Maddie Fenton sighed and leaned back in her seat as the GAV pulled up out side their home. Jack had drove a great deal less reckless than usual back from the airport, something she was thankful for. Then again, he was probably just as worn out as she felt. The huntress sighed before turning to the back of the RV to check on her children.
Jazz had a book in her lap and was currently in the process of marking off her page with a bookmark, whilst Danny was slumped a little in his seat, his eyes looking heavy and his body tired. She couldn't blame him, not after all that had happened.
The Fenton's piled out of the large vehicle and made their way up the steps of Fenton works, where Maddie was quick to pull out her key and unlock the door.
"Would anyone like anything?" Maddie asked as they all but dumped their bags in the doorway. It was late, around 12:30, but she wasn't against making anything for her family, if any of them were hungry.
"I'm good, Mom." Jazz waved off as she made her way towards the stairs.
"Mh." Danny mumbled, nodding his head in agreement with his sister. He moved to follow after her, his strides slow and sluggish.
"I think we all just need a good nights sleep, Mads." Jack chuckled a little as he placed a giant hand on her dainty shoulder. "It's been quit a day." Maddie smiled at her husband before they followed after their children.
Jazz's door was slightly ajar when they made it upstairs and Maddie could see her daughter, already dressed in her pyjamas and pulling the blue headband out of her red hair, throwing the piece of cloth on her dresser.
"Goodnight, sweetie." The mother said as the teen slipped under the covers of her bed.
"Night, Mom." Jazz replied, practically passing out the second her head hit the pillow. Maddie smiled as she pulled the door shut, continuing down the hall until she found herself outside Danny's door, grabbing the handle and pushing it open.
Danny was standing near his bed, in the process of pulling his pyjama shirt over his head. Maddie's lips thinned when she caught sight of the large bruise on the side of her sons chest, but it was quickly cover by the shirt.
"Hey, Mom." Danny smiled when he noticed her standing in the doorway. Maddie returned the gesture, stepping further into the room. She notice he was wearing his cute NASA pjs; the ones with the long sleeved, white shirt with the NASA logo at the centre, and the fluffy, blue pants decorated with stars and little space shuttles; the ones she had gotten him for Christmas last year.
"Hey, honey." She replied sweetly, closing the gap between them. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired." Danny answered truthfully as he scratched the back of his head, tussling his midnight black hair. Maddie looked down at her boy, taking in the scabbed cuts and bruises that still littered his pale face. "Yeah, the ghosts weren't too keen on helping me at first." Danny said sheepishly when he noticed this.
Maddie smiled sadly at him, placing a gentle hand on his cheek, the skin felling soft and warm under her palm. "Go to sleep." She instructed him softly, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Ok." Danny whispered back, letting out a deep yawn before pulling back his blanket and collapsing into his bed. Maddie placed a light kiss on his forehead before moving towards the door.
"Nighty night, Danny."
"Nighty night, Mom."
Maddie closed the door gently behind her then made her way towards her own room. Jack was already in bed, his loud snores filling the air, making Maddie smile with a small shake of her head. The huntress hurriedly exchanged her jumpsuit for her pyjamas and slipped into bed beside her husband, sleep taking her quickly.
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It couldn't have been more than an hour before Maddie felt herself being woken by the sound of the door being slowly pushed open. She pushed herself up on her elbows and squinted into the darkness, instantly recognising the icy, blue eyes and slight frame that stood in the doorway.
"Danny?" she asked, her voice rough from sleep. The boy said nothing, simply walking further into the room and stopping at the end of the bed. What he did next made Maddie's eyebrows shoot up in surprised. She watched as Danny crawled onto the bed, climbing up on his hands and knees before pulling back the blanket and settling himself between his parents.
Maddie turned onto her side to stare bewilderingly at her son. He hadn't crawled into bed with them since he was seven, now fourteen, she was certain it was never going to happen again, yet, here he was.
She felt him roll over to face her and found herself staring into his clear, blue eyes. The look on his face was almost pleading, with the smallest of smiles on his lips. Maddie smiled back, reaching for him and pulling her baby boy into a comforting hug. She felt him rest his head against her chest and felt his warm breath as he let out a relieved sigh, snuggling into the embrace.
She ran her fingers through his soft hair, feeling the tension dissipate from his shoulders. He needed this, she thought to herself. Needed the reassurance, the contact, the knowledge that they were there and that they still loved him, despite what they had recently learned about him.
A ghost. Her little boy was half ghost. A hybrid. Not dead, but fused with ectoplasm, altering his DNA makeup and giving him his strange, ghostly powers. The ability to change from one form to the other.
