This one-shot accompanies my Reflections universe series. In chronological order they are:
- Heart Of A Child (One-shot. Complete)
- Reflections/Wonderwall (Companion fics. Multi-chapter. Complete)
- Better Than Me (One-shot. Complete)
- Invincible (Multi-chapter. Complete)
This one-shot spans roughly the middle section of Invincible.
Doesn't come down when she calls,
"It's time for breakfast."
Momma can't get down those halls
Fast enough to see
For a moment, Pamela Manson forgot.
It was early in the morning, almost five-thirty. Jeremy wouldn't rise for another hour or so yet. She hadn't been able to sleep, plagued by nightmares of where her daughter was, and what could possibly be happening to her. Given the subject of her dreams, it seemed impossible that she could forget about the fact that her daughter was gone; that there was no Sam sleeping in the bedroom upstairs like she should be.
Pamela had been preparing her morning coffee. These days, it seemed like all she was living on was caffeine and hope; hope that her daughter would soon be found. It had been nearly two weeks since the last time she had seen Sam. Pamela could close her eyes and picture her daughter, seated in the backseat of the car, toying with the skirt of her dress. She could see her daughter's back, hurrying up the steps to see her boyfriend, and then disappearing into the crowd of the benefit held at Vlad Master's house. Not once had Pamela imagined that disappearing into the crowd might mean disappearing for weeks.
But, for a moment, Pamela wasn't thinking about her daughter's disappearance. For a moment, she was thinking about coffee and how Samantha liked her coffee. She was thinking about Keurig's and how Sam wanted them to get one, because then she could have her hazelnut concoction all the time. And while Pamela was musing, she prepared a second cup of coffee – with two sugars, just the way Sam liked it.
It didn't matter that it was extremely early and that, under normal circumstances, Samantha wouldn't be awake. Pamela was thinking about her daughter and coffee, and so she prepared a mug for her only child, just to realize that there was no child in her home.
She gripped the mug, leaned against the counter, and drew a deep breath. She had spent several months away from Sam while her daughter returned to New Orleans and Pamela remained in Amity Park. But, throughout those months, she had been able to call whenever she felt like it; text messages were exchanged constantly.
Now, there was nothing. There were no text messages; no phone calls; no girl slumbering in her bed. There was only an empty space where her daughter had once been. Her daughter had been stolen from her, and she didn't know how she was going to find her again.
Tears slipped down Pamela's face. She didn't know what to say; didn't know what to do. Suddenly angry, she hurled the coffee mug, the drink meant for Sam, against the kitchen wall. She was angry at herself for forgetting. She was angry at whoever had taken her daughter. And she was angry at the universe for allowing this to happen … especially after everything Sam had already been through.
It just wasn't fair.
Glass is sprayed across the floor
From the broken window.
He can't breathe anymore.
Can't deny what we know.
Jack knew that he wasn't, necessarily, a smart person. He knew that he was often cast into the role of the bumbling sidekick and, after he married a genius, he knew that whatever intelligence he had would only pale in comparison. He had never resented it. He would have done whatever was necessary to make sure that Maddie was able to shine - that the world knew how brilliant she was.
Jack had promised himself three things throughout his life. 1) He would always be a loving, open-hearted person. 2) He would love his wife beyond the best of his ability. 3) He would always protect his children.
Jack did his best to be accepting; even though he didn't always know how to be there as a comforting figure, he did it. He did what he thought was right and, when he had no words to comfort someone, he offered fudge – the only other thing he really knew how to do.
Jack loved Maddie. No one could deny how much he doted on her; how he would give her everything he had, and then some. He couldn't change his forgetful personality, though, and it had caused Maddie pain. He had always fought to overcome his shortcomings when it came to his wife. And he liked to think that he had done a good job loving Maddie. After two children, years of dating and years of marriage, they were still in love. She still kissed him goodnight and laughed at his childish jokes. They still enjoyed spending time together; they still delighted in each other's presence.
When Maddie had gotten pregnant with Jazz, Jack had kissed her rounding belly and promised the child that she would have the world. When Jack had first held Jazz and cradled her to his large chest, Jack knew that there was nothing else in the world like being a father. He knew that he would rather die than watch her suffer.
It was the same thing with Danny. When he'd held his little boy (a daughter and a son, could life have given him a greater gift?) he'd made Danny the same promise that he had made Jazz – that he would be there, that he would protect him, and that he wanted him to have the best in life.
But Jack had failed his children. He had failed his children miserably. Jazz was lying in a hospital bed, barely clinging to life, and Danny was gone. Both of his children had slipped from his protective grasp and into the hands of evil. No one could deny that Jazz had been horrifically victimized, and no one was quite sure of what had happened to Danny. The police couldn't deny that it was something horrible – Tucker had been found beaten down the hallway that someone had seen Danny walk down; Sam was missing too. There were too many horrible things that had happened at that party for Danny to have just walked off.
With a rare expression of anger, Jack let out a heaving shout. He picked up a weapon prototype from the lab bench and whipped it toward the small window near the ceiling. The prototype flew through the window, easily shattering the glass. Jack watched the shards of the window trickle to the floor, and the anger drained away from him, replaced by nothing.
He was utterly empty.
He fell to his knees, curled in on himself, and cried.
They're gonna find you, just believe.
