Just A Boy: Sequel
The both of them were silent for a long moment.
Maddie was never one to feel uncomfortable with the silence between people; she actually welcomed it. But, the boy in front of her disarmed her completely although she couldn't tell you why. The silence between them felt weighted somehow as if there was something looming over them, something left unsaid; and for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out.
Despite being uncomfortable, she never broke eye contact with the boy-no with the teenager in front of her and in return, he never once took his eyes off of hers. It felt like he was searching for something. She could tell with the deep, thoughtful indent between his eyebrows and the frown pulling his lips down. For some reason, the expression looked familiar, but she couldn't place it.
She exhaled a long drawn out breath, rubbing her temples out of both frustration and a growing headache; she sat on the chair stationed by the table where the boy lied. This boy was an even bigger enigma than she thought, and if there was one thing that Maddie hated, it was not being able to figure something out no matter how impossible it was. This was why she liked science. No matter what, there was always an explanation paired with a way to find one. She once thought science could explain Phantom, but now, she was having her doubts. Extreme doubts, something Maddie never associated with herself or her favorite subject.
"What?"
She looked up, not realizing that she looked away from Phantom in the first place. He was looking at her with the oddest expression, it was a mixture of curiosity and a little bit of fear. She didn't know why he was looking at her that way. What was there to afraid of? It was pretty obvious she wasn't going to do anything to him. If she was, she would have had ample amount of opportunities to do so before he was conscious.
Again, without her consent, flashes of her hands deep in his open body crossed her mind. She did her best to suppress a shiver. She knew she was going to be haunted for a while by what she had to do to him. Although she wasn't as bad off as her husband, she didn't enjoy the realm of the real world when it concerned human anatomy.
Despite her background in various sciences, most involving physics, engineering, chemistry, and various others specializing in the paranormal, she was never taken with the human body. She didn't like seeing somebody cut open and so vulnerable. She didn't like seeing the many things that could go wrong if a person was injured so badly to the point of dying. This was why she never once considered donating her brilliance to the medical world. She wanted to help people, better them, protect them, not repair them when something has already happened. This was why Phantom shook her so badly. She wasn't expecting to find anything of what she did. Ghosts weren't supposed to have anything that resembled the anatomy of a human. This was why Maddie had no qualms with dissecting ghosts in the first place. They weren't like humans.
"I just don't understand," she finally said, managing to push back the images of him, of his blood. She looked at his torso, which was dressed in white gauze, to convince herself that he was no longer in the shape he was once in. No longer open and vulnerable. "I don't understand how you're like this. How this happened to you? How you can even exist?"
She stopped herself from saying the next thing that came to her mind. How he was still alive after all of this?
She looked at him again. This time seeing just how frail he looked, and it scared her. She didn't know why, but it just did. For some reason, this was shaking her to the core, she felt as if she couldn't breathe and that the panic was about to come and consume her. She didn't know why. She didn't understand this feeling just like how she couldn't understand the boy causing it.
Phantom laid back even deeper into the pillow, his head to the side so that he could still see her. He let out a breath, sounding more weighted than the silence between them.
"What are you thinking?" She asked, leaning in towards him. She wanted to push back the white hair that was falling in his peculiarly colored eyes, but she didn't. She didn't know how he would react to her touch.
"I'm just," the boy paused for a second, seeming to have trouble with what he was trying to say, "trying to process all of this, I guess."
He looked down at his hand, the one that was gloveless and had the IV in it. "I never thought you would find out this way." He smirked all of a sudden, it was filled with mirth but still had a certain light to it. "Then again, I never thought I would be shot either. With an actual gun that is." He looked back up at her, the smile disappearing when he saw her disapproving expression. He was still treating this as if it was some kind of game.
Maddie shook her head, not getting it at all. It was as if the boy couldn't grasp the seriousness of the situation.
"What?" he said, his tone sounding a bit offended. Did she offend him somehow? She couldn't tell. She didn't know what was up or down with him.
"I keep trying to tell you, but you don't seem to get it," she answered. The boy stiffened, giving her a stubborn look. It seemed he already knew what she was trying to say. She never did give him credit for this, but he was pretty smart. It surprised her that she was just realizing this about Phantom.
"No, I get it," he said, his tone suddenly serious. He wasn't looking at her anymore, but instead at the ceiling. She studied his profile, the strong jaw that he might grow into one day (she thought 'might' because now she didn't know if he could age or not), the subtle green light from his eyes that cast shadows on certain parts of his face, making the planes look even more angular, his hair was mussed and looked permanently windblown. He was a handsome boy despite all the anomalies in his appearance, but somehow they only enhanced his features, looking as if he was meant to look that way all along.
"You don't know how much I really do get it," he said, unknowingly bringing Maddie back to reality. "I can die."
There was such a finality in that simple statement. For some reason, it made the pit of Maddie's stomach drop; she suddenly felt queazy.
"But, something worse could happen," he said, his eyes never leaving the ceiling. He was avoiding eye contact with her, not daring to look at her.
"What could be worse than losing your life?" Maddie asked, her eyebrows pulling together in concentration, her attention fully on the boy in front of her. She realized she was closer to him now then she thought, but she didn't pull away.
"Losing everybody and everything I love," he said, Maddie looked at him questioningly, hearing the distinct sound of experience in his voice. Did something happen to him?
"Seeing people die when there was a way I could stop it," he continued, still not looking at her. "There are worse things."
"You have loved ones?" Maddie asked. "Do they know about you?"
