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Chapter Text

“Dr. Madeline Fenton?” the woman’s voice cracked through the lab’s landline—phone calls were always extra static-y in the lab. She and Jack had been meaning to find a way to protect the cables from the excess ecto-interference since the ghost portal first opened three and a half years ago, but the project always fell to the bottom of the to-do list—like cleaning the shed or decontaminating the fridge. Despite the static, Maddie could hear the hesitation and confusion in the other woman’s voice, like she wasn’t quite sure why she was calling.

“This is she,” Maddie responded, pivoting her chair away from her workstation and pulling the phone's coil cord. “And who am I speaking to?”

The other woman cleared her throat, “Um, yes, this is Dr. Reyna Mendoza from Amity General Hospital.”

A spike of panic sparked in Maddie’s chest, her breath caught in her throat—Jack had driven out to Cambridge to help Jazz pack up her dorm after her first year at Harvard, but Danny had stayed behind and was spending the week camping with his friends as a way to celebrate scrapping through Junior year. While Maddie adored Sam and Tucker, she knew the trio had a tendency of getting into trouble. She trusted that they wouldn’t take it too far, but if the hospital was calling…

“I am calling with a bit of an odd request…” Dr. Mendoza continued, snapping Maddie back into the moment.

“What?” They weren’t calling to let her know Danny was in the hospital, which was a good thing, but it left her utterly baffled at why they would be calling.

Dr. Mendoza let out a huff, obviously uncomfortable with having to broach whatever the topic was. “Dr. Fenton, I—I am not sure how to state this—I need your consultation on a case we have here at the hospital.”

Oh, Maddie thought, well that’s not so weird. She was Amity’s, and perhaps the world’s, leading expert on ectobiology. Maddie began to stand, shifting the phone to the crook between her ear and shoulder as she started cleaning up her workstation, she wouldn’t want to keep the doctor waiting longer than necessary. While she was not a medical professional, her undergraduate was in pre-med. It also wouldn’t be the first time the hospital had called to ask her questions about ecto-related trauma, though they had become fairly adept at sterilizing wounds that had been exposed to ectoplasm. Still, that did not account for Dr. Mendoza’s odd demeanor.

“Of course, is this a sort of ghost-infection or wound-related? The hospital has been fairly well trained on helping humans with ecto-related injuries, but if you feel that I would be helpful—”

“The patient isn’t human,” the doctor interrupted.

Maddie froze, brows furrowing as she took the phone into her hand once more, “Excuse me? What do you mean the patient isn’t human?”

“Exactly that—the patient isn’t human.”

Starting and stopping, Maddie tried to form the words to respond but found herself utterly baffled. “Who exactly is your patient?”

“Are you willing to consult on the case? If you don’t agree to consult on the case, telling you the patient’s personal information would be a HIPAA violation.”

“Dr. Mendoza, if you are implying what I think you are implying, HIPAA doesn’t apply to ghosts.” Maddie hoped her glare translated over the phone.

Dr. Mendoza sighed, in a heavy and tired sort of way that reminded Maddie of all the days she felt in over her head. “The kid has been hard enough to keep still as it is. I don’t want to risk him getting any more injured. I am calling you as a last resort, Dr. Fenton.”

“Which ghost is it?” Maddie gripped the phone tighter.

“I am sure you saw the apartment fire last night? The one on the corner of Fourth and Elm?”

The fire had been all over the news—an ecto-weapon manufactured by DALV Co. had overheated and exploded. It may not have been an issue, but the burning goop hit a bag of nasty sauce leading to another explosion and the outbreak of a devastating fire. It completely destroyed the entire apartment complex. While there were quite a few injuries, thankfully there were no deaths. Phantom and Red Huntress arrived on the scene shortly after the firefighters and ambulances arrived and managed to pull several citizens out just as the building collapsed.

Dr. Mendoza continued to speak in her silence, “The patient received several minor injuries, some smoke inhalation, but what is more concerning is the major burn and laceration he received on his back. They aren’t healing properly, and we are not sure of the best course of treatment with his unique physiology. We are running out of ideas, Dr. Fenton.”

The hospital was holding a ghost and attempting to treat its’ wounds. Wounds it received during the apartment fire. But the only ghost reported on the scene was…

“Phantom. You are treating the ghost boy,” Maddie finished her thought out loud.

There was a long pause from the other side of the phone. “Yes.”

“Why? Better yet how?” Maddie asked, baffled by the whole scenario. Not only was the hospital wasting resources on a ghost, the ghost—the town’s greatest menace—but somehow they managed to keep Phantom in the hospital for at least. Maddie glanced at the clock. For at least 15 hours. Phantom who was elusive, who refused to stay in the same place for more than one fight, who managed to slip out of every ghost trap and evade even their best sensors. Somehow, a bunch of hospital staff convinced it to stay and let them treat it.

“Apparently, he was woozy after pulling the last of the civilians out of the building. He had landed them by one of the ambulances, and EMT asked if he was alright and he tried to brush them off, but the EMT could tell he wasn’t doing great. EMT managed to cuff him to a gurney with those anti-ghost cuffs the GIW distributed last year. Phantom hasn’t been happy about being here, but he has been cooperating for the most part.” Dr. Mendoza explained, voice focused and to the point. Her once hesitant demeanor fell away now that they were speaking plainly.

Maddie placed a hand on her hip. “And why have you not turned it into the GIW?”

“Dr. Fenton,” Dr. Mendoza’s tone hardened, “while you may not see these ghosts as complex creatures, I took an oath to do no harm. I cannot turn this young man over to an organization that regularly threatens to dissect him.”

“Then why call me?” Maddie snapped back. While she and Jack had stepped back from their rigorous hunting of Phantom to focus on their research, it was no secret that they were against the lackadaisical approach Amity took when it came to Phantom. It was a ghost, not a boy or a hero, treating it as something more was only asking for trouble in the long run.

Dr. Mendoza grumbled under her breath before speaking into the phone, “You were our only option. As I said, the kid isn’t healing properly, and we don’t know how to clean the wound without causing more damage. Look, are you helping or not?”

“And why should I?” Maddie crossed her arms, leaning on her workstation. There was no reason for her to help Phantom. The ghost was a menace. It could succumb to its wounds for all she cared.

There was a beat of silence. Maddie waited.

“This is an unheard-of opportunity, Dr. Fenton,” Dr. Mendoza finally broke the silence. “While I am not giving you permission to experiment on Phantom, you would get a first-hand look at his biology and the chance to study his psychology. Think about it, the most elusive ghost in all of Amity, and you get to observe him directly. How could you pass an opportunity like that up?”

Maddie had to admit, Dr. Mendoza was good. She knew how to speak to the researcher in her. She and Jack dedicated their lives to studying ghosts, and Phantom seemed to exist to contradict everything they thought they knew. To just sit in the same room as it would surely reveal interesting avenues of study. Maddie bit her upper lip, frustrated at how easy it was for Dr. Mendoza to coax her into wanting to come in. She couldn’t find a reason to say no. Jack would be devastated to miss it—even if he was more of an engineer than a biologist.

Maddie groaned internally. “Fine, I will be at the hospital in fifteen.”

“Perfect,” Maddie could practically hear Dr. Mendoza’s grin, “I will meet you in the lobby. Thank you, Dr. Fenton.”

Chapter Text

After spending ten minutes trying to find a place to park the GAV outside the hospital, Maddie stepped outside the oversized assault vehicle. The sun shined overhead, glaring off the GAV and hitting the lens of her goggles. With a frown, she pulled off her cowl and goggles. She had come in her full jumpsuit and protective gear—she would not be caught unaware by some ghostly scheme—but she had been told in the past the goggles were intimidating, and Dr. Mendoza had directed her to come to the children’s ward when she texted over further details. Maddie wasn’t sure why a ghost would be in the children’s ward, even if it looked like a child, the thing could be hundreds of years old. Still, she didn’t want to scare any of the actual children, so she kept the cowl off as she strolled to the front door. Reaching the buzzer, she pressed the red button for the intercom.

It crackled to life. “Hello, what can we help you with today?”

“Dr. Madaline Fenton, here to consult on one of Dr. Mendoza’s patients,” Maddie replied politely. The intercom remained silent for a moment. Maddie resisted the urge to begin tapping her foot.

Just before she caved to her own impatience, the door clicked open. “Dr. Mendoza will meet you at the front desk.”

Nodding at the voice’s directions and opening the door, Maddie entered the hospital. Despite being a hospital, the reception room was actually quite warm and welcoming, the walls a soft yellow and the waiting room filled with gentle music. Quickly scanning the room, Maddie’s gaze landed on a woman only a few years younger than herself with dark brown hair cut at shoulder length standing at the receptionist’s desk. Her white coat contrasted with her tawny skin, and a pair of rectangular glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose as she leafed through a stack of papers on a clipboard.

“Dr. Mendoza?” Maddie asked, approaching the woman with a light smile.

The woman looked up, scanning over Maddie with a slight down-turn to her lip as she tucked her clipboard under her elbow. “Dr. Fenton. Thank you for joining me. I ask that you leave any weapons here at the front desk to be picked up on your way out.”

Maddie’s smile slipped until her expression matched the doctor’s. “You asked me to consult on a ghost, you cannot seriously expect me to remain unarmed.”

“This is a hospital, Dr. Fenton. No weapons are allowed—ghostly or not—and I will not allow you to terrorize my patient.” Dr. Mendoza placed a hand on her hip, leveling her gaze. Maddie glared right back. Expecting her to interact with Phantom unarmed was absurd! But, seeing that Dr. Mendoza was not about to cave, Maddie let out a sigh. They had managed to keep Phantom contained for the last 15 hours and it was injured. If she wanted the opportunity to study it, up close, then she had no choice but to comply.

Still unhappy, Maddie slowly disarmed herself, handing about a dozen weapons over to the receptionist, whose eyes seemed to grow wider with each weapon. Maddie kept the Fenton Lipstick tucked in her pocket, however. She would not go in completely unarmed. Crossing her arms, Maddie waited for the doctor.

Dr. Mendoza continued to stare at her for a moment longer before breaking her gaze. She turned toward the doors for the children’s ward and beckoned Maddie to follow.

“As I said over the phone, Phantom is suffering from a 3rd degree burn on his shoulder blades and a deep linear laceration. While his superficial wounds are healing at his accelerated healing rate and the effects of smoke inhalation have cleared, these wounds remain concerning. Regular stitching has just dissolved and we don’t have a burn ointment that will work with his ectobiology, which is why we called you in,” Dr. Mendoza relayed as they walked down the hall.

Maddie nodded, matching Dr. Mendoza’s cool professionalism. “Why is Phantom in the children’s ward?”

Dr. Mendoza’s footsteps slowed. “Madaline, anyone who has spent more than ten minutes with him can tell that he’s still just a kid. Even…even if he died years ago, he’s just a kid.”

Maddie stopped at that. There was something raw and sad in Dr. Mendoza’s tone, something that made the mother in Maddie ache. Shaking her head, Maddie set her shoulders. “It’s a conglomeration of post-conscious goop, Dr. Mendoza.”

The younger doctor rolled her eyes, continuing down the hall. “Whatever you say, Dr. Fenton. We are keeping Phantom at the end of the hall, semi-isolated—we had some issues with some of the parents and he agreed to take a room without any neighbors to smooth things over.”

Reaching the end of the hall, they stopped in front of an unmarked hall. Maddie held her breath. On the other side of this door was one of the most elusive and powerful ghosts of Amity Park, yet she stood there practically unarmed. Dr. Mendoza turned the door handle. Maddie couldn’t tear her gaze away. The door drifted open. Maddie’s stomach twisted. She forced herself to swallow. Looking into the room, she saw…no one. The room was empty.

Dr. Mendoza groaned, hitting her forehead with her palm. Maddie’s hand drifts to the pocket with her lipstick laser. It wouldn’t take her long to get to the lobby and grab her weapons. The question was if Phantom was still in the building. They would have to work fast, canvas the area, and—

Dr. Mendoza slammed the shut. “Follow me, I have an idea where he is.”