You're not a person; you're a disease.
Vlad wasn't crazy, contrary to popular belief.
It would be easy, or at least, easier to understand why he'd done what he had if Vlad was crazy, insane, or loopy. But Vlad was not insane – there were those out there who would call him such, but the truth was that Vlad was painfully and terrifyingly, sane. He did what he did – kidnapping and torturing two teenagers, among other things – for a reason. He had a purpose; a method to his madness, if you will. He had an evil, power-hungry plan that he was following, requiring Danny to be locked away, and requiring Sam to be locked away with him.
Vlad was not only sane – he was cruel. He enjoyed causing pain. He liked to shatter hopes and bones, enjoying the rush of power that it gave him. He wanted power and while he had some – he was a rich, powerful businessman; he could make or break lives – it was not the power Vlad wanted. He wanted absolute power; power that no one on earth could question. It was this desire that sent him on his hunt for the last symbol of Pariah Dark.
Vlad wanted to have it all, and he would have had it long ago, if it hadn't been for Danny doing away with some of Vlad's most valuable energy sources.
Vlad had originally wanted to kill him. He wouldn't stand for that impertinent little brat sending the ghosts off to where Vlad couldn't reach them. Once upon a time, Vlad would have done all he could to keep Danny from death, under the delusion that Danny would one day want him as a father; could love him as if Danny were his son, when Maddie took Vlad as her rightful husband. Needless to say, that particular fantasy had been shattered, and now all he had was the burning desire for power.
It had taken Vlad a long while to realize that he could not kill Danny. As much as he wanted to do away with the only other halfa in existence - the defiant, snivelling teenager – he had eventually calmed down and realized the little badger might still be of some use to him yet.
Danny might be the strongest energy source that Vlad could hope to utilize.
He wasn't going to use Danny right away, however. He had hoards of ghostly energy piled away and still had more left to harvest. He would only begin to take the unstable halfa energy if it looked like he needed to; if it looked like there wouldn't be enough when he got close to Pariah Dark's awakening.
For now, Vlad was content to let Danny stew in his own filth.
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
Broken homes from separation.
Don't you know it's violation?
It's so wrong, but you'll see.
Never gonna let you take my world from me.
The world outside these walls may know you're breathing,
But you ain't comin' in.
You ain't comin' in.
Jeremy Manson didn't know what to say or do. He felt as if he were living in a haze of regret and heartache. He felt robotic as he went through the daily motions of his life. He didn't feel joy or sorrow; there was no high, no low, in his routine. The only thing that he felt was that ache of Sam's absence.
He'd felt his daughter's absence for so long now. After her suicide attempt, they had become estranged. He had wasted days, keeping his distance, being angry at her for something that she couldn't control, when he could have been her father, when he could have been there for her. But he hadn't been there. He had stayed at the house in New Orleans while Sam and Pamela moved to Amity Park. He had stewed in his juices, blaming Sam for her depression.
He hadn't even wanted to come to Amity Park for Christmas, Jeremy reflected with a pang. He'd been cajoled, threatened, and shouted at by his wife to come see his daughter for Christmas. He had come with a bitter heart, feeling sick at the thought of looking into his little girl's face, because he knew he would see her near-suicide coating her skin. Jeremy still didn't fully understand why he took Sam's near-death so personally, but it wasn't something he spent a lot of time dwelling on now.
Because now, he just missed her.
In the time that he and Sam had been rebuilding their relationship, they'd spent very few days actually in each other's presence. After he and Pamela had let her go back to New Orleans, Jeremy had a secret fear that he would never see Sam again; that she would leave him standing in her dust, and he would never able to view anymore of her than that again. Instead, they had begun anew, through text messages and e-mails.
It started out simply, almost as if he and Sam were potential new friends, testing one another for compatibility. They would exchange funny pictures over e-mail – pictures that Jeremy now spent his days thumbing through, going over the images that once made his daughter laugh. Eventually, they began to pose simple questions to one another in addition to their photos.
How are you?
What are you up to today?
How are your grades?
What does Mom want for her birthday?
These little questions would eventually blossom into long paragraphs of e-mails seemed like nothing. It was an exchange that most fathers would thoughtlessly have with their daughters. But to Jeremy, it had been a lifeline. It had been the foundation to rebuilding the relationship he had lost with his daughter and now it was all he had left of her. He didn't have Sam's breathy voice, echoing from her mother's cell phone. He didn't have his phone chime with her ringtone. He didn't have the knowledge that she was coming home soon or that she was sleeping safe and sound.
Sam felt intangible now; a memory that Jeremy could barely grasp at. And though he wasn't a religious man and he certainly wasn't a begging man, he would find himself, standing at the threshold of her room, breathing in her scent, and praying to whatever god may be listening that she was on her way home.
Posters hung on building walls
Of missing faces.
Months go by without the cause,
The clues, or traces.
The young redhead spread her hands along the scratchy blankets of her hospital bed, trying to take a deep breath to steady herself. She had woken from her coma three days ago to find that her world was nothing like she remembered it being.
Jazz didn't remember her attack. She didn't remember the day, no matter how many leading questions her parents asked. She didn't know who had hurt her; who had put her in the hospital, no matter how many times the police asked. Several times, when Officer Morrison had sweetly asked 'is there anyone you could think of that would want to hurt you?', Jazz's lips had trembled, wanting to overspill the truth. She wanted to fling her pointer finger at Vlad Masters and announce that he had to have something to do with it, but she couldn't.
