Disclaimer: I do not own 'Danny Phantom' or any of the characters, concepts etc. Those are owned by Butch Hartman/Nickelodeon, I believe. I make no claim to anything in this story, it is a perspective with hypothetical scenarios added in.

[AN: Now refined somewhat, I give you my take on a revelation fic. /AN]

As it Should Be

Ch1: Sooner or Later

Danny, Sam, Tucker and Jazz were relaxing at the park, thankful for the lack of school work afforded by the weekend and the greatly appreciated reduction in ghostly activity lately. They had alternated between chatting idly and simply enjoying the pleasant weather while it lasted and they had the time and inclination to be able to just experience it.

The peace was shattered, however, when a faint whistling sound caused Danny to sigh in exasperation before turning his upper body intangible and waiting until an angular metal object embedded itself in the tree he had been reclining against.

"I'm really starting to hate this thing," Danny griped as he tugged the Boo-merang out of the unsuspecting tree before firmly sticking it into the ground nearby.

"You know dude, you could get a rid of a lot of your problems if you just told your parents. You are going to at some point, right?" Tucker asked, already knowing what the answer would be from the dozen other times this conversation had come up in the last month.

"Yeah, I know Tuck, and yes, I will tell them… eventually; it's just not the right time yet," Danny defended as he rubbed his neck nervously while his friend, girlfriend and sister all simultaneously rolled their eyes at his reluctance.

"You know you're going to have to tell them eventually, right? And if you don't then they'll work it out on their own; they're not idiots, just a bit… clueless at times… like you," Sam chided.

"Sam's right, and that's definitelynot a conversation I'd want to have with Mom and Dad. Imagine if they found out because they actually managed to seriously hurt you; it would destroy them," Jazz put in her two cents as well.

"I know guys, and I will tell them, it's just… how do you tell your fanatical, ghost hunting parents that you're actually part ghost and that they've been actively hunting you and planning to dissect you, painfully, for years!?" Danny said, his arms gesticulating wildly in an effort to prove his point.

The four friends sat in silence after that, all mulling over the somewhat complicated relationship between Danny, his parents and Phantom. It was a scene that had repeated itself on numerous occasions and they were still unable to answer Danny's question; how do you tell your parents that sort of thing?

This time, however, was different.

As Danny cradled his head in his hands, he looked down at the ground in front of his feet and saw something that hadn't been there a minute ago. It was a small note wrapped around a very familiar Medallion.

And what was written on the note, you ask?

'Perhaps start from the beginning.'

Maddie was beginning to worry about exactly what her son wanted to speak to her about, he was extremely nervous, even compared to his usual jitteriness, and Sam, Tucker and even Jazz didn't look much better. She cast a questioning glance to Jack, who was sitting next to her on the couch, but he seemed as dumbfounded as she was.

"So, uh, Mum, Dad, the, uh, reason I wanted to speak to you guys was because, um well, because…" Danny trailed off even more awkwardly than he had sounded during the rest of the broken sentence. Sam squeezed his hand gently for support, all the while struggling to suppress the concerned expression beginning to grace her features.

The simple action caused a major realisation to dawn on Maddie; she finally grasped what this talk was going to be about. It would explain why Sam seemed to be as nervous as Danny, and why Tucker and Jazz were here, and it would definitely explain why Danny's tongue seemed to be tied in a triple knot.

"Danny… did you get Sam pregnant?" She questioned gently, expecting relief to flood over the two teens now that the subject of the visit had finally been laid bare, as it were.

The reaction she got was quite different to that.

A synchronised shriek of "What!?" was heard from the couple in question, while Tucker fell of his perch on the armrest, laughing uncontrollably and Jazz cradled her head in her hands muttering something that Maddie couldn't hear, but which seemed to set Tucker off even more. Danny and Sam were frozen in place, twin looks of shock and mortification plastered on their faces as they processed what had just been said.

Danny seemed to be the first to regain the use of his vocal faculties.

"Why would you even think that?! We're not even having-" Danny cut himself off as he looked to the floor and shook his head is stupefaction. "You know what? I am not having this conversation with my parents right now. I am just not having this conversation," Danny rambled on, running both hands through his strangely windswept hair.