The doctor stomped down the hall. Maddie pivoted, moving to a speed walk to keep pace. They trek back down the hall and turn down another hallway. As they reached the hall’s bend, Maddie heard a shrill shriek. She reached once again for a weapon but was stopped short by the giggle that followed. Following the curve of the hall, they came to a small play area. Only a few kids were there, but sitting in the middle of them with a children’s book and making silly faces was Phantom. The specter was cuffed to an IV pole and instead of the usual jumpsuit was wearing a pair of hospital sweats and a jumper, but overall seemed undisturbed as it entertained the little kids. One of them was leaning on the ghost’s arm, pointing at the different pictures. Phantom nodded enthusiastically, encouraging the child. The ghost smiled. Not the usual smirk or sly grin, but something bright and full of delight. It was odd. All of it was odd.

But, before Maddie could contemplate the scene anymore, Dr. Mendoza cleared her throat.

“Phantom, what are you doing out of your room, you are meant to be resting?” Dr. Mendoza scolded.

Phantom had the decency to look sheepish as he turned to look at the doctor, “Oh, come on, Doc—they begged me to read to—”

The ghost’s voice trailed off, gaze landing on Maddie. Phantom’s whole body froze as they locked eyes.

Chapter Text

Neither of them moved for a moment. Maddie itched for one of her weapons. Phantom ignored the small child shaking his elbow, asking him to turn the page. The ghost’s radio-active green eyes stayed big and wide. Its’ unearthly white aura pulsed and quivered as it swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Maddie could understand why the hospital staff would mistake this monster for a child, its cheeks still held a slight roundness to them and a splotch of acne covered its chin in a facsimile of youth. It caused a shiver to run down Maddie’s spine, though she didn’t show it.

“Phantom,” the small child whined, a little girl with her hair up in two buns. She used her whole body to pull and push on the ghost’s arm. At her pleading, Phantom turned his head, breaking eye contact finally.

Phantom smiled softly at the child, “Doc’s here, I better head back to my room; we’ll read more later, okay, Zoe?”

The little girl, Zoe, crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip in a pout. The other kids took her lead, suddenly clamoring for the ghost to stay. Phantom only chuckled, moving to stand. It patted the girl on her head, handing her the book. A copy of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Well, Phantom did think it was funny. Maddie rolled her eyes.

Zoe relented, taking the book. “Fine, but you better.”

“I’ll try my best,” Phantom promised before turning to Dr. Mendoza and herself. Wading out from the children, it approached the doctor while still keeping an eye on her. A predator at its core. It could try to hide behind smiles and heroism, but Maddie would not be fooled.

Voice low and echoing, Phantom spoke, “What is going on?”

Dr. Mendoza glanced between the two of them. The tension was clear. She sighed, “Phantom, we haven’t been able to treat your injuries—if we don’t do something soon you’ll get an infection. Dr. Fenton is here to help—she won’t do anything that you do not consent to.”

Phantom bit the corner of its lip, gaze not quite leaving Maddie while still leaning away from her. The ghost was on edge. Contemplating the doctor’s words, Phantom relented, letting out a breath and looking away from her. “Okay, as long as she doesn’t shoot me.”

“Of course,” Dr. Mendoza smiled gently, “let’s head back to your room.”

Phantom nodded, following Dr. Mendoza as she pivoted to head back to his room. Maddie followed behind both of them as they made casual conversation. Phantom was still on edge, glancing back every few steps, tracking Maddie’s movement. Maddie gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the way the ghost’s gaze set her on edge. Instead, she turned her focus to studying the entity. Phantom was surprisingly grounded—where other ghosts flickered and floated, Phantom’s feet stayed on the floor though its steps made no sound. It was also much more tangible, more solid than most ghosts Maddie encountered in the field. Where other ghosts appeared to be just out of touch with the world, Phantom seemed totally engrained with it.

Phantom also wasn’t wearing its usual jumpsuit. Maddie had noticed at the play center that Phantom had changed into a pair of gray sweatpants and a matching jumper, but it was only now that the detail sunk in. She and Jack had theorized that ghosts’ “clothing” was more like an additional layer of skin, a projection of the ghosts’ self-image. Phantom’s typical jumpsuit was meant to reflect its self-image of heroism. Occasionally Phantom was spotted wearing something over the jumpsuit, but it didn’t seem like the jumpsuit was even on under its current clothing. That itself was fascinating. She and Jack would have to re-evaluate their theory—

Maddie’s thoughts were cut off as Dr. Mendoza opened the door to Phantom’s hospital room. Phantom stepped in first, wheeling in the IV pole. Maddie followed and Dr. Mendoza shut the door as she herself came in. Phantom wasted no time sitting on the hospital bed, though making sure to keep the bed between itself and her.

“Alright Phantom,” Dr. Mendoza spoke into the tense silence, “If you will take off your shirt, we’ll refresh your bandages and talk over a treatment plan.”

Dr. Mendoza turned to the cupboard and began pulling out bandages and other supplies. A bright green blush flushed across Phantom’s face.

“In front of mo-Dr. Fenton?” Phantom’s voice broke.

Dr. Mendoza turned to face him and raised an eyebrow. “Phantom, Dr. Fenton can’t help in your treatment if she isn’t able to access the wound.” Seeing the ghost’s face grow green and glow brighter, the doctor softened her expression. “You’re safe here, Phantom. Like I said, Dr. Fenton won’t do anything without your consent.”

Phantom bit its lower lip again, a small fang poking out. It must be a nervous habit, Maddie mentally noted, or the facsimile of a nervous habit. Why the ghost would fake embarrassment made no sense though. The behavior didn’t mesh with its confident hero persona. Perhaps it was playing up child-like behaviors to garner sympathy?

After a moment, Phantom steeled its expression, deciding to push past the display of embarrassment to take off the jumper. Its movements were stiff and awkward as it worked around the cuff arm—unable to fully remove the shirt while restrained. The bandages along its back were splotched with a dark green mixing with brown—old ectoplasm that managed to soak through the wrappings. Old scars peaked out from underneath the bandages—some of them nearly completely faded while others were raised and gnarled with a slight green tint, like someone had tried to sew the wounds but didn’t know what they were doing.

Most shocking was the scar running across Phantom’s uncuffed arm. It radiated up the entire length of the left arm, branching off like a glowing green tree against pale skin. A Lichtenberg scar. Scars themselves were unusual on ghosts, but this one felt weightier. The others could be interpreted as battle wounds. Signifiers of heroism. But the Lichtenberg…

Dr. Mendoza shifted, cutting off Maddie’s line of sight as she cut away the bandages. Phantom hissed as she peeled the wrappings off. Maddie stood to assess the wounds and winced.

Suddenly, Dr. Mendoza’s phone call made a lot more sense. A human would be in tears with this sort of injury. A jagged cut ran from Phantom’s right shoulder blade to its mid-back with a burn stretching in a thick line from one shoulder to the other, like Phantom had held a burning beam on his shoulders. Both wounds were raw and angry. Green ooze dripped from blistered skin. Maddie felt herself getting woozy, stomach-turning. She remembered once again why she left the medical field.

But this was a ghost. A ghost who couldn’t feel pain. Maddie swallowed back her unease and stepped closer.

“Someone tried to stitch the wound?” Maddie asked, observing small puncture wounds along the larger cut. The tiny wounds seemed to be healing over in a way the larger cut wasn’t, but stitches were nowhere to be found.

Dr. Mendoza nodded. “Tried, twice since he arrived, but his ectoplasm eats away at the stitches.”

“But Phantom has received stitches before?” Maddie furrowed her brow.

“Yeah,” Phantom chimed in as they both looked over the wound, “Fenton fishing line works in a sinch. It’s ah, sorta thick, but it doesn’t dissolve.”

Maddie frowned. “How do you know that?”

“Uh, well, you see—” Phantom stammered, suddenly avoiding eye contact.

“Phantom.” Maddie turned on her “mom” voice.

Phantom winced, looking away as it mumbled, “Jack leaves the unspooled stuff all over the place.”

Which was a fair assessment. Jack did tend to leave nets and line and goo all over the place. Maddie dug into her utility belt though, thankful for once that she carried non-weaponry items with her as well. “Well, you are in luck, I have some Fenton Fishing Line with me.”

Digging the line out from her utility belt, Maddie passed the glowing green thread over to Dr. Mendoza. As Dr. Mendoza took the line, her eyes widened, and she pursed her lips.

“You’ve used this for stitches in the past?”

Phantom shrugged--or tried to shrug before cringing at the movement. “Yeah, comes in handy in an emergency.”

Dr. Mendoza shook her head. She moved away from Phantom, muttering under her breath as she went back to the cupboards to grab a few more things. Maddie drifted closer to Phantom. Her hand moved without her permission, hovering over Phantom’s back. The wound was so multi-layered. Detailed in a way that she had never seen in a ghost before. The epidermis gave way to dermis to subcutaneous tissue to muscle. Most ghosts had an outer shell that gave way to a thick, viscous liquid. But Phantom had individual blood vessels. Muscles and skin. A ghost shouldn’t be able to imitate such detailed anatomy without having an in-depth knowledge of human biology.

“Excuse me, Dr. Fenton.” Maddie pulled back as Dr. Mendoza came back over, dropping her hand. Dr. Mendoza turned her attention to Phantom, apparently unfazed by the anomaly of it all. “Alright Phantom, while the cut along your back doesn’t appear infected, we will need to irrigate it again before I use the numbing cream and re-apply the stitches.”

“I’ve had worse, Doc, go ahead.” Phantom smiled. Maddie noted that the ghost’s hands tightened around the bed frame. He—it. It was putting on a brave face. Another anomaly. Phantom hadn’t shied away from exhibiting pain in the past as a way to garner human sympathy, but now it was. Potentially its hero complex? Maddie made a mental note of the behavior.

Maddie crossed her arms, observing as the doctor worked from the side. “How did the injuries occur?”

“Uh, yeah—so there was like that apartment fire, right?” Phantom started, glancing back at her, “I was helping with the evac, because ice powers and intangibility means it’s not as risky for me to go in. Anyway, we pretty much had everyone out, but a firefighter had collapsed on the third story and the building was super unstable so the other firefighters couldn’t go back in. So I went in. I found the dude, but just as I was about to grab him, a cross-beam fell on my back and it must have been covered in ectoplasm from the explosion because it hurt like fu—like hell. Burned right through my jumpsuit. I was able to shrug it off and grab the firefighter, but there must have been another ecto weapon. Just as we were leaving, it exploded. A piece of shrapnel got me pretty bad. That’s how I got the cut. Still, it was worth it.”

“Why?” Maddie asked.

Phantom twisted, cocking his head to the side. “What do you mean—”

“Phantom, sit still, I am applying the local anastatic before the stitches,” Dr. Mendoza cut in. Phantom rolled his eyes but complied.

“What do you mean why? A person needed help. I was there. Who wouldn’t help?”

Maddie resisted the urge to say most people, sane people. Phantom’s actions continued to baffle her. Dr. Mendoza started her stitches, and the room fell into silence. Maddie tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. She and Jack long expected Phantom to hold an obsession centered on protection or comic book heroes, which would explain his actions. Its actions.

Maddie found herself humanizing the ghost. Phantom blurred the lines between specter and human that made it hard to remember that it was anything but human. Even after all these years, she wasn’t immune. It made Phantom dangerous. She and Jack always held that belief. It was those humanistic qualities, its ability to mimic so thoroughly, that caused people to fawn over the ghost.

“Alright, there you go,” Dr. Mendoza pulled away from Phantom’s back. Placing her hands on her hips, she took in her work—nice, neat stitches.

Phantom rolled his shoulders. “So…I can go, right Doc?”

Phantom inched his way off the bed, with a hopeful expression. Dr. Mendoza did not match his expression.

“You still have a third-degree burn across your back. That’s the main reason Dr. Fenton is here—we need a burn cream to neutralize the effects of the ecto-goo for your natural healing to take effect…hopefully. That’s the hypothesis.”

Phantom stuck out his lower lip—much like the small children in the play area only moments before—but he sunk back down into the bed.

“I’ll need to get an ecto-sample to properly synthesize a remedy,” Maddie explained, stepping back into the conversation.