In the darkness of her empty hospital room – her parents sleeping in their own bed and the night nurses having more demanding patients to see right now – Jazz hung her head, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye.
She had a chaotic three days, and the full weight of it was falling on her now, making her feel as if she was full of lead. No longer on autopilot, her shock giving way to reality, Jazz finally felt the full implications of everything that she'd learnt since waking up in this very hospital bed. From Danny and Sam to Tucker and her own health … It was all too much to deal with at once.
When Jazz had woken up in the hospital, disorientated and confused, the first thing she had seen was her mother, who had immediately broken down into tears and reached for her hand. Maddie had been nearly incoherent and when Jazz looked for her father, he was sitting heavily on the windowsill of her room, his chin tucked into his chest, staring at her, not saying a word. It was only Dr. Jiang who was able to take a seat on the edge of Jazz's bed and explain to her what had happened, her lilting voice with its endearing accent unable to make what she was saying any better.
Her spine had been damaged. She might, one day, walk again but it was going to take a lot of hard work on her part. As Dr. Jiang had continuously touched her hands and explained the upcoming few weeks and months of Jazz's life, Jazz had nodded along, all the time thinking about her feet and how she just couldn't feel the blanket resting against them. When Dr. Jiang had finished, there were two police officers standing at her door, and that's when Jazz found out the worst news of her life.
Danny was gone. Sam was gone. Tucker was in a coma.
She had sat there, infuriated as the officers questioned her. She knew, if not in exact terms, but in ones that were close enough to the truth, what had happened to Danny, Sam, and Tucker. She knew who to blame. Even though she didn't remember who had attacked her, it was probably the same driving force: Vlad Masters. Vlad, who had been threatening Danny for months; who was scheming, as always, except this time, no one knew his plan. She lied to the officers, said she knew nothing, that none of them had any enemies, and that Danny and Sam weren't even friends, so it wouldn't make sense for them to run off together.
When the police were gone, she almost told her parents everything. She almost blurted out, "Vlad's been half ghost since your college days and Danny's been half-ghost since he was fourteen and Tucker and I knew and he's Danny Phantom and Vlad's been scheming something because he's Plasmius, the bad guy, and I know he kidnapped Danny and Sam and hurt Tucker and I and now that I think about it there's probably something fishy about Gregor too". It almost came out, exactly like that, in a big, rambling mess.
But her tongue stilled inside her mouth, and she found herself choking on her intention. Because she knew that her parents would confront Vlad, who despite everything and how uncomfortable Maddie had become in his presence, still counted him as a friend. She didn't want such a confrontation to occur, as it could be disastrous for Danny.
Jazz was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She could do nothing to help them herself, so she could only hope that they were able to help themselves. She could only hope that Tucker woke up, and was in better shape than she was. She could only hope that everything worked out okay in the end. But until the end came, Jazz found she could do nothing but weep.
They're gonna find you, just believe.
You're not a person; you're a disease.
Jeremy woke up to a missed voicemail. Bleary-eyed and only half awake, he called his voicemail as he stumbled to the bathroom, leaving the speaker phone on the counter as he went about his morning routine.
"Voicemail from (555) 555-5555 left at 5:39 A.M.," the robotic voice chirped at him. Jeremy washed his hands and picked up the phone, carrying it with him down the stairs as the tone finally beeped and he waited for one of his colleague's voices to barrel out of the phone at him.
"Hi Mother; hi Daddy."
Sam. His heart clenched in his chest and he collapsed to his knees. She had called. That was her voice. And he had missed it; had slept through picking up the phone and holding this conversation with her.
"Sorry it's taken me so long to call. I probably should have long before now but I didn't know what to say." She could say that she was okay. She could say that she was on her way home. "I know you had a lot of dreams for me and I know that I had a lot of dreams for me … And, I'll fulfill them someday. But, right now, there are more important things for me to be doing."
What could be more important than coming home? What could be more important than having a place that was safe; than being with him and Pamela? She had only just gotten back, and she had seemed so happy to be with them. He just couldn't understand it.
"I think I lost myself," Sam continued, her voice becoming faint for a moment before picking up strength again. "And, uh, Danny, he's lost too. I know we weren't really friends before but at Vlad's party we started talking and we really do understand each other. I'm safe. I'm happy. This is what I want. University can wait. I promise, okay?"
No, Jeremy thought desperately, not okay. Not okay because he knew this wasn't his daughter. He knew that she wouldn't be saying these words. Sam would never run away with a boy she barely knew, nor would she postpone university. She had been so excited to go. He didn't believe this message. He just didn't.
"Oh, and tell Maddie and Jack that Danny's fine," Sam added after a pause. "He doesn't really have the strength to call, because of Jazz and all, but we're all right. I love you guys."
Her voice broke, and Jeremy lost his ability to stand. He sat down in the middle of the stairs, feeling the tears pool in his eyes. He firmly believed that she was not all right, and this only served to fuel that belief.
"Pamela!" He shouted for his wife. "Pamela!"