"What Danny's trying to say is that, no, I am definitely not pregnant, nor any chance that I could be, and that there's another reason that he, well we, wanted to talk to you," Sam clarified, while elbowing Danny sharply in the ribs in an attempt to get him to focus on the task at hand.

Tucker had finally composed himself somewhat and had reclaimed his spot on the armrest while Jazz placed a comforting hand on Danny's shoulder as he tried to sort out his jumbled emotions.

Danny took one more deep breath before looking up and meeting the gaze of his parents, his eyes serious and worried.

"Look, what I'm about to tell you guys…I need you to promise me that you won't interrupt while I'm explaining this, that you'll actually give me the chance to explain this. It won't be easy for you to hear, and I'm pretty sure you won't believe it, but I promise you that everything I'm about to say is true to the best of my knowledge, and Sam, Tucker and Jazz will vouch for all of it. So if you can't trust what I say after this, at least trust what they say."

Maddie nodded dumbly, surprised and concerned by the seriousness and gravity of his voice, so different from the usually awkward or sarcastic tones she had heard so often. A quick glance to her left confirmed that Jack felt the same.

Seeing their assenting nods, Danny sat up straight in his seat and pulled Sam fractionally closer to him.

"Okay… You remember the day that the Portal started working? And I got shocked a bit when it did? Well, it wasn't a little shock…"

And so Maddie listened in horror as her son described the events of his life for the previous two years since he became a 'Halfa' as he put it. She was stunned into silence as he described, and in many cases demonstrated, his spectral nature. Her sharp mind was blunted with the realisation that all of her theories about ghost's emotive and cognitive complexity were blown away by his own first-hand testimony. And her heart, usually swollen with love for her children, was shattered as she realised precisely what she had been subjecting her son to, every day for the past two years after one of the most life altering and potentially traumatic experiences anyone could ever go through.

The fact that Danny had to face the psychological repercussions of a near fatal accident and somehow being granted a large degree of ghostly physiology, with only his two equally young and innocent friends to support him was nearly inconceivable for her. It made her wonder just why he didn't tell her and Jack straight away.

But, of course, the answer was obvious:

They were both extremely vocal about their hatred of ghosts. There was hardly a conversation between them that didn't somehow end with a discussion about how dangerous and evil ghosts were or how to best destroy and experiment on them. And Jazz and Danny had grown up listening to that sort of viewpoint. Then one day, Danny finds himself imbued with the same power as those creatures he has been taught from an early age to revile and flee from.

Of course he never told them what had happened.

And even if he had ever have decided to tell them, she and Jack had then gone and specifically targeted his alter-ego as the target for all of their hatred and fear; Phantom, the ghost child that so easily and flippantly dismissed them as threats, who avoided their traps and attempted to prove their own precious theories wrong by showing them that ghosts were not mindless, evil creatures bent on the destruction of everything Jack and Maddie held dear.

They would come home from another failed Ghost Hunt, ranting to Danny and Jazz about how they would one day capture Phantom and 'rip him apart molecule by molecule', never knowing that he was standing not ten feet from them, in the form of their son. Danny avoided their physical attempts to destroy him, only to have to endure their verbal assault at home, where he couldn't escape.

It made her sick to her core to think she had, knowingly or unknowingly, subjected her son to that level of abuse. She wanted to run out of that room and throw up until there was nothing left in her stomach, then keep vomiting until the churning turmoil in her abdomen disappeared. But Danny was still speaking, and she promised him that she would listen; it was the least she could do now.

This torturous explanation continued for another hour and by the end of it Maddie was feeling faint and emotionally drained; and it didn't look like Jack was faring much better. For his part, Danny seemed equal parts relieved, thankful and terrified about how his parents might react.

"So… you're Phantom…" Maddie stated slowly and then continued when Danny nodded his head in confirmation, "And your father and I… hunted you down, for two years, when the whole time you have just been trying to protect this town…like we thought we were doing…"

Danny nodded mutely in response once again.

