They always came after the sun had left.

Maddie was sitting at the table, fingers still loosely curled around an empty mug while her other hand flipped to the next page of Scientific American. It was a special ghost edition, and there was no way she was letting it disappear into the abyss of Jack's to-read pile until she had studied every page.

A sound flicked against her thoughts, and she ignored it at first. It was probably just a bird or something… Maddie dragged herself away from the article on the theory of spectral physics as the sound came again, glaring at the kitchen window. She couldn't see much aside from her reflection in the glass, but then something shifted out there in the darkness. As a man leaned closer to the windowpane his face became clearer – tall and bald, with dark glasses that were always present no matter the hour of day. Behind him, dimly lit by the light from inside, was another vague figure.

Maddie pushed back her chair a little more forcefully then necessary, giving an exaggerated sigh. She stalked over to the window, unfastening the latch and swinging it open. "Would it kill you to use the door for once?" she snapped, stepping to the side so that her uninvited guests could hoist themselves through the opening.

"Negative," the one who had knocked stated in a dead tone as he dragged himself through the window face-first, hooking his fingers over the edge of the bench and pulling himself forwards. He slithered to the ground in an ungainly pile, before quickly righting himself and inspecting his white suit with a frown. Maddie smirked – it was smeared with peanut butter that she hadn't yet cleaned off the bench.

Jack entered the room and let out a groan as the other agent tried a feet-first approach, legs kicking wildly as his shoulders got stuck in the narrow window frame. Maddie smirked at her husband, before stepping towards the table and quickly folding down the corner of the page she had been reading. She shoved the magazine into a drawer of rarely-used recipe books – hopefully she'd have time to finish it later.

"It's late," Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest with a frown as the second agent finally wriggled himself into the room.

The first agent shrugged. He smoothed his peanut butter-smeared jacket before speaking. "The press has been overly active lately, so it is best if our visits are conducted at night."

"The press has only been more active because you guys have been chasing Phantom everywhere," Maddie retorted. She knew she was being hypocritical here, but lately the Guys in White had been taking things too far – they had actually released ghosts in the hopes of luring Phantom into a trap. High-powered ghosts, released in public with no way to control them! Hopefully, somebody lost their job over that one.

The first one shrugged again, and Jack snorted from across the kitchen. Agents K and O weren't exactly unusual guests in the Fenton home, although they were unwelcome. K raised his eyebrows at Maddie's comment, looking over the rims of his glasses in an expression that felt mildly condescending. His eyes were the blue of a dying day, the way the sky looked after the sun had set but before the light was gone. The Fentons had taken to calling him 'Bright Eyes' behind his back, sharing their amusement at the reference. For some reason, Jack had dubbed the other agent 'Speckles,' and the name had stuck.

The room was quiet for a moment while Speckles latched the window shut again. Maddie raised her chin and picked up her dirty mug, moving purposefully towards the sink. She hated the way her skin crawled whenever these men forced their way into her home, and for the past few years she had tried her best to reassert her dominance over her living space by dictating when their conversation would begin. She wasn't going to play their games – if they wanted something, they had better speak up, otherwise she would just leave them standing there until she was ready to talk to them.

She turned the tap on and stuck her finger under the stream until it ran hot, before rinsing out her mug. A chair scraped on the floor, creaking with the tell-tale sound of Jack sinking into it. The agents were in her peripheral vision, and Maddie dripped some dishwashing liquid onto a sponge before swiping it over the surface of her mug. "Coffee, Jack?" she asked.

Their guests knew that she was not offering any to them.

"Nope, still full from that amazing dinner!"

Maddie gave a small nod, rinsing the suds off her now-clean mug before placing it on the drainer. She dried her hands on the front of her hazmat suit and sat back down at the table, finally turning to give the agents her attention.

Irritation was evident in the way they stood, stiff and scowling. It raised Maddie's mood just enough that she thought she might be able to get through whatever this conversation was going to be without shooting something.

