Half a Remembered Dream

Jack blinks, and looks around. Seeing a couch, a TV, and a table, he then proceeds to realize that he is in the living room. Why is he in the living room? He racks his brain, but nothing comes to the forefront of his mind. Was he watching the TV? Reading? Fixing something? Going to the kitchen? Ah, that must be it. He was going to the kitchen, and he needed fudge. He needed fudge right now.

Arriving at the kitchen, Jack is rummaging through the cupboards to search for a clean plate, when suddenly, a voice sounds from behind him.

"Hello, Mr. Jack Fenton. My name is Mr. Charles."

Jack starts, then turns around. Only now does he realize that the house was strangely quiet. The man standing in front of him looks to be about 40 years old, had black hair streaked with blonde, and piercing eyes. The eyes look at him, reassuring, calming, and all-knowing. He speaks once more.

"You are in a dream, Mr. Fenton. This is all a dream."

Jack raises an eyebrow.

"Oh? Well, then, this should work in here."

Then he opens a door built in the side of the fridge, and pulls out a blueprint of some sort.

The man, or Mr. Charles as we should call him, stares at Jack's strange behavior, puzzled.

"Ah hem, Mr. Fenton?"

The man in question hardly looks up from his poring over the large blue paper.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm talking with my subconscious."

Mr. Charles coughs into his fist.

"Excuse me?"

Jack glances at the strange man, and starts to explain.

"You see, your subconscious is the one that supply youwith ideas. If you are right and this is all a dream, I am now directly communicating with my subconscious, and I'm making the best I can out of it. Which is making new gadgets!"

A flabbergasted look ghosts across Mr. Charles' face. One of his all-knowing eyes twitch.

Oh, what have I gotten myself into? His face screams, this is just strange in so many levels.

Outside, he tries to do his job.

"Mr. Fenton, you are going to wake up in a few minutes."

Jack flips the blueprint over, hmmm-ing.

"When you wake up, check your daughter's room. Especially under her bed."

This gets the man's attention.

"What? Why?"

"There's something you need know under there."

Jack frowns.

"Won't Jazzypants mind if I do that?"

The guest of the house put his hand on the bigger man's shoulder.

"Jack. Jasmine went to a camp, remember? She and your son, Danny."

"Huh. I don't remember hearing about that."

"Trust me, Mr. Fenton," let this task be over "I'm part of this dream. I'm part of your projections by your subconscious. I hear everything you hear, and while you may forget it, I do not."

Jack hmm-s again and rubs his chin in thought. Mr. Charles holds his breath.

"Could be, I guess."

And with that, Mr. Charles breaths again, his nose filling with the scent of fudge. He then checks his watch, and tells Jack that;

"You will be waking up in three…two…one…"

Jack's eyes slammed open. He was lying on his bed in the room where he and Mads shared. Groaning, he clutched his head, trying to remember….something… There was something he needed to do…

Ah, he got it! He should check Jazz's room!

Grinning ear to ear with triumph, he bounces up from the bed and jogs down the hallway. The house was empty, Jazzerincess having gone to camp with Danno. And Mads…? Jack faltered a bit, before remembering the note on the bedside table that said that she was out shopping. And with that, he passed Danny's room and got to his daughter's room.

Wow. She likes pink, eh? He thought as he looked around. Her room had papers spilled over her desk, a computer that was turned off, a bed, a closet aaaand wait. Bed.

Jack walked towards the pink bed and stooped to look under it. A lone box was there, named simply 'Danny'.

Danny? Awww… My girl cares so much for her brother that she has a box for him!

Jack pulled said box out and put it on the pink bed, sitting down next to it. The bed sagged under his weight, but he paid this no heed.

The box was plain cardboard, brown, and looked like it had held some shoes earlier in its box-life.

With the enthusiasm of a kid opening his birthday present, he ripped open the top of the box-and frowned.