For the first time since entering the hospital room, Phantom’s relaxed and shy demeanor hardened. Phantom launched to his feet, backing into the corner. He held the IV pole out in front of himself like a barrier. His soft, childlikeness turned hard as he narrowed his gaze, “No, nope, nada, not gonna happen. You can’t keep me here—I will climb out the window if I have to. I will--”

“Woah,” Dr. Mendoza lifted up her hands in a gesture of peace, “Woah, Phantom, take a deep breath. We’ll find another way. We won’t take an ecto-sample.”

Maddie frowned. “This will be a lot more difficult without a sample to work off of—”

“And we will find a way,” Dr. Mendoza interrupted, “No ecto-sample.”

Phantom’s gaze bounced between the two of them. At Dr. Mendoza’s gentle expression, Phantom exhaled. (This wasn’t the first time Maddie noticed Phantom breathing, a holdover behavior maybe? Maddie filed the thought away for the moment). His shoulders relaxed. He relented, coming out from the corner.

“We’ll have to do this by trial and error then, but I will get to work,” Maddie said, both to Phantom and Dr. Mendoza. It would be a fun challenge, she supposed.

Chapter Text

“Test 34 of the Specialized Ecto-Burn Cream,” Maddie spoke into the tape recorder. Her hands measured as she checked over her calculations. It had been two days of trying to get the formula right. The silver sulfadiazine reacted negatively to the presence of ecto, sometimes explosively so, making the burn cream unstable. The cream needed to be able to null the negative ectoplasm while not eating away at Phantom’s healthy ectoplasm. In this batch, she decided to add a component from their failed Ecto-Dejecto experiment. What exactly it would do, Maddie was still uncertain, but it was something new to try. However, she did make sure her goggles were fastly secured just in case it also decided to explode.

Voice recording was a habit from her college days. It helped on late nights at the lab. Helped her process her thoughts, stretch out and flex ideas before turning them tangible, and this whole thing was one big puzzle. Phantom was a puzzle all on his own. The ghost only grew more perplexing as she thought back on her initial visit to the hospital.

“I find myself coming back to the ghost’s human qualities. If he—no, it. It, Maddie--Phantom is a ghost, an ectoplasmic manifestation of post-human consciousness,” Maddie scolded herself, but her features softened as she continued to reflect on the ghost-boy, “It presents itself as a human child in many ways—like a teenager. Acne and all. It’s snarky at times and has a quick sense of wit—even if the majority of its humor is terrible puns. He almost reminds me of Danny…but in other ways, Phantom is totally ghostly. He holds a persona of one-dimensional of bravado.” Bravado that slipped at the idea of an ecto-sample. Maddie remembered the slight tremor in his legs, even as he widened his stance in preparation for a fight. Not so one-dimensional then.

But ghosts couldn’t be that complex. She and Jack had seen it time and time again—ghosts were driven by obsession, creatures of pure id. That’s what made them so dangerous.

They also weren’t supposed to have organs, yet Phantom showed evidence of both skin and muscle tissue with blood vessels and clotting mechanisms.

Maddie felt a headache looming, grinding at her temples as she tried to fit together the puzzle pieces. “Adding the silver sulfadiazine to the ecto-dejecto aloe cream. Hopefully, the ecto-dejecto will keep the silver sulfadiazine from reacting with the pure ectoplasm sample.”

The other option was the whole mixture would explode, but Maddie didn’t say that out loud. Instead, she bit her lower lip, held her breath, and poured. The white powder slid into the thick green cream. Maddie waited for a moment. No bubbling and no fire. Exhaling, Maddie picked up the pestle and mixed the silver sulfadiazine thoroughly into the cream.

Once they were blended, Maddie brought the mortar bowl over to her other workstation.

“Now applying the blended mixture to the ectoplasmic sample,” she spoke into her recorder as she worked. The paste was a thick, light green that smeared across the ectoplasm. In the last 33 attempts, this was where it usually fell apart, so Maddie observed with a diligent eye for any reaction. This time, instead of bubbling or evaporating or exploding, the ectoplasm’s glow brightened as it absorbed the cream—a positive reaction. Maddie grinned, one puzzle solved for now.

Normally, this would mean several more tests, lab trials, and weeks if not months more of work, but the only way to know if the cream would work on Phantom would be to try it. Now that she knew it wouldn’t hurt the ghost, the question was whether it would help at all.

Maddie shot a quick text off to Dr. Mendoza to let her know she was on her way. Putting away the more hazardous material and moving the burn ointment to a more travel-friendly container, Maddie left her lab.

***
Maddie made her way down the quieter hall of the children’s wing, heading toward Phantom’s room. Dr. Mendoza had texted back as she drove over, telling Maddie to leave her weapons at the front desk and to meet her in the ghost’s room. She had another consultation but would get there soon. Refraining from grumbling, Maddie complied with the no-weapons demand. She couldn’t ignore the slight hum of excitement in her chest as she wondered if the ointment would work, the buzz of curiosity. Jack always said she got a little twinkle in her eye when she was close to solving something.

Reaching Phantom’s room, she knocked.

“Come in?” Phantom’s voice echoed from the other side. Maddie entered and immediately shivered. The hospital room was at least ten degrees colder than the hallway. The light overhead flickered, but Maddie’s attention zeroed in on the ghost boy. He was lying in the hospital bed, his aura flickering. While he was always pale, his skin looked nearly ashen with a glossy sheen. The room might have been freezing but he was sweating. He stared back at her, unfocused and far away. His breath came out fast and shallow. “Mom? Wh-what are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here. I’m the wrong Danny…” Phantom furrowed his brow and lifted his arm, scrutinizing it and mumbling under his breath, “I’m the wrong Danny.”

The wrong Danny. Maddie almost forgot that Phantom’s name was also Danny. There was a time when that fact annoyed Maddie—like the ghost had specifically chosen the name to spite her or to garner her sympathy. It also wasn’t the first time the ghost had called her mom. He had also called Jack ‘dad’ a few times. Again, they had thought it was some ploy, but Phantom always seemed embarrassed about it and corrected himself so quickly. Did they really look that much like his parents? How much did Phantom remember his family?

Maddie felt herself walk across the room more than she chose to walk across the room. Phantom’s words made no sense. He was still muttering to himself, but now it was completely incoherent. He looked sick. Next to his bedside, Maddie placed the back of her hand on his forehead out of instinct. Like she had for her Danny hundreds of times. The ghost’s skin was clammy and warm to the touch. Considering only two days ago, his skin was icy, this sort of temperature spike couldn’t be good. Combined with the unfocused vision, confusion, shallowed breathing, and—

“Mom,” Phantom turned his head to stare up at her. A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye as his lower lip trembled, “I don’t feel so good.”

Suddenly, Phantom pitched himself over the side of the bed and vomited. He narrowly missed puking on Maddie herself. This was beyond what Maddie could treat.

Gently, Maddie touched Phantom’s shoulder, turning his attention back to her. His neon green met hers, just barely holding back tears. “Stay here, I am getting help,” Maddie commanded with a level tone. Phantom nodded.

Not waiting a second longer, Maddie pivoted and ran out of the room. A few steps into the hall, she spotted Dr. Mendoza talking to a nurse. Maddie felt her heart rate spike. Her panic must have been visible because Dr. Mendoza dropped her polite smile.

“What’s wrong?”

“Phantom,” Maddie exhaled, “He’s septic.”

Dr. Mendoza cursed under her breath. Already moving down the hall, Dr. Mendoza turned to the nurse and said, “Get me a round of broad-spectrum IV antibiotics to room 22b, prep extra fluids.”

The nurse nodded and was gone before Maddie could blink. Dr. Mendoza sped down the hall. Maddie matched her pace, both of them reaching Phantom’s room at the same time.

In the minute Maddie had been out of the room, Phantom had managed to get out of the bed, but only barely. He was holding on to the bed rails like they were the only things keeping him corporeal. His whole body shook. Frost crept over the corners of the room, but he was still sweating.

Dr. Mendoza didn’t even pause to take in the cold, sweeping an arm under Phantom to stabilize him. “Let’s get you lying down,” she spoke softly yet firmly.

“‘m s’rry,” Phantom mumbled, swaying in her grasp. Maddie ushered around to the other side of Phantom, providing another arm of support. Together, Dr. Mendoza and Maddie got Phantom back in bed.

Dr. Mendoza grabbed Phantom’s wrist, checking his pulse out of habit. It would have been funny to Maddie if Dr. Mendoza hadn’t stopped, her gaze meeting Maddie’s with a deadly seriousness.

“He has a pulse.”

Maddie froze. And it wasn’t because Phantom was drastically dropping the room’s temperature. A pulse was impossible. Phantom was a ghost. He was dead. And he was breathing. He was showing signs of life. An icy claw gripped the inside of her chest. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm to feel for herself. Dr. Mendoza was right. It was slow and faint, but it was there. A shaky ba-dum. A heartbeat.

Before either of them could speak, a team of nurses burst into the room with equipment in tow. Dr. Mendoza spun into action, treating the ghost boy. Maddie stepped back, trying not to fall to the floor. Her knees felt weak. She and Jack had made a mistake.

Suddenly, Maddie was sprinting out of the room.

Chapter Text

Maddie hadn’t gone far, only making it to the waiting room before she was left panting for air and sick to her stomach. She and Jack spent the last three and a half years shooting at the ghost boy, hunting him, and planning experiments for him, but they had been so wrong. Phantom was just a boy. A boy with a pulse and a heartbeat and ectoplasm, which shouldn’t be possible. So much of what Phantom was shouldn’t be possible though.

Maddie leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. She pictured every shot they ever landed. They thought he was only pretending to be in pain, but how much of that had been their own bias? Where did their assumption that ghosts didn’t feel pain even come from? Why did they just blindly believe it? A million questions flooded Maddie’s head, but instead of the usual excitement, she only felt a growing sense of dread.

She didn’t know how long she sat on the hospital floor running question after question, doubt after doubt over again and again in her head. Long enough for her knees to grow stiff and her legs a little numb. Her unending cycle of thoughts was interrupted by another body slumping on the floor next to her. Maddie looked over; it was Dr. Mendoza.

The younger doctor pushed her glasses to the top of her head and ran a hand over her face. “Phantom is stable. Or we think he’s stable. The room is no longer frosting over and his breathing is at a consistent rate. It’s hard to tell. He’s asleep for now. He’s lucky you were there.”

Maddie shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

They lapsed into silence for a minute. The waiting room clock ticked rhythmically. The usual beeps and buzzes of the hospital carried on, a gentle background as exhaustion crept into Maddie’s bones. She hadn’t done anything other than call Dr. Mendoza for help, and that was barely anything at all, especially not compared to the level of terror she had caused in Phantom’s afterlife. If she and Jack had been so wrong about Phantom, what else had they been wrong about?

Before Maddie could slip back into her downward spiral, Dr. Mendoza broke out in giggles. Maddie raised a brow, but Dr. Mendoza only laughed harder. Between giggles, she cracked out, “Move to Amity, they said, it’s a nice place to live, they said. They did not mention the ghosts or that the ghosts have heartbeats and are medical anomalies.” Dr. Mendoza threw back her head, cackling.

Pulled out of her stupor, Maddie found herself bursting into laughter right along with the young doctor. It was absurd. All of it was just utterly absurd, but there they were, sitting on a hospital room floor absolutely losing it.

As their laughter tapered off, Maddie felt lighter. Not better, necessarily, but no longer like her brain was going to collapse in on itself. “What do we even do?” she asked the young doctor.

Dr. Mendoza shook her head. Her tight bun had slipped out, loose hairs framing her tired face. “I don’t know.”

Their comfortable quiet was broken by the nurse from earlier approaching both of them. The nurse cleared their throat, “Um, doctors, Phantom is waking up?”

Dr. Mendoza nodded at the nurse, thanking them as she stood. She turned to Maddie and offered her a hand up. Maddie accepted, groaning a bit as she came to her feet. The young doctor smiled at her. “You brought the burn cream?”

Right, that was the reason Maddie had come in the first place. She had nearly forgotten in the rush of everything.

Maddie smiled softly. She may have had more questions than answers, but she did have that. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go see our patient.” Dr. Mendoza gestured down the hall.

Chapter Text

Phantom was sitting upright in bed as they entered the room. Two IVs ran to his arm. Already his aura seemed brighter, glowing steadily, and his skin was back to its usual color. He grinned sheepishly at both of them. Dr. Mendoza strode over to his side, checking his pulse first before pulling on her stethoscope and listening to his chest.

