wiggled their way into his shoulder muscle, searching around. The feeling made his stomach turn and he gagged, coughing up what he thought would be bile only to find blood.

"Almost there, Danny. Be brave." Maddie told him encouragingly, voice clinically calm despite the fact that she was watching her own son spit up blood onto the basement floor. Danny felt the fingers finally rip out of him and heard the soft ping of metal hitting metal.

"It's out."

Danny slumped against the steel table, holding his injured arm to his side. Dazed, he tried to regain his bearings. For the past few minutes he had been in a sea of meaninglessness and pain.

Maddie was turning to him, needle in hand. Her silhouette was tall and menacing as she tapped the end of it, features obscured by shadow.

"You need to change." She told him, preparing the vial. Danny squinted to try and see what she was going to inject him with.

"Why?" He asked, apprehensively.

"The poison is still in your system." She looked down at him, red goggles shining in the dim light. If she wasn't so dangerous Danny would think she looked like an absurd bug. A bug with a gigantic needle. Like a mosquito. His mother was a demented mosquito. He really had lost it. She was still speaking to him, however, unaware of his psychedelic train of thought, "It will continue to spread if we don't counteract it. But I can't inject you with this if you're human. It will kill you."

The vial glowed softly, innocently, pure concentrated ectoplasm happily bubbling like champagne. Danny recognized it as the same type of highly energized ectoplasm that he had given Dani when she had been melting.

"You're not going to... you know...?" Danny stumbled on his words, dizzy still, despite the fact that his bullet wound was no longer bleeding. In fact, his mother had bandaged it up messily, but effectively.

"Kill you?" Maddie supplied, clipped, "Examine you? Rip Phantom out of you?"

Danny fell silent.

"No, honey. I may not understand how..." Maddie trailed off, obviously at a loss for words for a moment as she tried to wrap her head around her son having ghost powers, "But I believe you. I'm so sorry. I thought- and they almost-" Her voice was broken and scared. Danny realized Maddie was terrified. And that made him terrified. He had never seen her this afraid before. She was usually an iron pillar.

"Why...?"

Danny wondered what had changed. What had convinced his mother that he wasn't possessed. He was about to ask her, when she grabbed his arm and tightly wound a tourniquet at the crook of his elbow.

There was a booming noise from above and the house's foundations shook. The constant thumping of the government helicopter was more menacing. There were shouts from aboveground. Danny wondered if they had broken through the houses's defenses yet.

"There's no time." Maddie regained her composure, "Change, now."

So he did.

He reached into himself to find the icy core, but it was barely there. Changing back was playing tug-of-war with a linebacker. It took too much effort from him and all of his concentration. His mother gave a soft gasp, presumably at witnessing the transformation, but when Danny opened his eyes and looked down he realized it was probably because his arm was disintegrating into green goop, splattering sadly onto the floor.

"Shit." He muttered.

The tourniquet had slipped off his liquified elbow. He coughed, green ectoplasm splattering across Maddie's hands as she quickly searched for another vein to stick him in.

"Language." Maddie scolded immediately on impulse. Danny laughed. He would probably still get reprimanded by his mother even as he drew his last breath.

"My chest." He wheezed, ripping the suit down at the neck to reveal the soft glow of his ghostly core. It was pulsing a weak soft green light through his skin. Maddie's goggles were illuminated as she peered, fingertips brushing along his skin in awe. "Ghost core." He didn't need to explain further.

Maddie pressed two fingers to the faintly glowing place where her son's heart should be, searched for a way through his ribs, and without hesitation drilled the needle straight into his core. Danny froze, teeth gritted, refusing to look down. Maddie unloaded the syringe and carefully withdrew it, letting the empty needle clatter onto the table as she took three quick steps back in concern when Danny gave a sharp wail. The force of it pummeled her in the chest and rattled the glassware.

Danny's chest was on fire. He curled in on himself on the table as the supercharged ectoplasm raced through his system, overloading his senses, power crackling off his fingertips. Fingertips. He had fingertips again.

"Danny?" His mother's voice was soft and uncertain. Once again, afraid of him.