Danny and Jazz had told the story on their journey back from the pole. Of how Danny had felt bad for them when the ghost portal had refused to work. How he, Sam and Tucker had decided to check it out, leading to Danny pulling on a jumpsuit and examining the inside of the portal, his hand running along the wall were he unintentionally pressed an 'on' button that was inside. How the horrific shock of the portals activation had fused her boys DNA with ectoplasm and he had stumbled out in his ghostly form, the portal now working, the unearthly greens twirling and morphing behind him.
Maddie could only imagine the pain that Danny had gone through. Having the entire Ghost Zone practically shocked through his body. She was suddenly hit with the realisation of how lucky she was to be holding him in her arms right now, causing her to tighten her grip on him.
The huntress felt tears prick her eyes as she remembered the horrible things she'd done to him. How she and Jack had essentially hunted their own son like an animal. Threatening to 'rip him apart molecule by molecule'. How they had done nothing but talk bad about Phantom, right in front of him, after all the heroic things he had done. They had basically ruined his life and repaid him with death threats.
The tears were falling thick and fast now, silent sobs racking her body. As if sensing her distress, Danny wrapped an arm around her, pulling himself further into her embrace, yet still not waking. Maddie buried her face into his fluffy hair as she attempted to get herself under control. They would make it up to him. If it was the last thing they did, they would make it up to him.
A soft sound at the door caused Maddie to raise her head and was equally surprise to find Jazz standing in the door way. Just like Danny, her daughter said nothing, only moved silently till she was standing at the side of the bed. She then pulled the covers back and slipped in beside her mother. Maddie now found herself sandwiched between her two children. The bed was pretty big so they were all able to fit, as long as they stayed squished together.
Maddie felt her eye lids getting heavy once again as sleep crept up on her, but not before Jack's large arm circled around them all, bringing then closer together. They had come so close to losing everything, their planet, their lives, that having her family here, hearing their deep breaths and feeling their warmth, Maddie couldn't have been more relieved, more happy and more grateful and it was all thanks to the special boy she had wrapped in her embrace. She let out one, final sigh before allowing sleep to take her.
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Maddie was once again woken a few hours later, but this time it was by a strange chill. She suddenly became aware that Danny was no longer wrapped in her arms, though she quickly relocated him when a bright flash of light lit up the bedroom.
The huntress sat up, careful not to wake Jack and Jazz and turned to where the light had come from. Danny Phantom stood by the window, his dark brows furrowed in irritation as he glanced out into the still, early morning. His form let off a faint glow, making him seem bright in the dark room, his snow white hair messy and sticking up at odd angles thanks to his bedhead. His body looked lean and tight, ready for action, but the faint bags under his eyes spoke of the sleep that he still needed.
Danny finally turned away from the window, his ghostly, glowing green eyes landing on her, unintentionally making her heart skip a beat and her body to stiffen. This is Danny, Maddie had to keep reminding herself. This is her Danny. The irritated look on the ghost boy's face soften and he smiled at her apologetically.
"Hey." He whispered, his voice still retaining that strange, otherworldly echo. "Sorry I woke you." Maddie realised the cold chill she felt before must have been Danny going intangible in an attempt to get out of the bed without waking them.
"That's alright, sweetie." She replied, also keeping her voice at a quiet whisper. "Is there something wrong?"
"My ghost sense went off." Danny said, the slight irritation returning to his features. "It's probably nothing, but I want to check it out anyway."
"Can I join you?" Danny's eyes widened slightly, blinking rapidly at his mother. Maddie suppressed a chuckled at the expression on his face as she carefully manoeuvred around Jazz and went to retrieve her jumpsuit.
"You want to come with me?" Danny finally asked as the surprised slowly ebbed away.
"Of course." Maddie replied, already pulling her jumpsuit over her pyjamas. Danny looked as if he was weighing the pros and cons of his mother joining him, looking off to the side, before a small smile graced his now tanned face as he looked back at her.
"Ok then." Maddie tried to contain the excitement she felt, but by the look on her sons face, she wasn't doing a very good job. The two tiptoed quietly out of the room, not hard for Danny since his footsteps barely seemed to make a sound, out of the house and into the cool, early morning air.
Maddie tried her absolute hardest not to stare at the boy next to her as they searched for the ghost. It was strange, casually walking down the street with the infamous ghost boy at her side, then again, when she looked at him now, all she saw was her Danny.
"It's weird, huh?" Her sons voice broke her out of her intense examining and she quickly attempted to make it look like she hadn't just been staring him down.