He heard the flutter of her feet, and even though she never said a word, he could hear her hope and how it screamed to see Sam standing in the foyer. He could hear the crinkle of her clothing as she looked around; the soft sliding sounds of her hands as she wrung them together. Finally, seeing nothing, she sat down next to him, and he could smell her. She had been wearing the same perfume for so long that it had become built into her skin; had become some integral part of her. He'd been the one to buy her the first bottle of that perfume. It was the first Christmas gift he'd ever given to her, and his best friend's girlfriend at the time, the one who had died that January, had helped him pick it out.
He leaned his head against her shoulder, drawing on her strength.
"Listen," he told her. And then he played Sam's message again.
Silence reigned as she said her last word, and then Pamela spoke.
"She doesn't sound like that. I've never heard her speak like that. Call the police."
Jeremy could hear the tremor in his wife's voice, but he also knew that his wife had a mission: find Sam. When Pamela had a goal, she didn't let anything stand in her way, particularly when it came to her only child.
"What are we going to do?" Jeremy whispered, only realizing he spoke aloud when Pamela answered.
"You're calling the police. I'm calling Maddie. We can deal with everything else when Sam is home with us."
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
Broken homes from separation.
Don't you know it's violation?
It's so wrong, but you'll see.
Never gonna let you take my world from me.
The world outside these walls may know you're breathing,
But you ain't comin' in.
It was his first day at home after getting out of the hospital. Tucker felt out of place in his house. He couldn't reconcile the way that he had last saw it bathed in mid-summer to the reality; that autumn had taken over, with its shorter days and colourful leaves. He was standing in his bedroom window, glaring at the parts of Amity that he could see from this point. He hated looking at the saggy, dull houses with their saggy, dull … hats.
Fuck, he thought to himself. Then, at least I can remember that word.
The doctors said that the slight memory loss would only be temporary, and that as Tucker worked with all of the therapists and specialists that his doctor had mentioned, he would regain whatever he had lost. Tucker seemed to forget words that even the average five-year-old would know; forget things that were common knowledge to everyone around him. He'd never been the smartest person in the world, but he'd never felt so obnoxiously stupid before.
Like he always did when he forgot something, he pulled out his phone.
Tucker: What's the name for the house hats?
Jazz: roof.
He could always rely on her to know what he was thinking about. His poor Jazz, who was relearning how to walk.
Jazz: What are you doing right now?
Tucker: I'm just in my room.
Jazz: turn on the TV. Channel 41. NOW.
Tucker flipped on his TV, doing as he was told. He was greeted with the face of Vlad Masters holding what looked like a press conference, and Tucker felt his lip curl in disgust. He may have forgotten the words 'roof' 'bacon' and, worst of all 'computer', but he would never forget his hatred for Vlad Masters or Vlad Plasmius because he remembered, very clearly, the last time he'd seen Vlad in person. He remembered the last fight between Danny and Vlad, one that he'd accidentally walked in on, looking for Danny. He'd been present for a lot of Danny's and Vlad's fights in the past, but this time it was different. He'd gone to duck out of the room, perhaps to go grab a weapon from the jacket he'd stupidly shoved into coat check. Instead, he felt the pain on his back, and he knew that he'd become the target. He'd still tried to claw his way out of the door and get out of the room. He didn't want to become a distraction or a hostage for Danny and he knew that Vlad wouldn't dare follow him outside of the room, knowing how many people were in his mansion right now. He heard Danny above him, saying something, but he couldn't quite make out what it was. Tucker looked up in time to see Vlad get a good shot into Danny, and while the younger boy was recovering, Vlad aimed at Tucker. And that was when Tucker's memory cut out, ceasing to exist until he woke up in the hospital.
And now Vlad was talking about Danny's disappearance like he wasn't the cause of it. Like he wasn't an evil bastard that deserved to burn.
"It's a great tragedy," Vlad exclaimed to the news crews that were standing in front of him. "Both the Mansons and the Fentons have suffered terribly with the loss of Daniel and Samantha, and with the attack on Jasmine Fenton earlier this summer. I feel responsible for what occurred, if only because Daniel and Samantha disappeared from my home. I had hoped, like everyone else, that they had disappeared together, although it would be a great blow to my nephew, Sam's boyfriend."
"Mr. Masters!" One of the reporters shouted.
"Yes?" Vlad answered.
"We've heard all of this before. What do you have to say about the Mansons and the Fentons visit to the police station this morning? Have they found evidence? Is it foul play?"
Vlad paused, appearing to collect himself. "I wouldn't hurt the police investigation by guessing wildly about the police visit this morning. I haven't yet talked with Maddie and Jack or Pamela and Jeremy. I can tell you that I haven't been contacted recently about my home and my party from the point they left the station. Personally, I don't think that it's foul play. The house was crowded that night. I don't see how someone could have stolen them without notice. Daniel was an athlete. He would have fought back."
He did, Tucker growled in his mind, but you played dirty.
He clenched his hands into fists, wishing that it would do some good to punch the screen, as if it would affect Vlad. He knew that Vlad had Danny and Sam. He just didn't know where and he didn't know why – the two most important factors. He wished that he were strong enough to confront the older halfa himself. He let himself savour the image for a moment: he, armed with weapons technology more advanced than Vlad had ever seen, creeping up on his opponent and finally, for once, having Vlad being the one to hope for mercy and take the pain of a blow. He'd force the man to tell him where Danny and Sam were, and then he'd kill Vlad himself. He'd kill Vlad for putting everyone he loved through this hell.