He shuddered in on himself as he felt his core struggle to balance the energy she had just injected into him. He felt waves of power emanating off of him. The lightbulbs popped out plunging them both into darkness. Danny lurched and vomited off the edge of the table. For a long horrible minute he retched up the rest of the poison, expelling it along with any damaged ectoplasm. It all came out in a charred lumpy black mess. He had never felt this sick in his entire life. His body was shivering so violently it was difficult to keep his head steady and during that one long minute he was convinced that whatever his mother had given him had killed him.

However, the feeling passed. He spat for several moments, grimacing at the vile acidic taste of the anti-ectoplasm poison before he opened and closed his newly reformed hand.

His mother was quiet, staring at him from where she had hidden behind one of the lab tables. There were scorch marks from the raw arcs of ectoplasm that had spun off of him while his core had attempted to calibrate the surge of energy. Glass was shattered around the lab. The table was creaking and Danny unclenched his good hand, struggling to rip it off the table, seeing where it had melted the metal.

"Mom." He croaked, "Its over. You can come out."

He felt residual bursts of energy, like electricity, running down his spine, but the major danger was over.

Maddie was suddenly a few feet from him, looking unsure if she should approach him or not. She was staring at him as if she barely knew him. She was, after all, speaking to a ghost – Phantom – for the first time up close. And, for the first time with the knowledge that Phantom was her son.

"Did it work?" She asked him.

"I think so." Danny wasn't entirely sure, but he felt better. Clear-headed. Even energized to a certain extent. His arm was still injured and he was still weak with blood loss, but he wasn't in a poisoned haze. At least he had two arms again.

"Is that really you?" Maddie asked him, drawing closer as she took off her goggles and her hood to see him more clearly. But of course it was him. As soon as she had seen his core she had known, without any possible doubt, that her son was not possessed. That her son was a ghost. For no human being that was possessed could have a ghostly core. No human being, even while possessed, carried glowing green ectoplasmic blood. And certainly no human being could have ever survived the pure energy she had injected into Danny's chest.

Phantom was staring at her oddly as she approached him, curious. For a long moment she almost didn't dare to touch him. He didn't look real. He looked slightly transparent and his hair moved slowly as if underwater. Her fingertips ran along his cheeks and into his hair, pulling at the glowing white strands in wonder. Despite how cold it was, it was Danny's face. His cheeks, his nose, even his freckles. The shape of his eyes, although they were a glowing green, was Danny's. Her baby. Her only son. Her youngest child.

"Yes." Danny felt strange admitting it after spending so much of his life hiding this from Maddie. He was tense under her ministrations at first, but then an almost amused smile flitted across his face. He felt very much like he was being examined. But not in a bad way. Not in a wholly scientific way. More in a motherly way.

"You're not possessed?" She whispered, already knowing the answer. This was all her fault. She had been wrong this entire time.

"No."

"Are you dead?" The thought of it made tears well into the corners of her eyes.

"That's complicated." He felt infinitely tired. It took all his self-control to not curl up into his mother's protective embrace and take a nap in that very moment, but the sharp bang of the front door giving in upstairs had them both suddenly remembering why they were even down here in the first place. Of the danger that still awaited them.

"Go." Maddie let go from where she had been holding his cheeks in her palms. She spun and began to grab up medical supplies and shove them into a bag.

"You're coming with me." Danny told her.

Maddie shook her head.

"The ghost shield. It's still on. You can't leave as a ghost until I turn it off. And neither of us can leave until the house isn't under lockdown."

Danny stared at her, disbelieving that she intended to climb all the way from the basement to the Ops Center to turn off the shield for him. With an injured hip. And then expect him to just leave her for the GIW to arrest - or worse.

He shook his head.

"No way."

Maddie was glaring a very determined glare.

"I'll distract them long enough for you to get away." She told him, flipping her goggles back on as if that ended the discussion.

"I can't leave you. I won't." Danny argued petulantly.

"Daniel James Fenton. I am your mother and you will do whatever I say."

Danny paused, stunned for a moment at Maddie's admission. It was only a short while ago she had told him - in a very similar no-nonsense tone- that she was not his mother.

"Stop- Mom wait-"

But Maddie was already halfway up the basement steps, limping horribly, face pale as she all but ignored the fact that she was walking on a broken hipbone.

