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Jack’s POV
Jack stood in the lab, even after two weeks he was still in shock. He still couldn’t believe everything that had happened. How had he been so blind to everything, not only did he not see Vlad’s hatred and resentment, but he hadn’t even known that his own son was the ghost kid.
He looked at the family photo he kept on his desk. They had taken this while on one of their Fenton camping trips. Maddie was standing next to him, while an eight-year-old Jazz stood between them, and a five-year-old Danny, on Jack's shoulders. He couldn’t help but stare at Danny who had a perfect smile on his face, despite having a few teeth missing.
When had this changed, Jack wasn’t quite sure, but eventually, these family trips had become less frequent, before stopping altogether. Then slowly the teenage rift between children and parents began and before he could blink it was the size of the grand canyon. Maybe that was when all the secrets had begun, but still, Jack couldn’t believe that he had never known.
His own son… How had he never noticed? Was he truly that awful of a father?
He couldn’t help but think of how his own father, how he could barely remember his own son’s name to busy finding the bottom of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. When he found out Maddie was pregnant he made a promise to be the father he never had, the father his children deserved. Yet it seemed that this was yet another thing he had managed to fail at.
But maybe he could fix it, he had to believe that there was a chance to repair this rift, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to live with another outcome. This is why Jack stood in the lab waiting, for his son to return.
Eventually, he heard a whoosh, as something came through the portal, and the familiar sound of metal scraping the lab floor, as the Specter Speeder, arrived back. The door opened and out stepped, Tucker, his son’s best friend, and Sam, Danny’s girlfriend. Behind them, Jack could see the silhouette of the spikey hair, that his son had. He could hear their voices and laughs, as they joked around with each other.
Though it abruptly stopped when they saw him. “Uh, H-hi, Mr. Fenton.” Tucker stuttered.
“Sam, Tucker, I need to talk to Danny privately, please?”
“N-no problem, sir, we were just leaving, uh, see you tomorrow Danny!” Tucker choked out. Sam kissed Danny’s cheek, “I’ll call you later.” Sam said nonchalantly, as Danny’s face was looking more like a tomato by the second. Then they both walked up the stairs and were gone, by the time Jack turned back, Danny’s color was back to normal.
“So, uh, what did you want to talk about dad?” the sixteen-year-old, piped up. Jack could see trickles of sweat dripping off Danny as he pulled his shirt collar out.
“There is no need to be nervous, Danny, I just wanted to have a father-son talk.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jack heard Danny mumble but chose to pretend he didn’t hear.
“Look, I want to understand everything, about how you and uhm-”
“Plasmius?” Danny offered.
“And Plasmius is able to be both ghost and human?”
“Technically the official term is Halfa, as in half ghost, and half human.”
“Right well, I wanted to know how that happened. When… Plasmius was on the rocket, he implied that it was my original ghost portal that, made him into a halfa, but that doesn’t explain how you came to be a halfa. Especially since he ended up with ecto-acne, and you never showed any signs of that.”
“Well, that’s because I never had it. You see, when Vlad got his powers it was because yo- I mean, uh,- someone put diet cola, instead of ecto-purifier in the portal, causing it to blow up and hit Vlad infecting him with both the ecto-acne and his powers. Whereas with me it went a bit differently…”
“You remember how when you first finished building the portal, it didn’t work and mom and you, just gave up?”
“Yes,” Jack replied horror beginning to fill him, as things started to click.
“Well, I invited Tucker and Sam over to show them, the portal, and like an idiot, I went inside, and when I pressed a button, there was a huge flash, and the next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor when I woke up I had white hair, green eyes, those eventually went away after a few minutes, and I seemed fine. After that day the portal began to work, and at first, everything was fine, I mean you and mom seemed so thrilled about everything, and I didn’t see any reason to tell you what had happened.” Jack just sat in stunned silence as he listened to his son explain everything.
“But about a week after the accident, I started getting my ghost powers, at first it was just intangibility, and invisibility came less than a day after. Flight came about a week later, and then I got my ectobeams, along with my final power, my ability to go ghost at the same time.”
He jumped out of his seat, “Why didn’t you tell us, we would have helped you?”
Danny gave him a sad smile, “I’m getting to that dad, I promise.” Jack sat back down, and Danny began to talk again, “At first I could barely control my powers, I wanted to tell you guys so badly, but then you and mom, were always talking about how you wanted to ‘rip ghosts apart molecule by molecule’.”
“At that point, I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, and hearing you guys constantly talking about destroying, ghosts, well, it scared me. I could imagine thousands of ways how you would react and none of them ended well. Then ghosts started coming through the portal and started attacking and I realized that I had to do something. So I became Danny Phantom, protector of Amity Park, with Tucker and Sam and eventually Jazz helping me.”
Jack couldn’t believe everything that his son had done. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling Danny into a hug, “I am so proud of you, for everything, you’ve done. I am just sorry that I ever made you believe that you couldn’t tell me.” Jack pulled away and got down on his knees so he was at eye level with his son, and put his hands on Danny’s shoulders “I love you so much, and I just hope that you know that.”
Jack felt Danny’s hand wrap around him, in a hug, “I know dad, and I love you too.”
“Alright I think I smell dinner, how about you head up and wash up.”
Okay dad, also, if you’re ever curious about anything involving this side of my life, just ask, I have so many stories.”
“Maybe on our next father-son fishing trip?” Jack asked trying to keep his voice neutral.
“Sounds fun, I’m down.”
“And hey who knows maybe you can be my side-kick now?” Jack threw out jokingly, earning a chuckle from Danny as he disappeared up the stairs. Leaving Jack to mull over what Danny had told him.
He couldn’t be any more proud of Danny if he tried, it also explained a lot of the incidents that had happened in the lab over the past two years. Yet there were certain parts of the story that were bothering Jack still.
Jack knew he shouldn’t feel guilty about anything that had happened, he had no way of knowing this would be the result and had never set out to harm anyone, yet that was all he seemed to have done. His stupid obsession with ghosts had cost him, his best friend, and his family, and very nearly killed his son, and though Danny was still alive, it hadn’t come without a cost to him. As proud as he was of his son, Danny was still a child, he shouldn’t have had to fight ghosts in the first place, he should have been out enjoying his teenage years with his friends.
The fact that he had indirectly hurt the people closest to him, stayed with him through the rest of the night, long after the rest of the house had gone to bed. Jack opened Danny’s door and stared at his son’s chest as it moved rhythmically up and down. To think he never knew how close he came to losing this. Jack was aware that it was a bit creepy of him to be watching his son sleep, but after that day, he just needed some assurance that Danny was still there, alive in some sense.
Jack could only wonder how being a halfa would affect Danny in the future, he had a sneaking suspicion about it but that was a problem for tomorrow, and Jack quietly slipped out of Danny’s room, before getting into his own bed careful not to disturb his wife. Even after all these years he still marveled at her beauty. She was amazing, and Jack knew he was the luckiest man in all the realms. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, before rolling over.
As he began to drift off to sleep, a voice he had been fighting his entire life spoke up, “looks like you did turn into me, now didn’t ya boy! ” his father's booming cackle rattled through his brain, yet before he could do anything about it he drifted off to sleep, hoping that the voice wouldn't follow him into the realm of dreams.