He'd go straight for good, old fashioned revenge.
Shed the light on all the ones who never thought they would become
A father, mother asking why this world can be so cold.
"Maddie, Pamela, and Jazz!"
The three women, seated around a small table, turned their heads to look at the stylishly dressed woman standing there. A tape recorder was tucked, not so subtly, into her palm. They knew who she was: Tamara Stan, a reporter on the national news.
"Hello, Tamara," Pamela spoke first, extending her hand to the woman.
She was the only one who had been accustomed to interviews before Danny and Sam's disappearance, due to the spotlight on Jeremy's company at certain times. Maddie had only stood in front of reporters with tears streaming down her face, begging for her son to call her. The reporters had been trying to get to Jazz ever since she had woken from her coma, but so far she'd avoided it. Now Jeremy's company had thrown a benefit to raise awareness about Danny and Sam and there were news crews crawling all over the event.
"Mind if I sit with you?" Tamara asked.
"Not at all," Maddie answered, and gestured to the empty chair at the table.
"Your dress is stunning," Tamara commented. "Really, Maddie, you must tell me where you go it."
"Oh." Maddie lowered a hand to her soft grey dress, with the intricate embroidery running asymmetrically up her torso. "I just ordered it off the internet when I heard about how fancy this event was going to be."
"Online shopping is so great," Tamara gushed. "And, Pamela, that's … an interesting choice. I've never seen you wear anything like it."
"It's Sam's," Pamela explained the uncharacteristic short, black flapper dress she had donned for the event. "She bought it earlier this year. We went to Los Angeles for a week to celebrate my birthday and she found this in one of those vintage shops she's addicted to. I … I don't know if she ever wore it anywhere, but she really loved it, and I wore it for her. To see if somehow she'll know and get mad enough to call me and yell at me for wearing her clothes."
Tactful as always, Tamara pulled a tissue out of her purse for Pamela and handed it to her without comment. She placed her hand over Pamela's as a silent show of support and looked to Jazz.
"And tell me, what are you wearing?"
"It's a top Mom found online," Jazz said tugging at her long sleeves. The top was black, with sheer fabric over the tops of her shoulders and creeping toward her neck. The sheer fabric had intricate lace woven into key spots. "And my pants are ones that I've had lying around forever. They've got wide legs, so it's easy for me to put them on, but they don't get caught in the wheelchair."
"I heard you're doing very well with your walking," Tamara exclaimed. "I'm so glad to hear that."
"Thanks." Jazz smiled shyly at the reporter.
"I mean, you have to be able to get up and run to your brother when we finally find his pretty face, right?"
Jazz grinned, and joked, "If he heard me call him pretty, I'd have to run from his tackle."
It was easier for her to talk about Danny like this; like he was in reach and, inevitably, coming back instead of facing the knowledge that she knew who was responsible, and that she knew the culprit was a madman who may have already killed her brother and Sam.
"Is he a manly man?" Tamara asked.
"He … likes to think so," Jazz stated. Under the table, Maddie took her daughter's hand.
"Did you know Sam well?" Tamara continued, focusing on Jazz. Maddie and Pamela, along with their husbands, had been interviewed many times. No one had talked to Jazz yet, or Danny's best friend Tucker, although Tamara hadn't seen the boy at the company benefit yet.
"Not as well as I would have liked to. We really got along when we were together and I really liked talking to her, but we didn't … seek each other out."
"But you did know her?" Tamara pressed.
Jazz nodded. "Yeah. I'd call us friends."
"Jazz tutored Sam when we first moved to Amity," Pamela added. "Sam had gotten injured and couldn't go to school. Sam respected her."
"Oh," Tamara nodded. "I heard you're very smart."
"Brilliant," Maddie piped up. "Our brilliant girl."
"And as stunning as her mother," Tamara complimented her.
Jazz dropped her eyes down. "Thank you."
"Let me ask you, how is Tucker? I know he's Danny's best friend, but you must have spent a lot of time with him. Do you still seem him?" Tamara asked Jazz.
"Tucker's like one of the family," Maddie answered before Jazz did. "And we often see him when he checks in, seeing if anything's happened."
"He was friends with Sam too," Jazz added quietly.
"But Danny and Sam weren't, right? That's why you don't believe the story that Danny and Sam ran away together."
"They'd never," Jazz answered firmly; her conviction so strong that Tamara, who'd had doubts that they'd been abducted, was automatically convinced otherwise.
"But what makes you believe it so strongly?"
Jazz fell silent, thinking, but Tamara knew that she was about to get her answer. There had been many stories run on Daniel Fenton and Samantha Manson, because the children had disappeared from a high-profile man's party and they'd both had high-profile parents. It was suspicious that both Danny's sister and his best friend were brutally beaten prior to their disappearances, but no one knew who had attacked Jazz or Tucker. The police didn't have anything solid on any of the cases; no evidence, no motive, nothing – only the conviction that something fishy had happened.
"Danny … he tried harder than anyone will ever know to be a good person. He pushed himself in ... unimaginable ways to be a hero in his own right. But that doesn't mean that he wasn't human, and that he couldn't be selfish or a jerk. In high school he was in with a group of people that really … valued a mean streak in people –"
"The school bullies?"