Danny hauled himself up off of the table, only realizing how weak he actually was when trying to stand on his own. The two of them together made a great pair of cripples. He had taken two steps to grab Maddie before she could go any further when the basement door slammed open and what looked like a squat team burst into the lab.

Maddie gave a sharp scream. Not of terror, but of anger.

She lashed out with a punch but was quickly hit upside the head. Her willowy body instantly sagged and an agent grappled her. Even as she sank she fought, writhing and elbowing, muttering half-formed obscenities at them. Danny knew where he got his swearing from.

"Grab him." One of the agents commanded.

"NO! Danny!" Her lilac eyes trained onto his as she was ripped back from him, "Run!"

Run? Run where? Danny could barely stand much less run - or fly - anywhere. Not to mention the ghost shield was still in effect making it impossible to try and go through the walls. The portal was a tempting option. It was under lockdown right now, iron gates tightly clenched, just like the rest of the house. Danny calculated internally if he had the strength to run across the room to unlock it and go through it before the GIW were on him. There was no way he would be quick enough. He felt as if just standing his legs would give out on him.

Besides, Danny knew that jumping through it would only be trading one set of deadly enemies for another. He could barely walk, much less defend himself against ghosts. As it stood right now the only exit out of the basement was being blocked by dozens of operatives with high powered machine guns. If he was human he knew his heart would be pounding right now. Run.. Run.. Danny stared helplessly, rooted to the spot even after the agents started to descend down the staircase to get him.

Danny knew he was beaten. There was no way he could run, much less fight, all of these agents. His mother was lost. She would be taken. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't save her. He couldn't even save himself. It was over.

He felt his head drop, tears welling in his eyes in frustration.

As he looked down at his feet, at the pool of his own blood and ectoplasm on the floor, he was hit with suddenly hit with an idea - a crazy desperate idea- like a bird hitting a glass pane at a hundred miles per hour.

He couldn't go through the walls, and he couldn't go through the ceiling. That only left one direction to flee.

Without a word he grabbed the bag half-filled with medical supplies and he focused every single last drop of his energy into turning intangible from the legs up. As he sunk harmlessly through the un-ghost shielded basement floor he could barely hear the GIW's yells of outrage, but above all else - just as his ears disappeared into the cement - he heard his mother's hysterical sobs of relief.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: Jack & Favorite Girl

V. Jack & Favorite Girl

x

Danny Fenton had gone from unknown to infamous in the span of an hour and a half.

He had also all but disappeared, which was partly the reason why the GIW had plastered his face all over the news in the first place. Not that Madeline Fenton knew this. She hadn't seen the news in two weeks. In fact, she hadn't seen much of anything in a while. The only thing she had seen was the inside of a cell, the windowless interrogation rooms, some formless prison food, and the dark tinted glass wall where she was certain the GIW had their faces pressed, eagerly awaiting for her to slip up.

However, while Maddie wasn't entirely certain that Danny had escaped, the fact that they had placed her in this particular cell made her hopeful. She was practically inside a bunker. It took ten full minutes of verifications, finger print scanning, anti-ghost chamber decontamination, and at least five different doors to get to the elevator that would lift her out of her chamber underneath the ground. Even then, she was constantly flanked by two personnel who always had one hand on her handcuffed elbow and one hand on their guns.

Despite all this, Maddie was only unnerved whenever they would take her out of her cell and put her in an interrogation room.

They would handcuff her to the chair and leave. No one would come into the room; no one would ask her any questions. After five hours or so one of the GIW operatives would walk in and escort her back to her cell as if nothing had happened.

It only took her third trip to the room for Maddie to understand what they were doing. They were using her as bait. They were hoping that Danny would come back for her and that he would wait until she was in the least insulated room to try a rescue attempt. Every time they took her to the interrogation room she felt momentary relief at the fact that they still hadn't found him. And then that relief would fade into heart pounding anxiety as she would sit and wait, praying that her son was smart enough to not fall for their trick. But, every time she was learning that Danny was much more intelligent than he had let everyone in on. Either that or he was still injured. Either way he never showed up.

And so the days melted into one another like a Dali clock over the side of a table, or Danny's arm onto the cold cement floor of their lab. Maddie lost track of how long she was held. The charges leveled against her were muddied as well, as there was no actual proof she had murdered Agent K, and even then self defense could be argued. But she hadn't even gotten a lawyer assigned to her, despite her constant demands for one. She was lost in a sea of government red tape and corruption.