As she moved from his front to his back, Phantom scooted away, putting some distance between them as he held out his arms. “Hey, warn a guy, doc!”

“You have vitals,” Dr. Mendoza said seriously, leaving little room for joking. Maddie was almost impressed at how much it sounded like her own ‘mom voice’ as her children liked to say. “You didn’t tell us you had vitals, Phantom. You had severe sepsis, and we had no way of knowing whether we were helping you or hurting you because you failed to share with us important medical information. You realize how serious that is, right? I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”

Phantom crossed his arms, growing defensive and equally serious. “I didn’t ask for your help. In fact, I specifically said I was declining medical treatment, but no one listened to me. Why would I tell you anything?”

“You’re a minor,” Dr. Mendoza shot back, “Would you rather we let you die of infection?”

“I’m a ghost! I’m already dead.” Phantom threw his hands in the air. Turning toward Maddie, he added, “Tell her.”

Maddie only shook her head. “You breathe and you have a pulse, Phantom. You may be a ghost, but obviously, there is a lot we don’t understand about ghosts.”

Phantom gaped at her, floundering for words. As he sputtered, Dr. Mendoza swooped in, finishing checking him over. Satisfied, she slipped the stethoscope out of her ears and around her neck and took a step back. “Take off your sweater, please,” she instructed.

Phantom stuck out his bottom lip, pouting in a way only teenagers could pout. He didn’t argue, however, pulling off the sweater. He was careful not to disturb his IVs. “What are you doing now?”

“I think I came up with a treatment.” Maddie held up the jar of experimental burn cream. She passed it along to Dr. Mendoza who set it on the side table as she unwrapped Phantom’s bandaging. While the gash on his back was healing nicely, the burn wound looked ugly. The skin was swollen and the edges were a purplish green. The whole thing looked raw and inflamed. Phantom bit back a hiss as Dr. Mendoza prodded the area, checking its tenderness.

Having assessed the area, Dr. Mendoza slipped on a pair of fresh gloves, opened the burn cream, and scooped out a small sample. She first placed the cream on an uninjured section of skin. When no negative reaction occurred, she did the same to the edge of Phantom’s burn. The skin absorbed the ointment. Maddie and the doctor watched as the area turned from a raw, purplish green to a tender pale green to Phantom’s usual skin tone, healing almost instantly before their eyes.

Excited, Dr. Mendoza slathered a thick layer of ointment over the entire burn. Slowly the area absorbed the salve. They watched as the edges of the burn faded away. The worst of the spots went from looking raw and oozing to only a slight purplish hue, more like a first-degree burn than a three-day-old third-degree burn wound.

“Oh wow,” Phantom exclaimed, rolling his shoulders, “That felt great!”

“As it should,” Dr. Mendoza remarked as she re-wrapped the area with a fresh bandage, “Dr. Fenton’s burn cream worked even better than I could have hoped.”

Phantom’s gaze flickered toward Maddie. He blushed like he had forgotten that she had been there. “Um, thanks.”

“It was an interesting challenge.” Maddie shrugged, trying not to show the millions of questions she had on her face. She needed more time to organize her thoughts, and to process everything she had seen.

Finished wrapping the rapidly healing burns, Dr. Mendoza took a step back to throw out her gloves. Phantom shrugged back on his sweater. He stretched his arms and cracked his neck.

“So, can you let me go now?” He asked with a note of hope.

Dr. Mendoza sighed. She obviously wanted to say no. Normally a patient who experienced sepsis would be in the ICU for weeks, but Phantom seemed to be recovered, and his wounds were no longer a concern. She had no reason to keep him there. From her pocket, she pulled out a key for the phase-proof handcuffs. Phantom beamed.

The young doctor leveled the ghost boy with a serious look. “Now, if you experience any sudden dizziness, confusion, nausea, or fever, you have to promise to come back in. I don’t want you going into complete septic shock.”

Phantom gave a mock salute. “Aye, aye, Doc.”

Dr. Mendoza rolled her eyes but undid the cuff. Before either Maddie or the doctor could blink, Phantom flickered out of view, going invisible. The slight chill in the room lifted. Phantom had vanished.

The room stayed silent as both of them stared at the spot the ghost boy once occupied. Maddie let out a deep breath. That was the end of her work she supposed. She prepared herself to thank the doctor but was startled to find Dr. Mendoza’s attention had turned to her.

“Here,” Dr. Mendoza held a small vial out to Maddie. A green liquid filled the vial. Ectoplasm.

Maddie swallowed thickly. There was only one creature’s ectoplasm it could be. “Why?”

“We needed a sample. In case the broad-spectrum antibiotic didn’t work. Phantom was too out of it to protest,” Dr. Mendoza explained, though it answered none of Maddie’s actual questions. Maddie took the vial anyway. They both had more questions than answers. Dr. Mendoza nodded. Running a tired hand through her hair, the young doctor excused herself, slipping out of the room.

Maddie stared at the vial in her own hand, watching the neon green liquid swirl.

Chapter Text

Under the microscope, Maddie observed the green biconcave discs. As she increased the magnification, she watched as slivers of red came into focus on the green discs—an impossibility because red meant hemoglobin, which meant Phantom’s ectoplasm was carrying oxygen throughout his body. The ferritin test she ran proved the presence of iron in the sample though. In a human, the levels would be considered dangerously low, but ghosts weren’t supposed to have any iron in their ectoplasm, so maybe it was dangerously high? That was ignoring the fact that Phantom appeared to have specialized “blood” cells. Of course, she couldn’t confirm that the cells were specialized without collecting several more samples—skin, hair, etc—but his ectoplasm looked like no other ghosts she had ever studied.

After a month of tests and analysis, Maddie felt no closer to answers. An undercurrent of worry and confusion twisted in her stomach. Normally, this sort of mystery would excite her—she and Jack would spend long nights pouring over results and trading hypotheses—but instead, Maddie only felt dread. If they had gotten this much wrong, how much else had they gotten wrong? Was Phantom a grand exception or were all of their theories wrong?

It was perplexing enough that Maddie had stepped away from field work, relegating herself to the lab. Jack was concerned when she first made the announcement—she hadn’t told him about the hospital, about Phantom; she didn’t have a solid grasp on what exactly was causing her gut to twist when she imagined the burnt and bandaged ghost—but he was supportive. He even took a step back with her, saying he wanted to spend more time with the kiddos this summer anyway (who knows how many summers they’ll have left with both of the kids at home—Jazz in college and Danny already about to start his senior year). She knew she should have told him the truth, but she couldn’t explain it yet. The questions swirled around inside of her head.

Maddie glanced at the vial sitting on her desk, only an eighth of the sample was left. Its glow taunted her; like it knew that even with Phantom’s ectoplasm in hand, she wouldn’t find her answers.

The front door chimed, startling Maddie out of her thoughts. Her gaze flickered to the clock as she stood and stretched. It was nearly supper time. She had been hunched over the microscope for the last eight hours. They weren’t expecting company—Jack and Jazz were at the library and Danny was at the mall. A delivery person? Maddie pondered, pulling down her hood and heading up the stairs.

She didn’t remember ordering anything, but Jazz might have gotten some summer reading—even on her breaks she liked to get ahead—or Danny might have ordered a new video game. Maybe it was an out-of-town paranormal investigator. Amity Park got their fair share of traveling “ghost hunters,” though most of them found themselves running when the first actual ghost appeared.

Maddie opened the door, but instead of a delivery person or ghost hunter, she was met with nothing. Furrowing her brow, she glanced down the road—there was no one. The street was empty. She would have sworn she heard the buzzer ring, but maybe all that time staring through the microscope was getting to her.

Shaking her head, Maddie prepared to close the door and maybe get a little housework done. That’s when she spotted it. A flicker. A little ripple in the air.

A ghost.

Reflexively, she grabbed the ecto-gun from the holster on her hip and aimed.

“Reveal yourself, spook,” she spat. Her gaze narrowed.

There was a pause. Then, the air shimmered and Phantom faded into the visual plain. “Hey, Dr. Fenton,” the ghost boy smiled sheepishly, cradling his right arm to his chest, “got any more of that burn cream?”

Phantom looked worse off than the last time she saw him in the hospital. Sure, she had seen glimpses of him around town, popping up at ghost fights and showing up on her local news feed, and there he seemed back to normal, but this was her first time seeing him up close since the hospital. Deep bags dragged under his eyes. His aura flickered. While he still floated off the ground, he bobbed unevenly. That wasn’t even accounting for the ectoplasm trailing down his forehead and matting his hair, the dirt smudging his cheeks, or the rips in his suit.

Now that she was taking in his appearance, she saw why Phantom was asking for burn cream. The arm he was holding was a raw green, blistering and bubbling. The burn stretched from his elbow, up to his shoulder, and across the front of his chest. Someone or something had gotten him good.

First aid training kicking in, Maddie ushered Phantom inside. At the threshold, Phantom hesitated for a moment, eyes darting across the room as he bit his lower lip. His shoulders were hunched up. Maddie pursed her lips, confused, before it dawned on her that she was still holding her gun. Her face flushed red. Holstering her weapon, Maddie gestured for Phantom to come in.

The ghost boy ran his tongue over his lips before nodding, more to himself than to her, and stepped into the house. He hovered in the entryway as she closed the door behind him.

Maddie cleared her throat. Phantom jumped a little, still tense. Maddie tried to keep her movements slow and obvious so as not to startle him. “Let’s go to the kitchen?” she suggested, slipping ahead of him.

It dawned on Maddie suddenly as she turned to lead Phantom into the kitchen that the ghost boy was taller than her—he was only floating an inch or so off the ground, but his lanky and lithe frame was still towered a half foot over her. Thinking back, Phantom hadn’t always been that tall. When he first appeared, he could have been considered short—definitely no taller than 5’5”. Sometime in the last few years, however, the ghost hit a growth spurt (another impossibility to be filed away for later). Her Danny finally had his growth spurt mid-junior year. It had taken him a while, and he was still growing into his height, but Maddie could see underneath all the awkwardness and insecurity, her son was growing into a fine young man.

In the kitchen, Maddie gestured for Phantom to take a seat. “I have the rest of the burn cream down in the lab with the rest of the medical supplies. Do you have any other injuries?”

Phantom shook his head but bit back a groan as he landed on the ground, nearly falling into the chair with how fast he moved to sit down. Maddie leveled him with her best “disappointed mom” expression. Phantom winced and chuckled, caving under her scrutiny. “Okay, I might have snagged my ankle getting out of Skulker’s trap, but it’ll be fine with some ice. I swear.”

Maddie stared at him for a moment, but it seemed that was all she was getting from the ghost boy at the time. Sighing, she ran through the supplies she would need to gather from the lab.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, stay put,” Maddie commanded.

Before she could turn to head downstairs, the front door opened. Familiar heavy steps echoed through the house as Jack’s voice boomed gleefully, “Honey! We’re back—and I found fudge!”

Maddie froze, gaze shifting to Phantom who sat tensely, back ramrod straight.

“There was a bake sale at the library,” Jazz explained, casually entering the kitchen, “we almost left with the whole thing.”

As she flipped her hair over her shoulder, Jazz’s sights landed on Phantom. Maddie saw as her daughter scrutinized the scene, mouth gaping open and closed as she tried to process what she was seeing. Maddie opened her mouth to explain but was interrupted when Jack stepped into the kitchen.

No one had time to say anything before Jack Fenton drew his ecto-gun and shouted.

“GHOST!”

Chapter Text

“GHOST!” Jack shouted, whipping out his ecto gun. For one brief second, no one moved. Then, the room exploded.

Jazz dropped the bags in her hands, pivoting around and throwing out her arms, like she was shielding the ghost boy. Phantom curled up on himself, making himself into a tiny ball in the chair. Maddie found herself moving across the room, suddenly at Jack’s side, “Wait!”

Gently, taking Jack’s arm, she guided his hand down. Jack stared at her, his forehead crinkling.

“Maddie?” Jack considered her, eyes flickering between her and Phantom. His lips curled into a thin line. “How did I propose to you?”

The question seemed random to an outsider, but Maddie knew in the way that Jack studied her expression that he was checking to see if she was possessed. When the ghost portal opened and possessions became a semi-regular event, they devised a system to check if a ghost was in control. Still, as Maddie thought back to that moment, a smile tugged on the corner of her lips.