Maddie was dead quiet, still struggling to process everything in the wake of such a massive revelation. Jack, normally so energetic and full of enthusiasm, was more subdued than she had ever seen him during their twenty five years of married life. His pain and confusion were written clearly in the solid features of his face, and it pained Danny to see such as hurt expression on a man that had always been such a role model for him as he grew up, especially since he knew that he was the one causing that pain; not directly, but he was still the main cause (at least, in his mind).

"Show us…" Jack practically croaked out, his throat dry from staying silent for so long and his voice weak from shock.

Nodding once more, Danny gave Sam's hand one more squeeze before he disentangled the appendage and stood up. Taking a moment to focus, he stood in the middle of the room and took a steadying breath before a pair of painfully bright rings of energy swept across his tall frame. His casual clothing was replaced by a thick, ink-black HazMat suit, with silver gloves and heavy boots and Phantom's (in)famous symbol emblazoned across the chest. Danny's Raven hair became Ash

White and the vibrant blue of his eyes was suddenly replaced with a rippling green that was the exact colour of ectoplasm.

And suddenly, the Fenton's didn't see their son their anymore; they saw their most hated target, the embodiment of everything wrong with ghosts.

Phantom.

But it only lasted a moment.

Now that they knew what to look for, they could see Danny. This was no longer an impersonal, distant work issue; this was their son.

But at the same time it… wasn't.

Despite everything they had just seen and heard, they couldn't reconcile this.

They couldn't reconcile Danny, their sweet, naïve, clumsy and somewhat lazy son, with Phantom, the most active, persistent and controversial spectre in the world.

In hindsight, it made so much sense and explained so many questions, about both Danny and Phantom. But accepting that Danny and Phantom were one and the same meant accepting that they had tried to kill their own son on dozens, if not hundreds, of occasions! It meant accepting that the entire basis of their profession and, by extension, their life, was in fact a lie fuelled by their own prejudice and fear of the unknown. It meant accepting that their own son was so terrified about their possible reactions that he didn't feel secure enough to talk to them about the single most defining aspect of his life, but instead kept it a secret for two years.

And it meant accepting that for two years, they hadn't noticed.

"Please… please turn back. I-I can't…" Maddie choked out, the sickening turmoil in her stomach returning full force.

The rings returned and Phantom was replaced by Danny.

Both Jack and Maddie relaxed visibly at this, but the haunted look on their faces remained. Slowly, Maddie rose from her seat, Jack matching her movements carefully in order to support her. The four sitting across from them visibly tensed and Jazz, Tucker and particularly Sam all moved towards Danny protectively.

Their concern, it turned out, was not required.

Maddie just barely managed to force out a strained and desperate "I'm sorry…" before Jack helped lead her out of the room, leaving four anxious and concerned young adults to look helplessly between each other.

"Come on, you can all stay at my place tonight," Sam said after a minute. "You're parents are going to need time to process all of this and my folks are away on business again."

"I'll stay here, for their sake," Jazz said as Danny and Tucker nodded mutely in response to Sam's suggestion. "You three go; it will probably be best for them to have some space from Danny for the moment. I'll call if there are any problems."

Danny walked solemnly to the door, and he couldn't help wondering if this might be the last time he ever walked out of it. His parents hadn't started shooting immediately, so that was a plus, but they hadn't exactly welcomed him with open arms either. In fact, he hadn't really gotten any response out of them. Everything was up in the air at the moment; but unlike when he was flying, he had no control over how this ended up.

Feeling Sam take his hand gently, he pulled her close to him and took a final look at the door, before slipping out into the world beyond.

Later that night, deeply ensconced in the black velvet comforter of Sam's bed, Danny lay awake. Tucker was sleeping soundly on a mattress on the floor and Sam was lying on the other side of the bed, having finally succumbed to exhaustion.

Danny, however, was far too anxious to sleep.

His stomach lurched and twisted as stress and worry wormed their way through his mind, worst case scenarios flying around his sleep-deprived psyche. He was about to get up and go for a flight, in the hopes that it may help him relax, when a strange weight appeared on his chest.

It was another one of Clockwork's Time Medallion's, with another note wrapped around it:

'Do not fear the future, young Phantom; all is as it should be.'

Deciding it would be best to trust his mentor and guardian, Danny closed his eyes once more in a final quest for sleep, until he could see what tomorrow would bring.