Jazz hesitated. "Yeah, kind of. A few of them more than others. But, the point is that Danny went through a stage where he wasn't the sweetest person to be around, and he and Sam had some run-ins. She didn't like him in high school. And then after Christmas, I think around New Years, something big happened between the two of them. Danny never went into details about it and Sam just avoided the subject of my brother completely, so I don't know exactly what occurred but they could barely stand to be in the same room as each other following what happened. Sam would never run away with Danny."
"So, there was never any romantic involvement between the two of them? Could the fight between them have been a lover's quarrel? If it was, they could have reconciled at the party and decided to run away together."
"Not possible. Not only did Sam never date Danny, but he had a girlfriend for most of the time that she was in Amity. And then she had a boyfriend over the summer. Neither of them are the cheating kind. I'm sorry, but there's no theory where Danny and Sam suddenly deciding to run away together makes any sense at all."
"But Danny had broken up with his girlfriend, right?"
"Right," Jazz confirmed.
"And Sam had just met Gregor. And he's planning on returning to Hungary soon, I believe. So their relationship wasn't that serious."
"She really liked him. They were just getting to know each other." Jazz pointed out.
"Maybe Sam and Danny – "
Jazz cut Tamera off. "I already told you. It's. Not. Possible."
"So you think it's definitely foul play?" Tamara questioned.
Jazz met the woman's eyes, her usually compassionate aqua eyes hard as steel. "I know it was."
A chill ran down Tamera's spine. And, when she wrote her article about the benefit, she did it with Jazz Fenton's eyes in her mind, compelling her to do what no other journalist on the case had really done before. She didn't even entertain the idea of a romantic plot between Danny and Sam. She styled her article as if she were a crime journalist, laying out the facts that pointed to abduction – that Danny and Sam, even Tucker and Jazz, had been caught up in a plot too big, too devious for anyone to comprehend what was going on. But at the end of the article, she had to write: Jazz was attacked August 9th. Tucker on August 16th – the night Danny and Sam disappeared. While both have claimed to know nothing about their attackers or the motives of Danny's and Sam's abductors, it's a little hard to believe that they are ignorant to why they were almost killed and to why their friends and family were stolen … Isn't it?
Doesn't come down when she calls,
"It's time for breakfast."
The memories begin to fall.
She asks, "When will I be free?"
Maddie was making breakfast for supper, just as Jack had asked for. She started the pancakes, set the sausages and bacon on, and checked the fridge to see what fruit she had. It was only when the pancakes were starting to brown and become ready to come out of the pan that Maddie realized that she'd made far too much food. She'd made enough to feed her daughter, who'd been eating less and less, and her husband, who had been eating more and more. There was enough for her, she forced herself to eat on some days, and there was certainly enough for the constantly hungry, bottomless pit of a teenage boy that she was supposed to have. It was something that she'd continued to do, despite the fact that Danny had been missing for a long time now.
She kept doing things that she would be doing if he were still here. She continued to wash his already clean clothes; make his already clean bed. She vacuumed his floor, and poked around his room in ways that she never would have done before. Maddie was mother who was a big believer in respecting her children's privacy. But with Danny gone and Jazz hospitalized, Maddie knew that if there was ever a time to snoop, this was it.
She had gone into Danny's room, just intending to clean up, and had found herself meticulously organizing her son's chaotic space. She had waded through a mountain of clothes – many of which had been mangled or destroyed. She had flashed back to when Danny was about fourteen or fifteen, when he had often come home beaten up. That behaviour had abated as he grew older, but these were recent clothes. He'd been getting into fights recently. She'd wondered if it had anything to do with his disappearance. She had found a surprising amount of Fenton weapons scattered in his room. Some were broken; some looked oddly battle worn. But the ones that had gotten to Maddie were the ones that looked like they had been played with. Danny had been upgrading her and Jack's weapons, and had been doing it well. But she didn't know why, and the thought disturbed her. She had scrubbed through Danny's room, finding high amounts of ectoplasm. The discovery of ectoplasm had made Maddie's heart absolutely stop. She'd always thought that the thing that had abducted Danny was human … but what if it wasn't.
What if Danny's abductor was a ghost? A terrible theory began to form in Maddie's head. With startling clarity, she could visualize a ghost, one that was upset with her and Jack, attacking Jazz. She could see it getting angry when Jazz didn't die like it had expected. It had gone to get Danny to do something unspeakable to him. Somehow Tucker, and then Sam, had gotten in the ghost's way. But if this was how that August night at Vlad's house had happened, how had none of them noticed a ghost there? She and Jack were professional ghost hunters. Vlad, though he was a businessman first and foremost, still had interest in the paranormal and knew that, when he was residing in his Amity mansion, it had to be armed against attack. As she continued to think about it, her ghost theory fell apart. Ghosts were definitely capable of vengeance, but they weren't capable of the thought that a kidnapping plot would require. If a ghost wanted the Fenton family dead, then their obsessive personalities wouldn't let them rest until the entire Fenton family was dead. Sam would have been inconsequential and so would Tucker. It didn't make any sense.