Maddie sighed, leaning against the wall of her cell. She had memorized all the different shades of grey in the cement at this point. Already she was losing it. A mind such as hers didn't do well in captivity. She had too much energy. Her brain spun incessantly, idle, worrying over dark tangents as guilt weighed her down like a pair of heavy rubber boots.

None of this would have happened if she had just trusted her son enough to hear him out. Whenever she closed her eyes Danny's face was imprinted underneath her eyelids, twisted in shocked betrayal, staring accusingly back at her. When she dreamt she dreamt of Phantom, armless, bleeding glowing green blood all across the floor.

She rolled her head back and forth along the wall, staring insistently down at her own feet that were tucked as closely as possible into her, chained together.

She hadn't seen or heard from Jazz or Jack since her arrest.

And then, just when she had lost all hope of seeing her family again, she was taken out of the cell and escorted down the hallway. She slowed as they approached the interrogation room, but the guards on either side of her pushed her forward past the door. Confusion flooded her. Suddenly she was terrified that they had him. They had gotten her son. After all, there was no other reason for a break in the routine.

Her nerves were entangled, her muscles trembling, as she was led into another room. An unfamiliar room with bright fluorescent lighting and a large window. Standing on the other side was…

"Jack!" Maddie cried, voice hoarse from disuse.

Her husband had his large gloved hands pressed against the glass. He was mouthing something to her as well, but the glass muted his voice. Maddie was certain that he said her name. When she made to run to him her chains yanked her back.

She was shoved into the opposite chair and handed a clunky telephone. Shakily she pressed it up to her cheek, tears already welling in her eyes at the sight of one of her loved ones, alive. Jack mimicked her, phone in hand.

"Jack." She repeated. She almost choked on her own emotion. For weeks she had remained stoic and cold in the face of GIW interrogations. She had refused to speak or even react to any of their methods. The only thing she had said was "I want a lawyer." But, seeing her husband was enough to shatter her resolve.

"Mads," His eyes were scouring her face, concerned, "How are you holding up? Are you okay?"

She found she couldn't speak so she just nodded, bobbing her head up and down. She was fine. Despite the pin in her hip and the madness that claimed her when put in solitary confinement, she was alright.

"Have they-?" She managed out, fear still thrumming through her. Had they gotten Danny? Was that why they had let her speak to Jack? Or was this another trick? Another mind game to get her to her reveal anything that might aid in their capture of him?

"No. They don't have him." Jack shook his head. Maddie sagged with relief.

"I'm so sorry." She felt the guilt that was constantly clawing at her start to build up in her throat. She could barely look him in the eye. Jack's blue eyes were just like Danny's. Just like that face that haunted her.

Jack shook his head.

"You didn't know. We both didn't know."

"We're his parents. We should have known. How could we have not seen this?"

"They can't hold you forever. Not legally. They don't have a strong enough case." Jack told her, "I'm working on getting you out. I am going to get you out. Keep your head up."

"They won't even give me a lawyer." Maddie whispered.

Jack suddenly wasn't looking at her. Maddie felt her heart start to drop.

"What?" She demanded, dread curling within her.

"They're trying to label you as a threat to national security. Along with Danny." Jack eventually managed out, voice cracking. Maddie fell silent as she stared at him. He was joking, right? Jack was looking down at his hands, no hint of mirth in his eyes. He looked worn out. Her husband didn't need to explain. There was enough hysteria around that label that she knew if she was successfully charged any chance of having a fair trial would be squandered.

"How's Jazz?" Maddie asked, determined to not think about what Jack was telling her. She would process it later.

Jack looked up and gave her a sad smile and Maddie knew.

"She's gone with him."

x

There was the soft drawl of country music and a ring of chimes as Danny made his way into the convenience store. The first couple of times he had done this he had been paranoid of getting caught. However… He gazed at himself in the reflective glass of one of the beverage refrigerators. No one would recognize this face.

Dark almond brown eyes stared back at him. His usual black hair was instead a light brown, curled into tight unruly ringlets framing an un-freckled dark Latin-American face.

"Hurry up." Said a nervous voice to his right.