Bright Eyes took a seat without further invitation, followed by his co-worker. With their glasses on they looked almost identical. Bright Eyes had a stockier and slightly taller frame, and Speckles' chin was more pointed, but that was about it when it came to differences.

Neither spoke, tilting their heads as though looking at each other for some sort of cue.

"What do you want?" Maddie demanded, her tone terse and clipped. She was too tired for this crap right now – a quick glance at her watch confirmed that it was after eleven. "If it's another sample, I swear – "

"Your willingness is certainly inspiring. However, we do not require anything of that nature today."

Maddie bristled, clenching her hands together on the tabletop to stop herself from shouting. Jack reached across, placing his hand over hers. The contact was instantly soothing, and Maddie took a slow breath, pushing past her anger. A fight wouldn't accomplish anything.

Bright Eyes continued as though he hadn't noticed her stress, "We are implementing a new procedure. You of all people are aware how difficult it can be for us to monitor hybrids, so a registration system is required." He paused as though waiting for something, but Maddie simply scowled at him. "So, from tomorrow night, we will begin the mandatory registration."

"Look," Jack sighed, "is this because of Vladdie? Because I really don't –"

"Plasmius is not the issue here," Speckles snapped.

"Then what is the issue? It's not as though Amity Park is crawling with halfas." There it was, that unusual word. It was thick on Maddie's tongue, and she pursed her lips, uncomfortable with how… uncomfortable she was to give voice to those two syllables.

It had been a long time since she had had a conversation like this.

Now it was Bright Eyes' turn to adjust his glasses. "There are more of them than you are aware of," he said. "In the past few years the number of half-ghosts has increased by fifty per cent."

Maddie scowled. "So… there were two but now there are three?"

The agents' silence was enough to answer her question.

"Who is it?" Jack asked, his voice catching as though it had clawed its way up his throat. "Who came out of the Ghost Zone?"

"I think you already know," Bright Eyes responded, and even though Maddie couldn't see his eyes she knew that he was staring at her. She felt like she was being studied, a specimen under a microscope or a rat in a cage. She fidgeted, fingers sliding over the grooves between each link in the band of her watch.

She knew who it was.

Jack seemed to have caught on as well. "You're really going to build an entire system for one teenager?" he demanded, raising an eyebrow. His hand found Maddie's again, pulling her fingers away from her watch and beginning to rub the stress out of her knuckles with gentle motions.

"Halfas are unpredictable."

Maddie glared at Speckles. "You can't say that," she snapped, anger rushing through her. "You can't just study two or three halfas and say that everyone has the same behavioural patterns."

"Halfas have proven to be… dangerous in the past."

Maddie stood abruptly, the chair almost falling behind her with the force. "What are you saying?" she shouted, heat sweeping across her face as her hands clenched into fists. If she could, she would have shot them, here and now.

The agents seemed unperturbed. "We meant Plasmius."

The heat in her face felt wrong. It always did, it shouldn't be hot – it should be so cold it burned – and Maddie took a deep, shuddering breath. "You have ten seconds," she hissed. "What are you here for?"

Bright Eyes inclined his head. "We are here to remove your watch."

Maddie's gut clenched, and she braced herself against the edge of the table. "What?" She didn't like how small her voice had become.

Speckles stood, reaching out his hand. "Our system is enforced by a gun installed in the main square of the city," he explained. Maddie felt a tremor ripple through her as he rounded the table and closed his fingers over her left wrist. He held a tool in his hand, its end shaped to fit over the face of the watch that she had been forced to wear for decades. "If your ectosignature is inhibited by your suppressor, the gun may unintentionally target you. It will shoot anything with an ectosignature that isn't in its database. Quite an ingenious way to study all kind of spectres, including any unknown halfas..."

"And what about the others?" Maddie snapped, forcing herself to stay still as the tool clipped to her watch and Speckles began to twist it like a spanner.