"What is?" She asked. Danny's glowing eyes fixed on her for a second before they continued scanning around, his calculating gaze landing on anything and everything.
"This." He finally replied. "Us, walking down the street, hunting ghosts together." Maddie stopped walking when she realised he was no longer pacing next to her. She turned around to see him standing there, the smallest of smiles on his face. "It's…nice."
Maddie felt her heart burst with love for her little boy as he voiced her thoughts out loud. She could only imagine how scared he must have been to tell them about his powers. How he must of felt every time she and Jack had held a gun to his face. She smiled back at him reassuringly, though hers was much wider.
"Your father and I always dreamed of our children following in our ghost hunting footsteps." Maddie said as she walked up to him, ruffling his snowy hair. "Looks like it came true after all."
"Hey." Danny protested with a laugh as he attempted to fix his naturally messy hair. She laughed along with him, enjoying this strange mother/son moment. However, the moment was quickly short lived when Danny suddenly gasped, an icy, blue mist escaping his parted lips making him shiver slightly.
Maddie was about to comment, but was quickly cut off when a slimy, green tentacle wrapped around her sons ankle, dragging him into the air with a short Yelp of surprise.
Danny soon found himself dangling upside down between two, familiar, slightly transparent, octopus ghosts.
"Ectopuses?" The young hero mused out loud. The ghostly sea creature's red eyes narrowed as it let out a feral hiss, revealing its sharp fangs. Danny scowled back before delivering a powerful roundhouse kick to the ghosts head, forcing it to release him as it stumbled back in the air.
The sudden whirr of an ecto-gun caught his attention and he was quickly startled when a green beam shot past his head, close enough that he could feel the heat radiate off it.
"Sorry, sweetie!" His mother called up at him, the gun in her hand still smoking. She had just managed to pull it out in time and get a clear shot at the second Ectopus as it creeped up behind her son whilst he was busy dealing with the first. Taking note of this, Danny sent her a quick thumbs up and a wink before turning his attention back the the ghost recovering from his kick as it shook it's head before shooting at him with a high-pitched screech.
Maddie continued to watch her boy fight. His movements were precise and graceful, a complete contrasts to the clumsy, awkward boy she knew. Every swing of his fist, every sweep of his leg, even the aim and control of the ecto-rays he shot from his hands, everything was beautiful. Practiced, was the grim reminder.
"MOM!" Danny's frantic cry brought her out of her observations and she quickly found her vision obscured by green. Maddie scowled when the Ectopus she had just shot, was suddenly in her face, hissing threateningly and raising a tentacle, ready to attack.
However, before the ghost could land a hit, Maddie had swiftly pulled out her staff, extending each glowing, green end and blocking the octo-ghosts attack. The creature screeched as its contact with the staff caused a shock of electricity to shoot up its body, causing the ghost to lose its form and disintegrate on the spot. Maddie sighed, giving her staff a dramatic twirl before retracting it and re-attaching it to her hip.
"Wow, Mom." The huntress looked up to see her son lowering himself to the ground, his white boots making the smallest of taps as he hit the pavement. He had a Fenton thermos in his hand and the Ectopus he was fighting was no where to be seen. "That was awesome."
"What? You didn't really think you got your fighting style from your father, did you?" Maddie joked, a feeling of satisfaction settling in her chest when Danny laughed. She chuckled too, stepping closer to her boy when she suddenly noticed a small gash on his cheek, glowing, green ectoplasm leaking from the wound and slowing dripped down his face. Danny didn't even seem to notice. "Your hurt." Maddie pointed out.
"Huh." Danny blinked, only just feeling the slight sting on his cheek. "That Ectopus must have managed a hit while we were fighting." Before he could reach up to touch it, his mother had stepped forward, reaching out her hand and placing it in his cheek.
Maddie watched him scrunch his left eye shut as she ran a thumb over the cut, cutting off the flow of 'blood'. She then lifted her hand to her face and examined it. It was definitely ectoplasm, she'd know it anywhere, she had been working with it for most of her life.
However, as she examined it closer, she could see the tiniest traces of blood. Human blood; mixed in with the ectoplasm like thin, faint, red veins.
"Mom?" Maddie suddenly realised what she was doing when Danny's timid voice cut through her thoughts. She looked back at him, her heart clenching when she saw the unease in his emerald eyes. She quickly pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the ectoplasm/blood off her hand before giving a clean part of the cloth a little lick, using the dampness to wipe her sons cheek.