“We were in the woods on what I thought was a case. You tried so hard to make it romantic, but I kept getting distracted by the EMF reader. I didn’t even realize you were proposing. But we got stuck in that ghost net and it was so hilarious and I looked at you and asked if we could spend the rest of our lives together. I ended up asking you. Then we both started crying. It was perfect.”

The more she talked, the more Jack lowered his gun. “It was perfect.”

A silly grin grew across his face. Maddie wanted to kiss him, but then she remembered why he had asked at all. Remembered that there was a ghost in their kitchen who needed medical attention. Maddie bit her lower lip. Catching the change in her expression, Jack’s attention turned back to Phantom.

“What is Phantom doing in our kitchen?”

“Trust me?” Maddie asked hushly.

Jack considered her, then nodded. “Always.”

Maddie beamed, turning to Jazz. Her eldest child still stood defensively between them and Phantom. Her brow crinkled exactly like her father’s. “Jazz, in the second cabinet on the right in the lab, you’ll find a jar labeled test 34, can you bring it up?”

Slowly, Jazz lowered her arms. Phantom uncurled slightly but still sat in a way to protect his injured side. Jack wavered at her side, itching for action. He needed something to do, having him on edge wouldn’t help. Maddie gently touched his arm. “Grab the first aid kit from under the sink and get the saline?”

Having a task, Jack’s shoulders softened. He slipped the ecto-gun back into its holster and got to work. With Jack and Jazz busy, Maddie focused on Phantom. The ghost boy kept a cautious eye on Jack, sitting on the edge of his seat and hunching in on himself. Maddie took a step toward him, and Phantom immediately pivoted, eyes wide as he zeroed in on her. Maddie paused, raising her hands slightly and telegraphing her movements before coming any closer.

“Phantom, I’ll need to take a clear look at your burn to see if it needs to be debrided before we apply the burn cream. Can you take off the top part of your jumpsuit?”

Like Jack, Phantom relaxed with a goal. His attention turned to his jumpsuit; he twisted to attempt to reach the zipper of his suit but almost immediately let out a hiss. His face scrunched up, aborting the movement. “Uh, yeah, that’s gonna be rough.”

“Okay,” Maddie came to his side, assessing where the hazmat had been burned away and what needed to be cut—if she cut the neckline, it should be easy enough to shrug off. Maddie shared her thoughts out loud as Jack laid the first aid kit out next to her. He hovered at her side. Jack’s gaze was trained on Phantom’s wounds. While he was not as tuned in to anatomy and biology, he knew enough to recognize that Phantom’s was far too sophisticated for a normal ghost. The same unspoken questions that were running through Maddie’s mind were now running through his.

But Maddie couldn’t focus on that now. Instead, she grabbed the scissors from the first aid kit. Phantom turned his head away as she snipped the neckline of his hazmat suit. She fell into the once familiar work of cleaning a wound—remembering her days as an EMT in high school and college when her parents still hoped she would go into medical school, that ghosts were a passing phase. She paused when Phantom inhaled sharply or flinched away, allowing him time to relax before she continued, and she called out to Jack whenever she needed something from the first aid kit. Jazz came up shortly with the burn cream, setting it on the table by the kit before perching a top of the kitchen counter, leaning forward to watch Maddie as she worked, chewing over her lower lip.

It stayed quiet outside of Maddie’s occasional directions and the low staticky hum of the radio set a frequency off but still picked up the old polka station (Jack’s favorite—there were many of nights when he would sweep her up in his arms and dance her across the room, though this evening wasn’t one of them). With the burn salve applied, Maddie watched as the green, raw wound knit itself together, healing over at an incredible rate. Still, to be extra cautious, Maddie grabbed the bandages and wrapped up his torso, shoulder, and arm.

As she tied off the end of the bandaging, Phantom rolled his shoulder. “Wow, that stuff is amazing.” He let out a little chuckle, beaming up at her. A faint green blush colored his cheeks.

“Thank you,” Maddie nodded, taking a step back.

An awkwardness snuck back into the room, no one sure what to do or say now that the work was done. Maddie became overly aware of her hands, unsure of where to put them or what to do with them. Jack raised a brow at her, subtly asking ‘what now?’ And Maddie wasn’t sure how to answer. Jazz played with her hair, twirling the ends between her fingers.

Phantom rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I should get going, um,” Phantom stood up, but scrunched in his shoulders, “thanks, M-Dr. Fenton.”

Before Phantom could move to leave, Jack pushed off from the counter.

“Phantom,” Jack’s voice boomed. Phantom jumped, eyes going wide and spine straightening. Jack’s brow furrowed, though he quickly smoothed out his expression before Phantom could fully turn to face him. Jack softened his shoulders, smiling slightly as he lowered his voice, “Have you had dinner yet?”

Maddie could kiss Jack. The ease with which he read people and made space always astounded her.

Phantom was less sure about the invitation, biting his bottom lip. “What? No—I mean, no, I’m all good. I can grab food—”

“Nonsense!” Jack clapped his hands. “There’s always room at the Fenton table for one more.”

Phantom’s gaze flickered over to her. Maddie smiled. His gaze then flickered over to Jazz. She nodded.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stay for dinner?”

Chapter Text

Ushering Jazz out of the kitchen with Phantom to go find the ghost boy a sweater to go over the now-in-tatters hazmat suit, Maddie let out a deep breath. Then, she turned to face her husband with a tight-lipped smile. Honestly, Jack had been superb, but with the children out of the room, he didn’t hold back his raised eyebrow. Maddie pursed her lips, unsure of where to start.

“I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve bandaged Phantom up?” Jack prompted.

Maddie chuckled, running a hand over her face and shaking her head. She moved to the table and started to clean up, needing something to do with her hands. Jack joined her, repacking the first aid kit. With her hands moving, Maddie’s thoughts found their order, and she recounted that first phone call from Dr. Mendoza, treating Phantom, his odd behavior, and the unusual ecto-sample.

Jack listened intently, sitting down at the table and leaning in by the time she had finished her report. “That’s when you asked if we could pull away from more active ghost hunting,” he noted.

Maddie bit her lower lip, clasping the first aid kit shut and sliding it back into its home. “Yes,” she admitted, “I wanted to tell you all about it, but I just—none of it made sense. I needed time to wrap my head around the data. Is he just an anomaly? Is all of our research wrong? I just—I just didn’t want to rush into any conclusions, and I needed time.”

Jack hummed, leaning back in his chair. “His ecto-ology is unique. I’ve never seen a ghost with such a complex makeup. It looked like he had several layers to his skin.”

“And he has bones!” Maddie jumped in, swiveling to face her husband completely. Her hesitancy fell away, “Jack, he has bones, muscle, skin, blood—he has nerves. It’s incredible.”

“He seemed to trust you, at least somewhat. Enough to show up here,” Jack observed. Running his tongue over his teeth, he rubbed his chin. “Do you think he would be willing to work with us?”

Maddie crossed her arms, drumming her fingers along her forearm. “I don’t know. He’s skittish. But I know we can’t hunt him anymore. Not with everything up in the air like this.”

Jack stood, stepping closer and pulling her in at her waist. “I trust you—whatever you think is right, I’ll be there with you.” He leaned his forehead against hers. The lump that had formed in Maddie’s throat melted away, the tension in her shoulders unfurling.

“I think we need to offer the ghost boy a truce.”

Jack nodded. He kissed her forehead before stepping back and beaming. “And think! We’ll be the first to have a truce with a ghost! It’s going to be a great research opportunity!” Maddie giggled, rolling her eyes. Jack’s eyes twinkled (his true goal accomplished). “Now, let’s make some supper.”

***
“Spaghetti is done!” Maddie hollered as she brought the pasta over to the table. Jack set out the last of the silverware, having fit a fifth plate to their normally four-person table. She looked over their meal—spaghetti, garlic bread, and some broccoli. Satisfied with everything, she glanced up in time to catch Phantom and Jazz entering the kitchen. Phantom was wearing one of Danny’s oversized NASA hoodies. It hung off of him in that unkept, baggy way that her own son liked, though she never understood why. Still, the ghost boy seemed comfortable as he smiled over to Jazz. Her daughter rolled her eyes, nudging Phantom with her elbow.

“Hey,” Phantom pouted, “don’t beat me up; I’m injured.”

Jazz shook her head and said exasperatedly, “You’re fine. Sit down.”

There was a playfulness between the two of them, which surprised Maddie as she watched the two interact. It was like they knew each other. Maddie has suspected for some time that was the case. Jazz had been an early supporter of Phantom. At the time, Maddie thought it was her daughter’s overly compassionate heart or maybe even a strange form of teenage rebellion, but seeing Phantom now as the teenager he was, it made sense. Jazz had noticed what they were willfully ignorant of for three and a half years.

Shame curled up in Maddie’s stomach. Forcing herself to smile, Maddie gestured to the table. “Yes! Sit. Dinner is ready.”

“Oh sweet! Spaghetti!” Phantom flashed her a smile as he slipped into Danny’s usual seat.

“Do you like spaghetti?” Jack asked, taking Phantom’s plate and dishing up a nice scoop. Maddie watched the casual conversation, folding her hands under her chin.

“Yeah, it’s one of my favs,” Phantom said, then scrunched his nose, “but I’ll pass on the garlic bread.”

Maddie raised a brow. “Why’s that?”

Phantom glared at the garlic bread on the table like it had personally offended him. “It’s just toast in disguise,” he said bitterly. Maddie tilted her head, holding back a laugh at the young ghost’s apparently strong hatred of toast.

“Two extra slices for me then!” Jack patted his stomach and sat down with his own dished-up plate. “Danno-boy doesn’t like toast either.”

“Yeah,” Jazz turned her head, staring intently at Phantom, “Danny doesn’t like toast too, isn’t that so weird.”

Phantom rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “It’s not that weird.” He took a bite of his spaghetti. Maddie wondered if the ghost boy had to eat or if he simply chose to eat for enjoyment.

Maddie’s wondering was cut short though, as she remembered the still empty chair at the table. “Wait, where is Danny? He was supposed to be home for dinner?”

Phantom’s eyes grew wide. “Uh…” But before he could do more than gape at her, Jazz kicked under the table, cutting him off as he bit back a yelp and scowled at her.

Jazz just smiled sweetly, turning toward her mother. “Sorry, Mom. In all the excitement, I forgot to tell you that Danny wasn’t going to make it home for dinner. The theater in the mall is showing the new Dead Teacher movie or whatever.”

Maddie pursed her lips. “He should have called Dad or I—I know we’re relaxing up on the rules for the summer since he was able to bring his grades up, but he still knows that he has to text us if he is running late. We’re going to have to have a conversation when he gets home.”

“I mean, is that really necessary?” Phantom half laughed and half asked as he set his fork down, “he probably just forgot?”

Maddie was about to press that that was no excuse, but Jack clapped a hand on her knee. “Come on, Mads, you remember being a teenager!”

Maddie sighed, not overly satisfied, but found her fretting fade with the gentle weight of her husband's hand. She leaned into his shoulder. “Fine, I will let it go, but he is still in charge of dishes tonight.” Jack kissed her forehead.

“Eww,” Jazz scrunched her nose, “Can you guys not when I am trying to eat?”

Jack grinned at his daughter, gleeful and teasing. “Now come on Jazz, studies have shown that parents who display affection towards each other in front of their children can provide a greater sense of security in the home and-” Jack continued to discuss the research while increasingly embarrassing their child and their guest. They slipped into comfortable dinner conversation, enjoying their food and playfully bantering. Phantom seemed to grow steadily more relaxed as they ate together. He occasionally dropped fascinating revelations about ghosts that had Maddie on the edge of her seat, yearning to ask a million questions, but she didn’t want to startle the ghost boy, so she bit back the tidal wave of curiosity.

Phantom just dished up a second helping of noodles and sauce when he sat up suddenly, spine rigid. A wisp of icy breath slipped out of his mouth. He stood up, “I have to go and—” Phantom fished around for words like he was trying to come up with an excuse, then he shook his head, “that was my ghost sense, I have to go. Um, thanks for dinner?”
“No problem, Phantom! Anytime,” Jack boomed. Maddie nodded in agreement. Phantom rubbed the back of his neck and threw up a peace sign before vanishing from the visual plane of reality.