Danny squashed the urge to roll his eyes and instead popped open the fridge and grabbed a Coca-Cola.

"Really?" The annoying voice told him, nagging, "You need water. Not pop."

Danny bit a tongue that wasn't his, but largely ignored her. He instead rewarded her with a shrug and grabbed the bottle of soda. He had been drinking nothing but water and eating nothing but tasteless crackers for the past two weeks. He was going to go insane if he didn't get something with pure caffeine.

"For my blood sugar." He told her with a wink, his voice sounding strange and a little deeper than normal.

Danny closed the door and turned to face her, taking in the pixie cut bleach blonde hair and slightly sunburned face. Despite the fact that she had looked like this for the better part of two weeks it still shocked him every time. Jazz made a face at him but handed him the dollar fifty carefully out of her purse.

"I'll wait for you outside." She told him, spinning on her heels and retreating from the store without another word.

As he wound his way up to the cash register his eyes glanced up at the TV screen.

Danny Phantom, AKA Danny Fenton still at large. His high school photo was next to a blurry photo of Phantom. The TV was muted but the caption scrolled underneath as the anchor spoke. Amity Park's ghostly hero has been revealed, begging the question of if ghosts can be persecuted and if so, what rights do they have? The manhunt had not let up. If anything it had gotten more and more frenzied.

The clerk was watching the screen with the bored expression that only someone working minimum wage perfected. He was slumped and chewing gum loudly as Danny approached.

Danny placed the soda onto the countertop and watched as the teenager flicked his eyes off of the TV and to Danny's face. There was only a brief second where they stared at each other before he frowned.

"Don't I know you?" The clerk asked.

Danny blinked, feeling his heart start to pound in his chest. Impossible. It was impossible for this guy to recognize him for who he really was. Not while he was wearing someone else's face.

"Uh-"

"Gabe, right? We took Chemistry together."

Danny didn't know. He had overshadowed the kid randomly in the diner across the street.

"Right, right…" Danny glanced at the clerk's name tag, "Steven."

"Steve." Steve corrected.

Danny pushed the soda forward a little insistently, desperate to get out of here, but Steve was either too stoned or too stupid to get the hint. Already overshadowing someone for this long was taking a toll on him. Danny could feel Gabe fighting him tooth and nail.

"…What was that teacher's name again…?" Steve was mumbling to himself.

"Dunno." Danny answered sharply. Steve reached across the countertop with the breakneck speed of a sloth, clawing the bottle over to him and looking around the label for the barcode. Danny forced himself to stay calm, but his patience was thin.

"Man, it's been a while. How've you been?"

Steve finally found the barcode and was now groping for the scanner. A snail could have lapped this guy in a race.

"I've been good." Danny told him, attempting a smile. Apparently it came out a little forced because Steve was looking at him funny.

"You alright?" Steve slowly put down the scanner moments before scanning the bottle. His face was laced with suspicion, "Dude, where'd your accent go?"

Since when were convenience store clerks this attentive?

"I've been working on hiding it." Danny lied, "Easier to get a job around here."

Steve nodded as if that made perfect sense. He began to move again and rung Danny up. As Danny was forking over the cash he felt a wave of dizziness overtake him as, for a brief moment, Gabe struggled underneath his hold. Usually Danny's grip on people was ironclad, but this Gabe person was unruly and Danny was still weakened from injury.

"Hey- I'm having a party tomorrow night if you want to come."

"Maybe. I might be out of town." Danny deflected stiffly. He watched as Steve frowned, peering at the register for a long moment. Danny realized he was trying to do math in his head. It didn't look like he was very good at it. Steve was frowning, before giving up and beginning to count on his fingers.

"Its eighteen cents." Danny told him, breathing harder as Steve started to go through the motions of counting the pennies. "You know what, keep the change." Danny told him, "I'll see you around."

He grabbed the Coke off of the counter and left, forcing himself not to run.

"Hey thanks, see you!" Steve called after him.

As the door shut hot air hit his face and he quickly moved across the street to find Jazz leaning against the wall of the diner.

"What took so long?" She asked anxiously, pushing herself off as he drew closer. She saw his face and frowned, her hand moving up to pull at her longer hair in habit only to meet air. "What's wrong?"