Yes, the box was about Danny, but wasn't about who he thought it would be. There were hundreds of newspaper clippings about the ghost boy, Danny Phantom!

Why would Jazzypants keep these? Is she doing some research on rogue ghosts? Yes, that could be. Unless…

Unless she wants to pursue the career of ghost hunting!

Excited by this new revelation, Jack's wide grin returned. He also felt a small tear fall from the corner of his eye, and reached to wipe it.

"Finally Jazz comes to accept the family legacy!" He boomed to no one in particular, and started to shift through the various newspapers in the box. Various articles appeared. The one about the King ghost attacking the town was particularly amusing to read.

There were also pictures. Colored pictures, black and white pictures, and so on. While looking at these, Jack came across a particular picture that looked like it had been placed there a few days ago. How he knew this? He had this feeling that this was new, and that he needed to look at this closely. And that's what he did.

It was a black and white picture, common in the papers, but someone had colored it. Here, Phantom's hair was black and his eye was blue, and had a smiley face drawn over his usually cocky grin.

Eh?

Jack did a double take. When he recovered, he started a monologue in his head that went like this;

This-this looked a lot like…Danny. My son Danny, that is. But if Danny is Phantom, and Phantom is Danny…Their first names match…That just isn't possible. Someone can't be dead and alive at the same time, could they? It was proven when Schrödinger stuffed a cat into his gas chamber…

Just assuming that this was possible, then how? Shouldn't one be stuck in limbo to achieve such a state? The in-between state. A coma? Hmm. But a person with a coma couldn't walk around, could they? Is Danny in a coma? He's a vegetable?

Hurrrgh.

His mind did something like a fizzing back-flip, and spouted an immediate panic-recation.

I need fudge.

Still holding the confusing news article in one hand, he stood up from the pink bed and started to walk towards the door.

Halfway there, everything lurched and he found himself falling to the floor with a 'thump'

He grunted, distoriented. Huh? Where was he? He was on the living room floor. The sofa next to where he was lying had a white blanket on it. He touched it. Warm. The blanket was still warm.

So, he had been sleeping on the couch?

A dream?

A dream within a dream?

Charles?

He had a feeling that he was missing something…Something about a cat…and vegetables…and the kitchen?

Standing up, Jack grimaced and put a hand to his head. Falling down from the couch onto the floor was not a good idea.

He needed some fudge now.

And he lurched to the kitchen to get one, avoiding the veggies on the middle of the table and using a cat-shaped plate, just in case. Then he pulled out a piece of paper and wrote

'Fenton Dream Getter' on the top.

Then he started planning the device that managed to pop into his head.

Maybe he should sleep on the couch more often.

Meanwhile, outside the house…

A man, who we came to know as Mr. Charles, slipped inside a black van.

"So, how'd it go?" the man in the driver's seat asked.

Mr. Charles grimaced.

"We underestimated him by a mile. His mind is complicated, and only he can make sense of it. Though he looks and acts like an idiot, he has a superior intellect hidden down there."

Charles slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small object. He pulled out a clipboard from the back of a chair and spun the object on the clipboard. It spun for a while, tipped, and fell down. With this, Charles sighed with relief.

After a small silence, the driver spoke.

"So now what?"

"Now? Now we go home."

At the strange look the driver gave him, he added; "To our respective homes."

Then he shuddered and said;

"I don't want to look at fudge ever again."

"You are such a simpleton." The driver commented, and the car pulled out.

A/N. I watched Inception today! *waits for cries of "finally!" to die down* and I just HAD to write something for it, so here it is!

edited 2010/09/11: Ok, Jads here. For those of you who have already been reading this, you may notice that this chapter used to be the fourth one. You see, I'm doing a bit of an experiment here, so bear with me, eh? :D

What I'm trying to test is 'first impressions', and whether putting this up first will change any traffic to my story or not... Or it's just that I'm debating if I should take the former chapter one (now chapter three) down. Whatever. :P

So, see you all next update!

~Jads