Maddie stared at the spot where Phantom vanished from, her body a bit numb as she tried to process everything that had happened that evening.

“Okay,” Jazz set her fork down, snapping Maddie out of her stupor. Jazz placed her hands on the table as she glanced between her parent, “What exactly is going on?

***
Maddie recounted everything that had happened since Dr. Mendoza’s first phone call for the second time that evening. Jazz listened studiously, asking questions every so often. Maddie shared her findings with the ecto-sample, or more accurately, her non-findings. How there was both too much evidence and not enough evidence. Finally, after the sauce had grown cold and the noodles had become sticky, Maddie sighed and rubbed her temples. “That’s everything.”

Jazz and Jack were silent for a moment. Jack, of course, had heard her scattered report already; he ran a comforting hand along her back. Jazz, however, seemed to be digesting everything, taking in each piece and slotting them together.

After a moment, Jazz nodded, seemingly have made up her mind. “What are you going to do now?”

Which was the question, wasn’t it? What now? How did they rework their enter career, their entire lives work, their entire worldview? How did they make up for their past mistakes? How did they move forward?

“Your mother and I have decided to step back from active ghost hunting and focus on observation studies and un-incorporated ecto. We also want to extend a truce with Phantom,” Jack supplied. Which was an answer but still did not feel like enough.

Jazz reached across the table, taking her hand. “I’m proud of you mom. It takes a lot of courage to admit you’ve made a mistake.”

Maddie raised her head, meeting her daughter with a tired smile. “Thank you, honey. I just hope it isn’t too late.”

Before anyone else could speak, the front door clicked open. Maddie rose to her feet, walking around the table just as Danny turned into the kitchen.

He came in rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey, sorry I’m late.”

Maddie huffed out a laugh—her earlier frustration shrunk when compared to all of the other emotions swirling up inside of her, so she just hugged her son instead. Danny stiffened at first but then relaxed, raising an arm to half-hug her back.

Under the weight of his oversized sweatshirt, Maddie felt an extra layer of padding—like Danny was wearing bandages or a second sweater. Maddie opened her mouth to comment on it, but he slipped out of her arms. “Any dinner left?”

Maddie tilted her head. “Didn’t you eat at the mall?”

“Huh?” Danny furrowed his brows, then his face smoothed over, “Oh, um, we were gonna eat at the mall, but uh…we forgot?”

Danny didn’t let her ask another question as he sat at the table where Phantom had sat, a full plate of cold spaghetti resting there. He picked up Phantom’s fork, twirling up his spaghetti. He had the fork halfway to his mouth before Jazz kicked him in the shin. Danny dropped the fork and glared at his sister.

“Geez, Jazz, why do you keep kicking me?” He ran a hand through his hair while Jazz just stared at him. Maddie glanced between her two children, trying to understand what silent conversation they were having. Jazz and Danny had the type of sibling connection that Maddie wished she had had with Alicia when they were younger, where they seemed to read one another’s thoughts.

“Someone else already used that fork,” Jazz raised a brow.

“What are you talking abou—Oh,” Danny started but then stopped suddenly, setting down the fork and grabbing the clean one from the empty place setting.
Jack, unphased by the odd interaction, asked, “How was the new Dead Teacher movie?”

Maddie came back to the table, sitting down as Danny launched into a summary of the movie’s plot—it wasn’t the first time he had seen the movie since its release. They had gone and seen it a few weeks ago on the opening night, but Danny and his friends had a fascination with the franchise and would often see the movie two or three times, analyzing every scene. Maddie never quite understood the appeal of zombie flicks, but she enjoyed watching the way her son lit up in conversation. The only other thing that gave him such a spark was talking about space.

As he talked, his hands flew in the air. His face was soft, even as he recounted his frustration with how they exchanged practical special effects for CGI. Something pinged in Maddie’s stomach as she observed the scene. She couldn’t shake the sensation. It was like she was sitting in front of a puzzle with all the pieces flipped over and no image to match the pieces with, even if she could see the pieces. It itched at her, but she couldn’t figure out why.

Chapter Text

“Oh wow, Mads, do you see the way this little guy sticks to the wall! I wonder if it’s a quality of the ectoplasm itself, or maybe it sticks intangible tentacles through the wall to stay put! Hmm…” Jack furrows his brows as he crouches closer to the tiny blob ghost, pointing the EMF meter in its direction. It had only been two days since their dinner with Phantom and since they moved primarily to field observations. The more complex ghosts had been strangely silent, but even the small blob ghosts were proving fascinating now that their focus wasn’t on destruction—and the small creatures seemed more friendly now that they were being approached with curiosity rather than fear. Maddie hypothesized that the ghosts were acutely attuned to emotions, like a sixth sense.

The little ghost let out a high-pitched trill, like a cat chirping. A smile tugged on the corner of Maddie’s lip.

Further observations were cut short, though, as the EMF meter spiked, letting out a shrill shriek. The blob ghost blinked out of existence at the sound. Maddie peered over Jack’s shoulder—the scale was off the chart, indicating a powerful ghost was nearby. Maddie’s hand itched for a gun. She bit the inside of her lip. A ghost of that power magnitude could be dangerous—could cause real damage—but interfering could be a violation of their truth.

Jack met her gaze and asked, “What do you want to do?”

Maddie shook her head. “I don’t—”

The sound of a loud crash a few blocks down cut her off. A car alarm started blaring. The crash didn’t sound like a car crash, though. Maddie’s eyes widened. It sounded like a ghost fight.

“To the GAV,” Jack said confidently. Maddie nodded. Both of them took off in a sprint, Jack reaching the Ghost Assault Vehicle first. He had the keys in the ignition, and the vehicle started as she opened the passenger door and jumped in. She flipped the ghost tracker on, scanning for which direction they needed to head in.
Three green dots appeared a few blocks away. “They are near the park,” Maddie reported.

No sooner than the words left Maddie’s mouth did Jack hit the gas, taking off down the road in the way that had made them infamous across Amity Park even before ghost attacks became a regular occurrence. Maddie reached toward the back to grab the Fenton Ecto-Pistols, bracing herself as Jack hit the turn. She slid the ecto-gun into her hip holster and passed the other to Jack. While the plan was to stay out of it, keep to observations, she also wasn’t going to go in completely unarmed.

As they neared the park, Jack dodged the cars and people running away. Clearly, they were headed in the right direction. Maddie sat back down just in time for Jack to slam on the breaks. Both of them jumped out of the GAV, taking in the damage.

In front of them, a black shadow of a ghost drove Phantom into the ground. Phantom let out a groan. Standing above him, the shadowy form solidified into a middle-aged woman with spiked red hair and a red suit. A second ghost in the form of a glowing green cougar stalked around the small crater Phantom laid in.

“What, are you giving up, little freak?” the woman laughed. Jack took a step forward to intervene; Maddie placed a hand on his forearm, stilling him and keeping them both at a distance—close enough to hear but far enough to not be a target. Jack’s whole face furrowed. Maddie tilted her head, gesturing towards the groups of civilians who still needed to be evacuated. Understanding her unspoken plan, Jack nodded. They split up, ushering people out of the park.

Phantom growled, pushing himself up onto his elbows, “You would like that, wouldn’t you, Spectra?”

“Oh, but then our delicious little game would be over.” The woman—Spectra—smirked, running her tongue over her canines. “And besides, if I didn’t play with you, who would, little freak?”

“I have friends, Spectra—besides, isn’t it a bit sad for you to be hanging out with a 17 year old?” Phantom spat, a bit of ectoplasm flying from his mouth.

Spectra scrunched her nose, clearly annoyed. Deciding to dig in deeper, she bit back, “But for how long? Hmm—you’re caught between worlds, little freak—not human enough for their world, not ghost enough for ours. No one will ever truly love you—your parents hate you, your ex-girlfriend hates you, it’s only a matter of time before they hate you too. Face it, you’ll always be alone!”

Maddie paused as she got a young, terrified couple to their feet. The two girls were sprinting, but Maddie was frozen as Spectra’s words ran through her mind. Even the ghosts knew there was something different about the ghost boy. But more than that fact, Maddie’s heart clenched at the idea of Phantom feeling so utterly alone.

“Yah know, Spectra,” Phantom gritted out as he shakingly rose to his feet, “after three and a half years, I thought you would get some new material.”

He smiled—all teeth, a feral, predatory type of grin that flashed his small fangs. Spectra seethed.

“I’ll show you new material, brat!” Spectra dove forward; her fingertips stretched into long black claws. Phantom hardly had time to brace himself as her talons sunk into his shoulders. A gasp caught Maddie’s throat. She stood frozen, watching as the two ghosts crashed to the ground and Phantom bit back a yelp.

Before Phantom could push her off, Spectra pulled a sleek black baton from her hip. As she flicked it forward, the two prongs at the end crackled with electricity. She plunged the taser into Phantom’s abdomen.

Phantom couldn’t hold back his scream this time, his whole body arching as he let out a horrible screech. Spectra threw her head back, cackling. “What, can’t handle a little shock?”

Maddie felt something wet slide down her cheek—a tear. All she could hear was that haunting sound echoing in her ears—a child crying out in pain. Her whole heart thudded in her chest. She remembered the Lichtenberg scar that covered the young ghost’s arm—his death mark. They had known for a while that Phantom was especially prone to electrical attacks—for a while, she and Jack focused primarily on weaponry that utilized that weakness—but now, as she heard the young boy cry out, it hit her. Phantom had died. Painfully. Electricity had racked his body, leaving him caught between life and death as a ghost. He had been someone’s son, and he died far too young. And now, he did everything he could to protect a town that despised him.

Maddie’s legs trembled under her—she wanted to run forward to help; she wanted to collapse in tears.

She ended up not having to make that choice. As Spectra raised the baton to strike again, a blast of ecto energy shot her in the side. It wasn’t Phantom—the ghost boy lay, panting for air, in the crater. Maddie’s gaze tracked the trajectory of the shot to find Jack at the other end of an ecto-gun. His lips were set in a thin line, and tears ran down his cheeks. He had put together the same pieces she had.

Phantom didn’t wait long to catch his breath, rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. As he looked up, his eyes caught hers. They widened in shock, then furrowed in confusion as he looked at Jack and then back to Maddie. Putting together that they had helped, he beamed. The smile was a bit off-putting, considering the ectoplasm leaking from his shoulders and the growing bruise on his forehead, but Maddie couldn’t help smiling back.

“Nice shot, Da—Jack!” Phantom hollered.

“You get her, kid!” Jack shouted back. Phantom gave a two-finger salute then stood to face Spectra, who was only just staggering to her knees.

Phantom launched himself forward, slamming Spectra back into the ground. “Doesn’t look like I’m so alone after all.”

“So what?” Spectra hissed, “They help you in a little ghost fight—they’ll never accept you.”

Phantom rolled his eyes. He unclipped the Fenton Thermos from his belt and aimed it at Spectra. “I think you need some soup time.”

Spectra shrieked, clawing wildly as Phantom pressed the side button and sucked her inside. Once she had dissipated into the modified soup container, Phantom flipped the lid back on. He exhaled heavily, stood back up, and wiped the sweat from his brow. A smile still tugged on his lips as he re-clipped the thermos to his belt. His shoulders relaxed.

Jack let out a cheer, rushing up to Phantom’s side. “That was amazing, Phantom!” Jack said as he patted the ghost boy on the back. A green blush crept across Phantom’s face. He rubbed the back of his neck in that same shy way Danny did whenever he received praise.

“Thanks—uh, all in a day’s work?” Phantom joked.

“She seemed like a tough one, and you really hung in there,” Jack continued. “Do you want help getting patched up? It looks like she got your shoulder pretty bad.”

Phantom rolled his shoulder, testing the injury. “I think I can handle it—thanks for the assist, though.”

Maddie watched on as Jack and the ghost boy talked. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of green. Then she remembered. There were two ghosts when she and Jack arrived.

Maddie didn’t have time for words as the second ghost pounced. It had taken on the form of a cougar, foaming at the mouth and claws extended. It lunged at Phantom—it would sink its claws into his back and tear him to shreds.