Danny shook his head a few times to clear it, handing her his soda.

"Too tired to hold onto him much longer." He warned her.

Jazz's eyes widened and she nodded, pulling him around the back. Moments after they hid out of sight Danny felt his grip on him slip. Danny gritted his teeth, eyes closed as he battled mentally for purchase. He could feel Jazz's hands on his arms distantly, not realizing he had slumped against the wall. He needed enough control to place an impression, to make sure Gabe never remembered any of this.

"I'm going to wake up behind the diner." Danny began, shakily, "I'm not going to remember the last fifteen minutes, but I'm not going to care. And…" Danny added on with a grin, "I'm going to go to Steve's party tomorrow."

"Danny." Jazz warned him, but it was too late, the impression was already set in Gabe's mind, taking root despite how strong-willed his host had been.

Danny shed himself of Gabe, feeling as if he was taking off a hundred pound coat of lead as he did so. The longer he overshadowed someone the more foreign his own body felt to him. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

Danny instantly reached out and grabbed Jazz's wrist, plunging her into invisibility along with himself as Gabe started to come out of his daze.

They didn't pause to stick around and watch as Gabe found himself behind the diner with no recollection as to how he had gotten there. As they wound their way through the back parking lot and into the wooded area behind the diner Danny felt his energy dipping lower and lower until his hand slipped off hers and he flickered back into visibility, face pale.

Jazz was looking at him, concerned.

"Was this really worth it?" She asked, waggling the bottle of Coke in front of him.

"You sound like mom." Danny complained, grabbing the bottle from her with his good arm.

He ignored the offended look on Jazz's face. Jazz still hadn't completely forgiven their mom yet for what had all happened. She huffed, crossing her arms and put on her mature face as they walked together through a clearing.

"Well someone's got to be an adult." She told him, "You wouldn't make it more than a day out here without me."

Danny knew that was probably true but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. Instead, he opened the pop and took three long chugs before a pleased noise escaped him. Dear lord finally something that had a taste to it. Sugar. Sweet glorious refined sugar. Calories. Corn syrup. Carbonation. Everything terrible for you. He closed his eyes in absolute bliss.

"Yes. Worth it." He decided. He may not have one ounce of power left in him, but - as he rolled the cool bottle on his burning forehead - the trip had been a total success.

Jazz was counting their money as he was having his moment with the soda.

"We're going to run out soon." She told him.

Danny slowly lowered himself to the ground, feeling a bit weak after the adrenaline of nearly losing his cover wore off. He couldn't bring himself to care about that. His head felt stuffed full of cotton, his shoulder ached, and his eyes were burning.

"Danny, did you hear me?" She repeated, stuffing the wallet into their bag. All they had on them was Jazz's purse and whatever money she had on her at the time along with the bag of medical supplies Danny had grabbed during his escape. "We're nearly broke."

"So we start stealing." Danny mumbled.

Jazz stared at him as if she hadn't heard him correctly. Danny wasn't looking at her, his shoulders were slumped and he was studying the Coke bottle with rapt attention. Jazz frowned, puzzled.

"I know you don't meant that." She told him, her voice softening as she crouched next to him. She studied him for a long moment. So far they had been on the run, together, for two weeks. Despite all the bravado Danny fronted Jazz knew that he was scared. Hell, she was scared. There was plenty to be scared of.

"You miss her." Jazz plopped down and grabbed his bad arm, pretending not to notice as he flinched and hissed. Danny gritted his teeth at her question. Did it even warrant an answer?

"Of course I do." Danny told her quietly, "I miss everyone."

And for the first week he had selfishly wished that Sam was here with him instead of Jazz. But Sam hadn't been fast enough. Jazz had seen the government trucks hours before the news crew had arrived. She had realized what was about to happen and had sprinted to their emergency meeting spot to find him, arriving a full ten minutes before he did. By the time the siege of FentonWorks had hit the news Danny and Jazz had already left town, leaving Sam and Tucker behind. And now any contact they attempted to make with Sam, Tucker, or Jack would only lead them into a GIW trap as they were certain the GIW had all their friends and family under surveillance.