"Plasmius is already registered."

"And Phantom?" Jack asked.

Maddie glanced at her husband. They had all already known, but for someone to finally say it was jarring. Phantom was not a ghost, but they had all danced around the topic for so long that it felt like nobody was ever going to acknowledge the truth.

Her watch clicked and fell away from her wrist, and Speckles stepped back, giving her space.

The room was silent again, just for a moment, and then Maddie gasped involuntarily. It was like taking off shoes that you had been wearing for hours that were too tight, or rolling over in bed because you got pins and needles – something rushed through her veins like a strong winter wind, welling up from deep within her body, and every breath held that sharp, painful tang of breathing as hard as you could after sprinting in the snow, or surfacing and finally filling your lungs after they had been burning for air as you dove in deep water…

The rushing stopped, and Maddie was left clutching the edge of the table, drawing in deep, heavy breaths as her core pulsed with freedom. A thin layer of glittering ice spread beneath her fingers, unbidden but not unwelcome.

She finally looked up, and the first thing she saw was her reflection in the dark glass of the kitchen window. Her hair crackled white, like shooting stars that sparked in the night when she moved. Her skin was so pale, and her eyes… Her eyes were pools of green, glowing so brightly that their shape was blurred by the haze of spectral energy.

She swallowed. Another deep breath helped to ground her a little bit more, and the ice finally stopped spreading. By now it had covered almost the entire table. The agents were both standing now, Bright Eyes' hand resting on the gun strapped to his hip. It should have been threatening, but Maddie was satisfied by this display of fear. It was just a little, temporary thing, but seeing them out of their comfort zone for a change was refreshing.

"Spirit-"

"Don't even try to start calling me that again," Maddie said, finally peeling her hands away from the table. Jack was standing as well, a solid presence behind her back as she struggled to reign in her freezing core. All of a sudden she was starving, and she needed space – the portal hummed downstairs, the endless expanse of the Ghost Zone calling to her. She pushed the thought away, pushing her core down at the same time. This was harder than it should be, and Maddie frowned. She pushed again, her core burning with frost and hunger, and slowly that familiar light wrapped around her and tucked her power back beneath her skin.

She swept frizzy auburn hair out of her eyes, breathing like she had just sprinted across town. Her ghost form was tied down again, not by the limiting watch but by her own will, and Maddie's face was slick with sweat from the effort. Jack had placed his hands on her shoulders at some point, steadying her, grounding her…

Bright Eyes looked amused, the corners of his mouth curving upwards ever so slightly. "The gun will activate tomorrow at midnight," he said. "Meet us there at eleven thirty. And Maddie… this isn't an excuse for you to start acting out. Just because your core is no longer bound doesn't mean that we aren't watching you."

With that, they turned to leave. Maddie frowned, her breathing still uneven and her hands still shaking. They were missing something –

"Wait," Jack called as Bright Eyes swung the window open. "What about Phantom?"

The agent paused. "He will need to be registered for the gun to know not to shoot his ectosignature."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Jack scoffed. "You've never really been good at catching him in the past."

Neither of them answered, and Maddie's thoughts couldn't seem to catch up. "Wait," she said as Speckles hauled himself up onto the counter and stuck his legs through the window. "What will the gun do if Phantom isn't registered?"

Speckles didn't say anything, and slid through the window without looking at her again. Bright Eyes pulled himself onto the bench, and Maddie lurched forwards, closing her fingers around his wrist. Everything seemed to go still, and Maddie could see her reflection in his dark glasses.

Bright Eyes pulled out of her grasp, pushing himself through the window as though he hadn't heard her. Maddie stood there for a moment, staring into the darkness, when a voice filtered through the night. "You have twenty-four hours to warn him."

A cloud passed overhead, cutting off the moon's dim light, and they were gone.

An old fic of mine redone but also not… I guess this is what Crux would have been if I had actually known anything about writing.