"Eww, gross!" Danny protested, scrunching his face in disgust. Though secretly, he totally enjoyed it. Call him childish, but he liked having his Mom there, kissing his booboo's and making everything better again; just as a mother should. He could feel a heavy weight be lifted off his shoulders as Maddie laughed at his antics, taking back the hanky and ruffling his hair.
"How 'bout we head back?" His mother suggested, stopping her assault on the boys snowy locks. "I think that's all the action we're going to get this morning."
"Yeah." Danny agreed as the two turned towards home, walking side by side. "I didn't expect a ghost attack so soon. But then again, the Ectopus's aren't the most…sentient of ghosts." Maddie chuckled, hooking an arm around her sons shoulder.
"I think we handled it pretty well." She said, pulling her boy closer, feeling the warmth he radiated, even in his ghostly form. Something that would have confused her had she not known the truth.
"You kidding?" Danny snorted. "They were two of the first ghosts I ever fought, I could've done that in my sleep."
"And that's why I had to wipe the blood off your cheek?" Maddie smirked when Danny began sputtering indigenously.
"I-I dropped my guard for like a second." The ghost boy muttered, his cheeks gaining a faint red hue. "And I'm tired." Maddie smiled at the endearing pout he sent the ground before moving in front of him, causing the boy to stop abruptly less he walk straight into her.
"What's wrong-" before Danny could fully finish his question, Maddie had took a hold of his arms and with a swift twist of her body, he suddenly found himself on her back, automatically hooking his arms around her neck to keep himself from falling. Maddie locked her arms behind his knees and stood, continuing the walk back to Fenton Works.
"Wha-Mom!?" Danny sputtered at the sudden turn of events. Maddie said nothing, a satisfied smile on her face as she felt him relax in her hold. Danny let out a breathy laugh, his warm breath misting in front of his face in the chilly, morning air. "I hope no one sees me…this is kind off embarrassing."
"Just doing my job, sweetie." Maddie said, feeling the chuckle rumble in his chest that was pressed against her back.
"I'll allow it this once." He mumbled. "'M too tired to care." The pair continued their journey back home, Danny enjoying this peaceful moment with his Mother whilst Maddie enjoyed feeling her sons faint heartbeat against her back. Safe. Alive.
"Hey, Mom." Danny's soft voice broke the comfortable silence they had found themselves in, making Maddie tilt her head towards him in an attempt to see his face. His eyes were closed, a content, peaceful expression on his face.
"Yes, Danny?" She asked, equally as soft. Her boy opened one, glowing green eye, smiling gently at her.
"We make a pretty good team, huh?" Maddie felt pride and love swell in her chest when he said this. What had she done to deserve such a spectacular child?
"Of course we do." The huntress replied. "We are Fentons after all." Danny laughed softly at the absolute certainty in her answer. Like that simple fact explained everything.
Mother and Son soon found themselves walking up the front steps of Fenton Works, Maddie allowing Danny to drop off her back so she could once again pull out her keys and let them in. Once inside, Danny allowed the bright, white ring to form around his waist were it split in two and traveled up and down his body.
Maddie watched in amazed fascination as his black and white jumpsuit turned into his NASA themed pyjamas; his glowing, green eyes faded to a soft, familiar blue, his skin paling and his white hair darkened to black. No matter how many times she saw it, his transformations were always mesmerising to watch.
A now human Danny's mouth stretched wide in a yawn as he sluggishly made his way over to the closest couch, practically face-planting into the soft material were he was quickly lost to the world, his breathy snores filling the room.
Maddie chuckled fondly at this, stripping out of her own jumpsuit, revealing the pyjamas she still wore underneath before following her sons lead. She gently lift his head off the couch, taking a seat and setting it in her lap were she ran her fingers through his soft hair. She leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes, continuing to caress he boys dark locks.
She may have messed up big time. Her and Jack both. But there was nothing she could do to change the past. But now she had a whole future to make it up to her baby boy, starting with tonight. She will be there: to hold him when he needs her, to kiss his pain away, to support him when he feels the entire world is on his shoulders. To fight. Side by side. To protect and love, just as a family does. After all, that's what the Fentons do best.
Tomorrow, Jack and Jazz will come down, finding the two passed out on the sofa, wondering why Maddie's jumpsuit was lying in a crumpled mess on the floor and why a fresh cut was still healing on Danny's cheek.
But for now, Maddie can simply enjoy the feeling of her sons hair running through her gentle fingers as she slowly drifted off to sleep. They may have drifted apart over this secretive year, but right now, in this moment, she had never felt closer.