That was, if Maddie’s feet weren’t already moving. She didn’t even think about it; she just lurched forward, arms outstretched as she pushed Phantom aside. Phantom, unbraced, toppled over easily, but Maddie’s relief was short-lived.

A blinding pain tore through her shoulder. The ghost’s claws pierced her shoulder, dragging downward and clipping her side. Maddie gasped, her head dizzy. She fell to her knees. Jack shouted.

“MOM!!!” Danny screamed under her.

No, that wasn’t right. An ectoblast went off overhead. Danny wasn’t at the park. It was just her and Jack and Phantom. Maddie furrowed her brow. The icy body under her gently shimmied its way out and rolled her onto her back. She bit back a yelp as her shoulder throbbed in protest.

Glowing green eyes, pupils blown wide and desperate, stared down at her. Phantom. He looked her over frantically. Another ectoblast went off, but not from Phantom. His white gloved hands were quickly being coated red as he tried to keep pressure on the worst of her wound. The cool of his touch soothed her burning nerves. Blood loss was happening too fast, Maddie concluded through the haze of the pain. Her vision blurred—one Phantom becoming two and one again.

Why would Phantom call her mom? Maddie asked herself. Her tongue was too heavy to move, and her mouth too dry to open; she couldn’t ask out loud. She blinked. White hair became black, and green eyes became blue. But it was Phantom kneeling next to her, wasn’t it? Maddie furrowed her brow, attempting to get the world to stand still.

Her vision focused for a moment, the one mesh of features separating out again. Jack was now kneeling next to Phantom. “Keep pressure the best you can. We have to get her to the hospital.”

“This is my fault,” Phantom’s voice cracked. His arms shook. “I should have been paying more attention—Bertrand—”

“Focus, Phantom,” Jack commanded, kind but firm, “You just keep pressure the best you can while I lift. We’ll transfer her to the GAV. It will be faster than the ambulance.”

Maddie’s vision faded. She couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, her whole body numb. One question still ran through her mind—why did Phantom call her mom?

Chapter Text

The world came back to Maddie slowly, first with an annoying beeping, then with a slight chill and the feel of a threadbare sheet. The mattress under her was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Her side throbbed, and her mouth parched. Still heavy and blurry, her eyes blinked open.

As the world came back into focus, Maddie’s gaze first landed on a familiar but unexpected face.

“Dr. Mendoza?” Maddie’s voice cracked, as if her mouth was still remembering how to form words. Dr. Mendoza flashed her a smile, her glasses slipping down her nose as she moved from Maddie’s side closer to her face. Dr. Mendoza’s presence meant that she was in the hospital. Maddie’s face furrowed as she tried to put together the puzzle pieces—the hospital, her throbbing side, blue eyes, stark white hair, a ghost attack.

Maddie gasped, lurching forward as her memory came flooding back, “Phantom!”

“Woah, Mads,” A hand was on her shoulder, gently pushing her back into the mattress, “let’s not move too quick.”

Looking over, Maddie soaked in the sight of her husband. A smile tugged on the corner of his lips, but his eyes looked tired, and his hair was disheveled. He kept his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. The tension left Maddie’s back. She let herself rest in the bed.

“Mr. Fenton is right—you lost a lot of blood. You’re fortunate Phantom and your husband were able to get you here so quickly,” Dr. Mendoza explained as she checked Maddie’s pupils, “Phantom kept pressure on your wound and wouldn’t leave your side until you were in the operating room.”

The ghost boy saved her life. This probably wasn’t the first time he saved her life, just the first time she realized and appreciated it. The image of his tear-streaked face as his shaky hands pressed onto her burning side seared itself into her mind. His tears had made his neon green eyes flicker blue in a way that made Maddie’s chest feel hollow in a way she couldn’t name. A frown creased her brow.

Jack took her hand in his. “Jazz is in the hallway. I tried to call Danny, but I just reached his voicemail. I’m hoping Jazz got in touch with him.”

Maddie’s sight flickered to the window on the door. She couldn’t see Jazz from where she was sitting. Then, Phantom paced past the window, running a hand through his stark white hair. “Phantom’s here still?”

Dr. Mendoza shook her head with a tsk, moving away from the bed so she could fill in Maddie’s chart. “The kid hasn’t left, has barely sat down. I had to threaten to cuff him again to even look at his wounds.”

“Is he okay?”
Dr. Mendoza rolled her eyes, “Stubborn but fine. The wounds were already healing well when I looked them over.”

“Can you let them in?” Maddie cleared her throat, “Jazz and Phantom?”

Jack’s gaze flickered over to the doctor. She nodded, “You are recovering well. We will probably release you before the end of the day; we just want to keep an eye out for ecto-contamination. Although, you two are our experts on ecto-contamination anyhow. You can probably spot the signs better than I can.”

Maddie only nodded, still staring out the door. Jazz had stood up, placing her hands on Phantom’s shoulders, grounding him. She couldn’t see Jazz’s face, but she could see Phantom bite his lower lip, his little fang poking out. Whatever Jazz was saying visibly calmed Phantom. His expression softened.

Jack’s hand left her shoulder as he went to open the door. As he turned the knob, both Phantom and Jazz straightened, turning toward the door expectantly.

Jack opened the door. “She’s up; she’d like you both to come in,” he said gently.

“Both?” Phantom’s echoey voice warbled. Jack nodded, taking a step back to let the two children in. Taking the invitation, Jazz stepped forward, but Phantom stood still. The calm he held a minute ago vanished in seconds. Jazz noticed that he hadn’t followed. Turning, she took his hand and tugged him forward. Hesitantly, he approached Maddie’s bedside. He stared into Maddie’s eyes, a million emotions flickering across his face.

“How is she?” Jazz asked Dr. Mendoza, cutting through the silence.

“Your mom will recover just fine,” Dr. Mendoza informed them, “she may have some nausea after the transfusion, and she will most likely have a scar, but she’s okay.”

Phantom exhaled, relief flooding his face. Dr. Mendoza nodded to Maddie, dismissing herself from the room. Maddie moved her hand, reaching out to rest it on the ghost boy’s arm. “Thank you, Phantom, you saved me.”

Phantom flinched, pulling away from her touch. His face crumpled. “You only got hurt because of me. I am so sorry, Mo-Maddie—If I hadn’t been so stupid, if I had paid more attention, I wouldn’t have forgotten Bertrand was still prowling around, and you would have never gotten hurt. I—”

“Danny!” Jazz cut Phantom off, shoving his shoulder, “Not everything is your fault!”

Phantom let out a mock ‘ow,’ rubbing his arm where she pushed him. He opened his mouth as if to rebut her, but Maddie was quicker, “Jazz is right, Phantom, you are not responsible for the actions of others. I know in the past I would have blamed you, and it is hard to trust us after everything we’ve said and done, but please trust that I am being sincere when I say thank you. Thank you for saving me, for protecting this town.” Maddie grasped Phantom’s hand again. This time he didn’t pull away. Maddie gave his hand a little squeeze. “Those things that ghost said to you…I hope you know that you aren’t alone. Jack and I are here for you. When I get home, you are coming back to FentonWorks to have dinner with us again, alright, young man?”

Maddie may have turned on her ‘mom voice’ there, but it did the trick. A green blush flushed over Phantom’s face, a small smile peeking out.

“Okay,” Phantom assented, squeezing her hand back.

Jack clapped a hand on the ghost boy’s back, sending him forward a stumbled half-step. “Welcome to the family, Danny-boy!” Jack boomed, then furrowed his brow, “Huh, that’s gonna be hard to get used to. Two Danny’s!”

“Uh,” Phantom slipped out from between Maddie and Jack, rubbing the back of his neck, “Just Phantom is fine, really. And I should be going!” Phantom blinked out of existence, vanishing from the room.

Jazz turned to both of them. “What is going on?”

Maddie sighed, ushering her daughter in. Jazz tucked herself next to her mom’s side, like she was still a small child. “I know it seems strange after everything, but I think your father and I have finally seen what you have been trying to tell us since the ghost boy first appeared. He needs people. He needs us.”

“What changed your mind?” Jazz asked. And that was the question. When exactly had Maddie changed her mind? Was it one grand moment or was it a dozen tiny ones? She couldn’t place it. There was just a feeling in her gut that she needed to protect the boy like she protected her own children.

Before Maddie could respond, her youngest child came sprinting into the room, gasping for air.

“ImsorryImlatemyphonewasoffandIwasatthelibrary,” Danny explained, not even taking a breath as his words gushed out.

Maddie chuckled, beckoning him over to her other side with the wave of a hand. “Get over here.”

Careful of the many wires and her bandages, Danny tucked himself into her side. He was cool to the touch. Maddie gently kissed his forehead. Phantom said he was only 17 during his fight with Spectra. The same age as her son. And he had died. He died, and for so long he had felt alone.

“I love you both so much,” Maddie whispered.

Danny raised an eyebrow, meeting her gaze. “Love you too, mom.”

Chapter Text

Maddie sat at the kitchen table, reading over field observation notes while Jack stood over the stove, prepping supper and humming under his breath. Despite her shoulder and side healing up nicely over the last two weeks, Jack refused to let her do any chores around the house, which included the cooking. It was both ridiculous and sweet, and Maddie appreciated the chance to slow down and spend more time with her family. She and Jazz even managed a rare ‘girls-day’ before she had to head back to Harvard. Jazz had called last night to let her and Jack know that she made it safely back to campus.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, pulling Maddie from her reading. Danny rounded the corner, backpack slung over his shoulder, and his hair an unruly mess. Maddie set down her notes, turning to face her son. A smile tugged on the corner of his lips—he seemed lighter over the past few weeks in a way that he hadn’t appeared since freshman year of high school, like a weight was lifted. She and Jack had been worried when he started skipping classes and his grades began to slip. He had always seemed on edge and uncomfortable, but now, only a week away from starting his senior year, he was…reinvigorated.

“Hey, Mom, I’m off to Tuck’s for our last week of summer movie marathon night!” Danny leaned against the door frame.

“Ah!” Jack spun around, “Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay for supper, Dann-o? I’m making my famous Fenton Fajitas, and Phantom is coming over!”

Danny chuckled, “Sam’s folks are making her go with them to Belgium before school starts—this is our last chance for a pre-school movie night. I’m sure I’ll be having your fajitas soon, though.”

Jack snapped his fingers, “Ah shucks! Next time, then; have fun, kiddo.”

“Love you, Danny. Tell Sam and Tucker we say hi,” Maddie said, giving a half wave.

Danny waved a peace sign, shouting, “Love you guys too,” as he pushed off from the door and headed out. The front door clicked behind him. Maddie shook her head—some things never changed.

Maddie shifted her attention back to Jack. “Are you sure I can’t help?”

“Nonsense,” Jack tsked, “You’re supposed to be resting. What time did Phantom say that he’d be coming?”

Maddie rolled her eyes at her husband’s antics, then looked at the microwave clock. Phantom should be arriving at any minute. Maddie had been genuine with her invitation at the hospital, but Phantom was still hesitant to accept it. Since the hospital, Maddie and Jack had run support for Phantom during a few bigger ghost fights—helping evacuate civilians, providing first-aid, and a well-aimed thermos shot once. During the last ghost fight, Jack managed to convince the young ghost to come over for his famous Fenton Fajitas.

Before Maddie could respond to Jack’s question, the doorbell rang. Maddie stood, leaving Jack to the cooking as she went to open the front door. Opening the door, she found herself staring at an empty front step. Brows furrowed, Maddie considered the empty air and then remembered the last time she answered the door to empty air.

“Phantom?” She asked.

Slowly, Phantom phased back into the visible plane. He was wearing a black baseball cap over his glowing white hair and an oversized black bomber jacket that reminded Maddie of something Danny’s friend Sam would wear. Phantom rubbed a hand over the nap of his neck, a green blush on his cheeks. “Hey, Dr. Fenton.”

“Call me Maddie, please,” Maddie smiled, taking a step back, “come on in. Jack is just about done cooking.”

Phantom gave a little nod, crossing the threshold. Maddie led him to the kitchen, where Jack was starting to set out the plates.

“You made it!” Jack beamed as Phantom stepped into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Phantom smiled back, “Couldn’t miss those fajitas, could I? Do you need help setting the table?”
“Hmm,” Jack examined the tables, “I think we just need cups, then we’ll be ready to dig in.”