Jazz was unwrapping the gauze around Danny's shoulder wound, staring intently at her work. Her hands were steady, despite the fact that she didn't have any medical training. The bullet wound was fading already, but the trace amounts of poison prevented Danny from healing with his usual heightened speed. As it was his arm still was useless to him and he had lost so much ectoplasm that he had yet to change to Phantom in fear that he would pass out trying.

"I know that Sam and Tucker are better at this than me." Jazz told him apologetically as she moved to clean the wound, "I'm sorry."

Danny felt a thread of guilt run through him. He sighed, looking up into her face.

"Maybe." He told her, "But you're the only one that's smart enough to evade the government for two weeks."

Sure, for the first week Danny had wished that Sam was with him instead of Jazz. But, as their time together grew longer he was realizing that his sister was the best woman for this job. Despite having a few near breakdowns the first couple of days as well as almost passing out on him while sloppily bandaging his shoulder, she had pulled herself together and had been the lone voice of reason.

"It's not a big deal." Jazz told him. And Danny believed her. For some reason this whole thing came easily to her.

Just like their mother, Jazz was cold hard logic personified. She also was a master at manipulating people into giving her what she wanted. They had gotten many hotel rooms discounted and without putting their ID's on file with a little flirting on Jazz's part. Danny always felt a mixture of disgust and pride whenever Jazz would barter with young men by waggling her hips and batting her eyelashes. At first he had to force himself not to want to punch the pervs in the face for looking at his sister like that, but then he had gotten a hot shower out of the deal.

"Done." She announced, scooting back and peering at him. "How does that feel?"

Danny cautiously moved his arm a little, the bandages not restricting his blood flow.

"Fine." He answered, exhausted. He passed her the Coca-Cola as a peace offering. She looked at it for a long moment, probably debating whether or not to give in to her desire or to stubbornly refuse it out of protest for what Danny had just risked to obtain it.

In the end she crumbled and grabbed the bottle from him, taking a long swig.

"You're right." She told him, a rare smile flitting across her face, "This is good."

The two of them were silent as they peered at the sun which was starting to dip behind the mountain in the distance. The clouds were growing pink and purple and red in anticipation of a beautiful sunset.

"I wonder what mom is doing right now." Danny wondered aloud, "And Sam and Tucker."

"We can't go back." Jazz reminded him.

"I know." Danny frowned. His sister knew him too well. If it hadn't been for Jazz Danny's desire to get his mother out of prison would have overwhelmed him past any logic. His need to find Sam would have compelled him to go back to Amity Park, despite the danger lurking there. His urge to keep them all safe would have been his downfall. And he had almost gone back despite Jazz only a week before. Jazz had had to scream at him and yank on his bad arm hard enough to snap him out of that train of thought. She was probably the only reason he wasn't in a lab somewhere.

Danny closed his eyes, finding himself nodding off to sleep, his body shutting down without his permission.

"We'll be running forever." He whispered demurely, half delirious from fever.

He felt Jazz's warm body prop him up as his awareness started to fade. Together they smelled like dirt, blood, and sweat.

"Not forever, Danny." Jazz's voice floated as he drifted, "I promise it won't be forever. We just have to be patient and smart."

Danny smiled to himself. Patient and smart. Not his two best attributes.

"Besides, you got me."

"Joy."

Danny felt her cuff his head lightly in rebuke, but he just bonelessly slumped into her until she could barely move. Jazz let out an annoyed noise at his weight, knowing Danny was doing this on purpose just to piss her off.

"Off, Danny."

"Sorry I passed out." Danny told her.

"You can't talk if you're passed out, Danny." Jazz griped, "Get off."

Danny made no move. Jazz groaned, before shifting until his body wasn't completely pinning her to the forest floor.

"You know, I'm starting to regret helping you." She told him, before looking down and seeing he was actually semi-asleep. Her hand hovered over his forehead before it rested gently on the dark crown of his head, feeling the unnatural radiating heat. He had been running a fever for days now. She sighed softly, picking up the Coke with her one free hand and taking another sip.

"We'll get through this." She told his slumped form, "Mom, me, you, dad. Together."

For a long moment there was just the chirp of birds and crickets as night descended, blanketing them in darkness.

"Together." Danny echoed softly, clearly not entirely conscious anymore. Jazz felt a soft smile get tugged to her lips as she pressed the cold Coke bottle to his forehead.

Fin