By the time she was done cleaning his room, she had been no closer to finding answers about why Danny had gone missing. There were some strange things in his room – like the shredded clothes and the ectoplasm - but she couldn't understand how they tied together with Danny. She could understand the weapons, however. While neither Danny nor Jazz had a lot of interest in ghost hunting, they were both good at it. Danny had been interested in the weapons though. He would often help her tinker around with new designs or ideas. Maybe he'd been trying to impress her by coming up with something himself. But the clothes and the ectoplasm … Maddie was no closer to an answer than when she had started going through his room. But the ectoplasm had convinced her of one thing: it was her fault. She was a ghost hunter. Ectoplasm meant a ghostly presence. It meant that, somehow, she had something to do with the disappearance of her son. She just hadn't known enough to be able to protect him.
And now she had no son and too much food and she just didn't know what to do anymore.
She felt tears began to build in her eyes as the kitchen door flew open. She swallowed her emotion – no one but Jack should be allowed to see her like this – and looked up to see Tucker.
"Hi!" He chirped, his voice starting to lose its robotic sound and return to his normal voice.
"Hey, Tucker." Maddie smiled. "Jazz is upstairs."
She was starting to suspect that her daughter and her son's best friends were more than people bonded by Danny; that they were more than mere friends, even. Maddie was beginning to believe that, at some point, they had started dating.
"Is that …" She watched his eyes fall on the pan of bacon and then flick to the pancakes. "Pancakes?"
"And bacon and sausage," Maddie explained, not acknowledging that he had forgotten the word. She knew it would only embarrass him. "You're welcome to stay for dinner."
"Thanks. I think I will." Tucker took a step forward, about to head upstairs to see Jazz, when he hesitated and looked back at Maddie. "Do you want a hug?"
Maddie could only nod, touched by Tucker's attentiveness, and allowed the embrace. She closed her eyes and hugged the boy who was too tall and too wide to be her son, but she tried to pretend otherwise.
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
Broken homes from separation.
Don't you know it's violation?
Elliot leant against the basement wall, watching Danny and Sam from his hidden vantage point. He knew that they would never see him. The first time he'd come here to spy on them, he'd been expecting Danny to notice him; for those Phantom instincts to come alive. But Danny had never noticed. And now that he had been in the cell for so long, his instincts were dulled by his restraints that slowly zapped his strength.
Elliot hadn't intended to watch them, not in the beginning. He didn't really care for Sam, despite the fact that she was the first living female that he'd ever met. He would have liked for their physical relationship to go further, if only because he wanted to know what it was like, but he hadn't been overly attached to the girl herself. Or so he'd thought. When she had been injured, he'd watched the pathetic ghost servant stealthily (Vlad had noticed her actions, and only permitted them so that Danny and Sam could be taken care of without he having to do it) sneak Sam weak supplies that wouldn't help her at all. From then on, Elliot had taken it upon himself to sneak into the cell – when he was sure both Danny and Sam were fast asleep – and tend to their wounds as best as he could. He knew that Vlad wanted Danny and Sam alive – Danny for the plan, Sam to control Danny – but he also knew that Vlad was more concerned with other things than his prisoners, and wouldn't have noticed they were dying until it was too late to save them.
No, Elliot didn't care for Sam, but he wasn't going to watch her die.
Danny was a different story. Elliot had very strong feelings about the boy; he hated Danny. Two years ago, when Danny was sixteen, Elliot had been created. He had been aged prematurely and had woken up for the first time as a seventeen year old instead of an infant. He had to learn to walk and talk; he had to be potty-trained. At the end of it, he was left with a disgustingly, embarrassingly clear memory of all of the things that Vlad and his ghostly servants had taught him. He had also developed with the knowledge that Vlad was disappointed in him. He looked like Phantom, but aside from a few enhanced abilities, there was nothing supernatural or ghostly about Elliot. He wasn't what Vlad wanted. But he also wasn't going to implode, like his predecessors had, so at least he was leading in that area.
It pleased Elliot to see Danny bound in chains. Danny may have been the original, and Elliot may have been the clone, but he knew that he was superior.
It's so wrong, but you'll see.
Never gonna let you take my world from me.
The world outside these walls may know you're breathing,
But you ain't comin' in.
As was her habit, Pamela picked up her phone the moment she woke up. She had a missed call from an unknown number, and her heart leapt in her throat, hammering against her rib cage. Could it be Sam? She didn't want to hope in case she was wrong, but she couldn't afford to not hope. Using her elbow, she nudged Jeremy awake as she called her voicemail. He didn't say a word as the robotic voice talked, but he trembled when Sam began to speak.
"Hi Mother, hi Dad! I know it's been awhile since I last called, and I'm really sorry for that, I just don't really know what to say."
The only thing she had to say was where she was so that they could go get her.
"I'm not ready to come home yet." But they were ready for her to come home. "I know that's really disappointing, but it's the truth. And I'm sorry about that too. I'm still with Danny, so I'm not alone. I hope that brings you some comfort. I've been trying to get him to call home, but he's at a loss for words. Even more so than I am."
Pamela had gotten to know Maddie so well over these past few months that she knew Maddie would be ecstatic to pick up the phone and hear her son say 'hi', even if that was all they said.
"He's not ready to be found yet, and neither am I. But I feel like you have a right to know where we are, sort of. Anyway, we um, we made it into Canada last week. That's all for now, I guess. I love you both."
