Author: Sometime season 3, pre phantom planet. Just a little one-shot about our favorite prickly bachelor...

Disclaimer: Nothing about Danny Phantom belongs to me.

The Lack Thereof

Vlad sat at the head of the long table in his library and sighed, pushing around a few books, not really looking for anything in particular. Another deep sigh made him pause and frown deeply.

"Why this deep...melancholy? I have everything! Everything! Power! Wealth! I'm feared in the Ghost Zone and the human world, and everything either realm has to offer is at my fingertips! I have no reason to be so...so..." Vlad stood with a scowl, the chair screeching and gouging scratches into the hardwood floor. While this normally would have worried the billionaire, it held little importance at the moment—he needed to figure out what was wrong with him!

"Look at everything I've done! I control the world marketplace! I'm known everywhere and people fall over themselves trying to please me. What am I missing? What is causing this feeling? I lack nothing!" Vlad groused to himself, pacing the length of his substantial library, uncomforted by the familiar green and gold color scheme.

Love.

Vlad frowned. "What?"

You lack love.

"Nonsense," he murmured, ignoring the hollow ache in his chest that told him it was the truth. "It's only an emotion. It's transient, ephemeral. Unimportant."

Then what do you feel for Maddie?

Vlad stopped his pacing and a hand grabbed the soft cloth of his robe over his heart, a flash of pain crossing his face before he mercilessly shook it away. "She's the one who has made the mistake of staying with Jack. She's...she's rejected me time and time again. She doesn't see how much I care for her, how she was, is, the only person for me. But..." a familiar, oddly comforting anger coiled within him, "she is with that bumbling buffoon who ruined my life," he snarled.

You're jealous of him, aren't you?

"Of course I am!" he cried, hands slamming down onto the table, displacing some papers. "He has her! He has Daniel, Jasmine...he has a family. People who...who care about him...about what happens to him...enough to...protect...him..." Vlad's voice had slowly faded over time, and his hands had curled into fists, even as his shoulder slumped in defeat. "He is the one who has everything. Me..." Vlad laughed softly, a broken sound full of bitterness. "I merely have life as a consolation prize."

He wanted to kill Jack so badly and take what should have been his.

But if you do and Maddie finds out...

"She'll hate me," he whispered, slumping into an over-sized chair, head tilting back to look at the high ceiling. "And I wouldn't be able to bear her hatred." He raised a hand to his face and covered his eyes, trying to banish the soul-deep heart-sickness that permeated his every fiber.

"I wonder," he murmured and let his hand fall to his side, "if I could have had Jack's happiness if I had married Maddie. Would I have a son like Daniel? A daughter like Jasmine? How would I be living? Or was I always destined for this...this...emptiness? This hollow existence?" He allowed himself to wander in his despair for a while longer before he stood, banishing the weakness.

It didn't matter. If he lacked anything, it obviously wasn't anything important. He would have bought, found, or taken anything that was truly necessary in his life. He was Vlad Masters, Vlad Plasmius. He feared no-one, lacked nothing.

So what if he was lonely?

He walked out of his library and down to his lab, where he could lose himself in plans for bending the entire world to his will; being on top of everything couldn't possibly be more lonely than where he was currently.