Bones
Phantom breaks his leg during a ghost fight, and the Fentons patch him up and let him rest at their house. As he sleeps, Maddie wonders why a ghost would need- or have, bones in the first place.
Characters: Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton/Phantom
Rating: K+
Genre: general, mystery (sort of?)
Length: ~1,000 words
… … …
Madeline Fenton was exhausted.
Her feet felt like lead weights as she trudged up the basement steps, and her eyelids wanted so badly to close. Wounds recently acquired from that blasted hunter ghost stung and ached. But, first thing's first: get Phantom to the couch. She and Jack could clean up the lab and get him a proper cast in the morning.
The mother scientist entered the living room and kneeled by the sofa, carefully laying the ghost boy down so as not to disturb his rest. Getting him situated, Maddie left quickly to fetch a blanket, and draped it over his unconscious form. She fussed with it until he was comfortably tucked in, his broken leg guarded by a fortress of pillows.
Broken leg, implying that Phantom had bones. Proving that he had bones; the fracture was obvious on his x-rays, and she couldn't deny its existence any longer when she'd had to set it back in place.
A ghost with bones.
That shouldn't even be possible.
Ghosts are ectoplasmic manifestations of post-human consciousness, formed following a particularly tragic or sudden death. There was no reason for a ghost to have bones, even if ectoplasm could do such a thing.
And yet, here he was.
Phantom's head had already sunk into the soft couch pillows a bit; the fabric was squishing his cheek slightly into his other facial features. The sight was, dare she think it...kind of adorable, actually.
Which didn't make any sense, especially from a scientific point of view. Phantom was the most notorious ghost in the city, off the charts in terms of sheer ectoplasmic power. Without a doubt, the most powerful ectoplasmic entity in Amity Park.
And here he was, snuggled into her couch, oblivious to the world as she ran her fingers through his snow-white hair as if he were one of her own. Now that it was on her mind, she noticed how much he resembled her sweet little boy Danny. He was a good kid, just starting his second year of high school and still working through the awkwardness of his teenage years.
Darned maternal instincts. This wasn't her child, this was a ghost. She studied ghosts for a living, she should be studying this one.
Maddie felt how hard his scalp was underneath that hair, trailing her fingers down to his forehead. No matter how human-like a ghost could make itself outwardly, it still could not replicate the strength of bone with nothing but a spongy matrix of ectoplasm. Should she take her thumb and press down on the forehead of any other human-like ghost, it would compress and form a deep impression, only to reform like memory foam.
Phantom's ectoplasm refused to yield under her thumb, because somehow there was a skull underneath that pale skin.
Ghosts do not have skulls. This was scientific fact.
Just one more anomaly about Phantom to add to the ever-growing list. His unique properties assured that he broke every 'rule' that ghosts followed.
Maddie sighed, "I wonder what makes you so special."
Sure, she and Jack had their theories, some more outrageous than others. They had been studying Phantom ever since he showed up; he was even the first ghost they'd ever seen. The scientist remembered that day, when he abruptly appeared at Danny's high school during his first few months there. She remembered late nights in the lab with her husband after that, brainstorming just what caused Phantom's anomalies, and wondering whether he was just a very unique ghost or something else entirely. Together, the Fenton scientists had drafted up a long, long list of tests they'd run on him when he was finally in their hands.
And, well, here he was: injured, utterly defenseless, and sleeping on their couch.
Testing seemed...rather inhumane with him in this state.
Maybe they could run a few non-invasive ones tomorrow morning, after he'd woken up. At least a skin or hair sample.
The scientist sighed, wondering how many of their proposed tests would have to be scrapped now, for the sake of moral integrity. Being forced to work with him for the greater good of the city, like this evening for example, had...humanized him, in their eyes. He was still a ghost, obviously, but he challenged their previous conceptions of ghostkind by simply existing. More and more, they were finding that there were other ghosts that didn't quite fit in.
Not nearly enough as Phantom, of course, but that didn't change much.
After all, they never stopped wondering what made Phantom so different. For starters, his form was so much more intricately detailed than any other ghost; ectoplasm just couldn't mimic those minute details like fingerprints or hair or the little wrinkles and blemishes in the skin, but Phantom somehow had all three and even a dusting of freckles across his cheeks. Another good point: of the frequent times she sighted him around Amity Park, there was a handful of occasions she had seen him eating food, usually from that greasy fast food place her son and his friends frequented. Ghosts got all the energy they needed from the ambient ectoplasmic radiation seeping through from their home dimension; there was absolutely no reason for a ghost to go through the trouble of purchasing and consuming human food.
Maddie's head hurt; this ghost boy was such a mystery.
She sighed, and opted to simply watch the blankets over his chest rise and fall gently.
Then she paused.
She watched the blankets...rise and fall...with his breathing.
Phantom was breathing.
The scientist shook her head in disbelief.
No, she was just imagining it. There was no way- no reason for him to be breathing.
The dead do not breathe.
But then she held her hand over his nose and mouth, and definitely felt a gentle puff of air tickle her palm.
She yanked her hand away as if burned.
This was too much. How was he breathing? He was dead, a ghost! Ghosts didn't breathe, they didn't even need to! Not unless…
No.
There was no way. That would imply-
Impossible. In every sense of the word.
Maddie still found herself digging his hand out from under the blankets and removing his white glove.
Her fingers probed his exposed wrist, found their mark, and felt the light flutter of a pulse.