A moment of silence reigned, before Jeremy said, "She still sounds fake and rehearsed."
"I don't believe, whatsoever, that she's in Canada," Pamela said. "I'm going to call the police."
"I … I think I'll call Jack," Jeremy announced. "I want to know for sure if their son called them."
"You do that."
(-.-)
The first thing that entered Jack's head that it was too damn early for his cellphone to be ringing. The second thing that entered Jack's head was that it could be Danny, and he excitedly grabbed onto his phone.
"Son?" He bellowed into the speaker, and beside him, Maddie stirred.
"No, sorry Jack, it's Jeremy Manson. We got a voicemail from Sam this morning, and we just wanted to know if you'd heard from Danny."
Jack frowned, and looked at his phone screen before saying, "No, Jeremy. I don't have a voicemail." He couldn't hide the heartbreak in his voice.
"I do!" Maddie cried, interrupting their conversation. "Jack, I do!"
Forgetting about Jeremy, Jack dropped his phone. "Play it, Mads, play it!"
Trembling, they sat through the robotic explanation of the call, and then, finally, Danny's voice – confirmation that he was alive.
"Hi, Mom, hi Dad."
"Hi baby," Maddie breathed, as if it were a call.
"Look, um, I don't know what to say, but Sam's been insisting I call. I'm sorry about leaving, especially with all that's happened with Jazz. But I … I just couldn't stay. I don't know if you understand that and I don't know if I can explain. But I love you all so much and, uh, I'll come home when I'm ready. I promise."
They listened to it one more time.
"It's just like Jeremy and Pamela said about Sam," Jack finally said. "He doesn't sound like Danny."
"He sounds like he's been coerced into it," Maddie agreed. "Out of everybody, Danny would never not come back to Jazz, especially now that she's conscious. Now that she needs him."
"But he's alive. We know for sure he's alive and that has to be something," Jack choked out, tears rolling down his face.
"It is," Maddie assured him, wrapping her arms around him, tears rolling down her face. "It is."
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
It was hard for Jack to be standing on Vlad Master's mansion balcony – the very house that his son had disappeared from. But it was New Year's Eve, and Jack couldn't turn down his best friend's party invitation. So, he and Maddie had gotten dressed up and gone, leaving Jazz at home watching movies with Tucker. It was nearing midnight, and Jack shouldered his way to the front of the railing so that Maddie could have the best view of the fireworks. Shivering, she tucked herself under his orange-clad arm, wrapping her own arms around his middle. He cuddled her close, and listened to the many voices of the deck begin the New Year's Countdown.
A few numbers in, Jack heard another voice over the swell of partygoers and that voice was saying his name. He looked down to the lavish lawn stretched from the deck and it took a moment for him to understand what he was seeing. A tiny, emaciated dark-haired girl was struggling through the snow, a limp dark-haired body over her back. She looked up the deck, and Jack could recognize her. If that girl was Sam, then the boy had to be Danny.
"JACK!" She screamed. "HELP US!"
Jack flinched at her voice, so loud and desperate that she attracted the attention of everyone on the deck. He watched as she collapsed, Danny falling with her, and instinctively, he pulled Maddie into his chest. Until he knew that Danny was alive, he couldn't let her look.
"We have to get down there," Maddie cried out, trying to turn but he couldn't let her.
"PAMELA!" Someone screamed. "JEREMY!"
Several people ran back into the house, but more ran down toward the teenagers, and Jack, still protecting Maddie, lead the charge, racing toward his baby.
All these lives that you've been taking,
Deep inside, my heart is breaking.
The world outside these walls may know you're breathing,
"I don't want to be here," Pamela whispered to Jeremy, her breath heavy with all the champagne she had consumed. "It seems wrong."
"We can leave any time that you want," Jeremy assured her, taking her hand.
"TEN!" Came a roar from the deck. They were sitting just inside, one of the few who had opted to stay inside rather than go outside. Pamela said it was too cold. Jeremy just wanted to stay with her.
"We'll kiss at zero," she suggested, "And then we can go home."
Jeremy pressed his lips to her forehead. "I'll kiss you anytime."
"TWO!"
Pamela hugged him as the crowd yelled "ZERO!" Just as Jeremy had promised, he kissed her. She kissed him back, like they were teenagers, like his lips could make her forget the pain of the past few months. He held her back and then, someone burst into the room.
"Pamela! Jeremy!" One of the women who was in Mothers Of Amity Park with Pamela, Katie, screeched. "SAM'S OUTSIDE!"
"SAM'S WHAT?!" Pamela screamed, hurtling to her feet, Jeremy barely a second behind her.
Neither of them waited for Katie to say a word. They burst through the balcony doors, running to the railing to look at the crowd that had gathered on the lawn below. She saw Jack and Maddie, holding a boy who must have been Danny, and then a girl, dressed in clothes that Pamela didn't recognize, being bundled in a stranger's coat.
Her daughter.
"Sam!" She shouted, although the girl looked unconscious. "I'm here. I'm here."
And then Jeremy grabbed her hand and they ran for their little girl.
The world outside these walls may know you're breathing,
But you ain't comin' in.
The song is All These Lives by Daughtry. The companion piece to Invincible, Superman, will be out soonish! I don't know anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.
~TLL~