Maddie shifted to grab the cups from their cupboard, but Phantom cut her off, stepping in front of her as he walked across the kitchen to the cupboard just left of the sink where they kept the glasses and mugs. Phantom reached out a hand, as if to open the cupboard, but then stopped short. Swiveling around, he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Huh, where do you guys keep your glasses?” Phantom asked, gaze flicking between the two of them. Maddie tilted her head. He was confident one second ago, but now he was shuffling his feet. Maddie noted the oddity, but set it aside—he was a ghost in the town’s resident ghost hunter's home. That would be off-putting, even if they were returning to their research roots.

Maddie nodded her head. “Just that cupboard there in front of you,” she supplied. Phantom exhaled and turned back to his task, grabbing the glasses, filling them up, and bringing them to the table. Jack lifted the hot pan over the ghost boy’s head to set it on the table. Phantom ducked under him like it was a practiced motion. Maddie smiled faintly at the scene, pulling out her own seat and sitting. Jack kissed her on the cheek as he sat down. Phantom took off his hat and hung it on his chair, joining them at the table.

“Let’s eat!” Jack clapped his hands and started serving.

As they dished up plates, Jack asked Phantom about his day. Phantom started retelling his daily adventures, which today mostly featured a few blob ghosts and the box ghost. Jack excitedly interjected with questions here and there, especially as Phantom started to explain the different levels of blob ghosts and how he classified “blob-ghost” and “ecto-puses” as separate sub-groups. Phantom’s eyes lit up, literally, in a way that amplified his every emotion. His excitement mirrored Jack’s. Phantom must have really enjoyed science before his—before.

Phantom started to wrap his fajita as he talked, tucking in both sides before rolling, taking a bit of extra cheese to put in the overlapping tortilla. Maddie tilted her head. Danny did the same thing whenever they had fajitas after Tucker had come over once and had done it.

It was such a small thing, but Maddie stopped eating, just staring at Phantom for a moment as he continued to talk between bites, hands moving animatedly—Danny talked with his hands too, especially when he was talking about something he was passionate about, like space or the latest horror flick. Her son and the ghost boy were the same age. She had made the observation before, but now, as she looked at the shape of his jaw, the freckles on his cheeks, and the messiness of his hair, Maddie sucked in a breath. Phantom had a little scar on the bridge of his nose, easy to miss unless a person knew it was there. Maddie knew to look because her son had the same scar from crashing his bike on the sidewalk, and his face taking the brunt of the landing.

Her son, who always questioned their stances on ghosts. Her son, who had only just started to open up to them again as they built their truce with Phantom.

Phantom, whom Spectra called a freak, not human, and not ghost enough, like he was half of each. Phantom, who had been accidentally calling Maddie and Jack ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ since his first appearance. Phantom, who was a ghost who breathed and had a pulse and who’s ectoplasm contained traces of iron like human blood, like he was both and.

Maddie stood up. Jack and Phantom turned to her, their conversation abruptly ending. Jack called her name, but Maddie shifted around the table, moving to stand in front of Phantom. She placed her hands on his cheeks, tilting his head up to get a clear look at his face. She searched his face, running her thumb over his cheek. His eyes were wide and curious, bright green, but there was a moment when they looked a familiar blue when she had been lying in the dirt, bleeding. She had dismissed it as blood loss, but now she realized what she had known in her heart for a while.

“Danny?” Her voice cracked, barely a whisper.

Phantom bit his lip. A nervous habit Maddie observed several times over the summer—the same nervous habit she had, that she passed down to her son. How had she missed that? How had she missed so much, so many signs for nearly four years? He must have felt so alone, so scared, and they hunted him for that. Maddie’s stomach turned; tears welled in her eyes.

Phantom let out a weak chuckle, “Huh? Um-I, I don’t—”

Maddie shook her head. “Danny, I’m so sorry.”

“Mads, what’s going on?” Jack asked, glancing between the two of them. Phantom kept his gaze on her. He reached up, taking her hands in his. Gently, he moved her hands down and stood, not letting go.

He took a deep breath, then smiled. “Hi, Mom.”

A bright light flashed, flooding the room. Maddie blinked back. As the light faded, she watched as white hair turned black, green eyes blue, and once cold hands turned warm. In front of her stood her son, still holding her hands, because it had always been her son standing in front of her. Danny watched her carefully, waiting for her reaction. Maddie couldn’t contain herself. Throwing herself forward, she wrapped her son up in a tight hug, holding him as close as possible.

“Heh,” Danny laughed a little, his voice wet like on the brink of tears, but he wrapped his arms around her, “be careful for the bandages.”

“Danny?” Jack asked, breaking up their hug, “You’re…Phantom?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, “Uh, yeah. I’m Phantom. I’m sorry for not telling you both earlier. I just didn’t know how, and then you both hated Phantom, and I just didn’t know what to do, and then you started working with Phantom, and I wasn’t sure what to think, and Jazz wanted me to say something before she left for college again, but I didn’t know the right time. I mean, how do you even start that conversation?”
“How?” Jack looked bewildered, slowly standing and moving around the table, his gaze searching like hers had been. Jack didn’t need to finish his question for Maddie and Danny to understand what he was really asking. ‘How did you die?’ Which was really, ‘How did we not know that you died?’

Maddie remembered the Lichtenberg scar and how Danny responded to electrical attacks. “It was the portal accident, wasn’t it?”

Danny shuffled his feet, head turned down. “Yeah. I just wanted to show Tuck and Sam what you guys were working on. It didn’t work, so I didn’t think about checking if it was plugged in. I learned, um, what the problem was. The on switch was on this inside.”

Jack swore under his breath. The tears building in Maddie’s eyes spilled over. Danny’s head whipped up. He raised his hands. “Woah, hey, it’s okay. Really. It was my fault for breaking literally every lab safety rule you guys ever set, and now I get to help people!”

Jack shook his head. “This could never be your fault. We are so sorry, Danny. Words can’t even begin to cover it.”

Maddie rested a hand on Danny’s arm. “And we’re sorry for everything that came after, for making a home where you felt unsafe and where you didn’t feel like you could come to us. We hurt you.”

“You didn’t know it was me,” Danny tried, like he had built up a thousand excuses for their behavior already. Because he must. He must have argued against himself a million times since the accident, trying to defend them.

“That doesn’t matter,” Jack supplied, “we hurt you, and you have every right to be angry with us.”

“I’m not angry,” Danny spoke softly, “Can I…can I just have a hug?”

Jack didn’t wait for Danny to finish the question before scooping him up, embracing him tightly. Jack reached out with his other arm, pulling Maddie into the hug. Danny melted into their arms. Maddie kissed her son’s forehead.

“We are so proud of you,” Jack boomed. Danny laughed. They would be alright.

Chapter Text

They were alright.

Things hadn’t been necessarily easy in the month after Maddie had put together the puzzle pieces and Danny revealed that he was Phantom. There had been some hard conversations, including a few family zoom meetings with Jazz, and a figuring out of boundaries and expectations, but overall, things were better. Danny was more open with them. They had come up with a system to help communicate about ghost attacks so she and Jack could cover during the school day while also being able to call Danny for backup if needed, which meant senior year classes were already going better. Sam and Tucker still seemed wary and unsure around them post-reveal, used to being overprotective of their friend. They saw how much happier Danny was, though, and so they put aside their hesitancy for his sake. Maddie hoped to earn their trust back over time.

Now, though, Maddie sat in the GAV outside of Casper High, watching as Danny came out of the school doors with his backpack slung over his shoulder. It was only one o’clock, but they had an appointment. Danny opened the passenger door of the GAV and hopped in.

“Hey sweetie, ready to go?” Maddie put the vehicle in drive as Danny put on his seatbelt.

Danny groaned, “Do we have to go to the doctors? Can’t you and Dad handle anything that comes up?”

“It’s important that we get a clear base level, and while I have a doctorate, I am not a doctor,” Maddie tsked, “plus, I want to make sure that you have someone to go to that isn’t your dad or I, in case something happens, and you can’t get to us.”

Danny rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Maddie shook her head but continued onward to Amity Hospital. Danny remained grumpy as they reached the hospital and checked in. Now in the exam room, Danny began fidgeting, biting his lower lip. Maddie ran a soothing hand over his shoulder. Danny leaned into her touch.

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, the door opened, and in walked a familiar face.

“Danny Fenton?” Dr. Reyna Mendoza asked, looking up from her clipboard.

Danny furrowed his brows. “Doc?”

Maddie smiled, reaching out her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Dr. Mendoza.”

Dr. Mendoza shook her hand. “Dr. Fenton, hello. The nurse said you requested me specifically. I assumed we had a…different sort of patient.” Her gaze flicked back to Danny. Danny frowned. Maddie held back a wince at the tension, knowing it was a risk, but if any doctor would be sympathetic, it would be Reyna.

“You are surprisingly qualified for my son’s case,” Maddie attempted to ease the tension. Dr. Mendoza only looked more confused, but she simply shook her head and set her clipboard on the table.

“The nurse also said that you requested I take your vitals, so let’s take a look?” Dr. Mendoza pulled out her stethoscope. Danny unfurled just enough to let her place the metal on his chest. Dr. Mendoza’s eyebrows rose as she listened to his heart and then leaned in closer, listening harder. Pulling back, she grabbed her thermometer and read his forehead once, twice, three times. Dr. Mendoza stood up and looked between the two of them. “What is going on?”

“That bad?” Danny joked.

“You shouldn’t be conscious,” Dr. Mendoza exclaimed, a serious edge to her voice. “What is happening?”

Maddie nodded to her son, giving him a silent go-ahead. Danny rocked back.

“Are you sure about this?”

“She made sure you were safe last time you were here,” Maddie reassured him.

Danny stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “She also took a blood sample without my permission.”

“To make sure you didn’t go into septic shock,” Maddie leveled, then more gently, “Danny, let us help you.”

Danny took a deep breath, then set his shoulders. As he exhaled, he let a glowing light flood over him. Dr. Mendoza flinched back, but Maddie watched, still fascinated by Danny’s transformation. In a second, Phantom sat where Danny used to be, although Danny hadn’t really gone anywhere. Phantom was always her son.

Dr. Mendoza gasped, “You’re Phantom? How?”

“I’m half ghost—still human but also not?” Danny shrugged, “I don’t really know how it works, but it makes my vitals all wonky.”

“Wonky,” Dr. Mendoza echoed. Absorbing this new information, Dr. Mendoza closed her eyes and inhaled and exhaled three times before opening them again. “Okay, okay. Half-ghosts are a thing. That…that actually explains a lot.”

Dr. Mendoza ran a hand through her hair. Pivoting like she was about to pace, Dr. Mendoza paused as she met Maddie’s gaze. “Wait, Phantom is your son. You’re a ghost hunter. You didn’t even recognize him as sentient a few months ago.”

Maddie frowned. The accusation was true, but it hurt to remember who she was. How much she failed. Dr. Mendoza didn’t wait for her response. “Danny, are you safe? I can help you get moved out of the home. CPS wouldn’t need to know about your…more ghostly qualities. I-“

“Woah!” Danny raised his hands, cutting her off, “We are not calling CPS. I am fine. I am safe. My parents didn’t know; they couldn’t know. Who would even guess that a ghost has an alternate identity? Please.”

Dr. Mendoza puffed but stopped her tirade. Maddie rubbed her arm. Dr. Mendoza would be in the right calling child protective services. In the days after learning Danny’s identity, she had even suggested that Danny move in with one of his friends or with Jazz for his senior year to feel safer. Danny had balked at the idea, though. He refused so adamantly that Maddie had regretted raising the suggestion.

“Fine,” Dr. Mendoza assented, hands on her hips, “but we are doing a full rundown of your vitals in both forms, and then we will have a serious conversation about the level of danger that you put yourself in and the best ways to treat you. And we are setting up regular check-ins so I can verify that you are safe in your home.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Relax, Doc. Besides, I’ll be 18 soon! You don’t have to treat me like a kid.”

“Eighteen, he says, like that isn’t still a kid,” Dr. Mendoza tsked under her breath and started taking Danny’s vitals in his ghost form. “Let’s just not need to bandage many more burns.”