She tried to picture Phantom's family in her head, but she drew a blank. It was hard for her to fathom something that was impossible a day ago.
"Some of them do," he said, he was frowning again. Maddie didn't like it when he frowned; it seemed like it pulled all the life out of him. "My friends know. They help me sometimes."
"Why didn't you tell your family?" Maddie asked. "You are alive; they would want to know."
"It's complicated," he said. He was avoiding her gaze more than ever. It was clear he didn't want to say anything more about the subject, but Maddie continued to press.
"What's complicated about it? Your parents would rather have their son alive and with ghost powers, or whatever it is, than have their son dead." She looked down at her cupped hands, managing to speak around the knot in her throat. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost one of my children. I would be devastated. Your parents are probably feeling the same way."
She looked up to see him staring at her, giving her the oddest look. His breathing was coming out more harsh than before, but he didn't seem to notice. "What if," he stopped for a moment, hesitating but after a moment, he continued, seeming to decide that he was going to ask anyway. "What if one of your kids was like...this?"
He didn't say it, but she could practically hear the unspoken question in the air. Would you accept them?
She didn't even need to think about it; there was no hesitation in her answer. "Yes."
"Why?" He said, he made a move to get up but winced momentarily. Rather than settling back down like Maddie thought he would, he just pushed harder until he was in sitting position, feet dangling off the table. He was gripping his torso with a pained expression. Maddie could see a red and green mixture beginning to bloom across the gauze, spreading slowly until it stopped. The once immaculate pure white gauze now stained. It took her a minute before she could tear her gaze away from it.
He was looking pretty impressed with himself, but the moment was fleeting as his expression melted back to the serious one he had before.
Before she could reprimand him and force him to lay back down, he said abruptly, "You're a ghost-hunter. You don't like ghosts." His tone sounded pained and forced but she didn't pay any mind to it, still taken by the simplicity of his statement and how absolutely wrong it was.
"I love them," she said, it seemed absurd that she even had to explain this. "It doesn't matter what they turned into or what they did. It doesn't matter what I am or what I hate. I will always love them. Besides, if they were anything like you, I would be proud." She smiled at him; it was genuine, even brimming with a bit of pride for him because this boy, after all the negativity and hatred, still did the right thing no matter how many times it was misconstrued, especially by her. He risked his life to save people. Despite the obvious risk, especially for someone so young, she couldn't help but be a little proud of him despite the fact that she truly didn't have any ties with the boy.
Phantom looked taken aback, his expression comical because he truly looked as if he wasn't expecting anything she said, but as if the words were just registering, he smiled at her. It was the big, goofy smile her Danny would give her. It made her smile even bigger at him. She lived for those smiles.
"You know," she said, "you remind me a bit of my son. His name is Danny too."
Phantom's smile wavered momentarily but remained, "I do?"
"Yes," she said. "We were really close at one time. We still are in a way, but you know how it is. When you grow up and become a teenager, you start having friends and school, I guess you grow out of your parents a bit."
Her smile grew a bit sad, but she realized a while back that her Danny was just growing up and that he wasn't always going to be her little boy, but it never stopped her form always being there on the sidelines waiting to come to the rescue. "He's been a bit distant lately," she stopped, thinking about something that's been on her mind as of lately when it came to the youngest Fenton. "But, you know, it might seem odd, but I see these glimpses sometimes, in his eyes, in the way he speaks, when he doesn't know you're looking. He really is growing into a fine young man, becoming somebody that my husband and I are proud of." She looked down, shaking her head in embarrassment at what she just said, imagining how everybody else that knew her son would react to her words. "I know it must seem weird for me to say that, considering he's been having so much trouble with school-his grades have improved but he still gets in trouble a lot-and curfew and just about everything else, but I don't know. It's just something I can feel."
"You really think that about him?" Maddie looked up, hearing the confusion in Phantom's voice. He was looking at her as if he had never seen her before. She didn't know why he was looking at her like that, maybe it was because he's never seen her in this light before, as the mother she is.
She nodded, not able to tear her eyes away from him. He looked at her in amazement and wonder. Again, she wondered why.
"I do get these feelings though," she said to him, a bit surprised with herself that she was telling Phantom this, something that she hadn't even told Jack. "Sometimes I feel like he's in trouble. I don't know what he's dealing with and sometimes I see it's taking a tole on him. He looks exhausted sometimes to the point where he looks like he's going to collapse or other times he just seems so defeated," she paused, Phantom was giving her a worried look. His face looked too young for that look. "I could be imagining it, or it could be a phase he's going through. Sometimes I want to bring it up to him, but I don't know. Do you talk to your children about that kind of stuff? Or do you let them find their own way and just be there to catch them if they fall?
"Something tells me he can handle it, but at the same time, I still want to be there."
She looked at the boy sitting there, he wasn't looking at her so she couldn't see his expression, instead his attention was drawn to the ground. She smiled, feeling a bit awkward that she was spilling all of this to him. "I'm sorry; I think I got a bit carried away with that. It's been on my mind lately, and I guess it just came out."
He looked up suddenly, "No it's fine." Maddie wondered why his voice was so shaky all of the sudden.
"I should probably go," he said, gripping the table as he slowly settled himself into standing position. He looked unsteady, but after a moment, he straightened to his full height, which Maddie didn't realize until now was bit taller than her. He wasn't like that before. She guess the question on whether or not he could age was answered. Like so many other things about the boy, she wondered how did she miss that before?
Somehow, he didn't look like the fragile boy laying on the table a moment ago. He looked stronger, more confident. She didn't know how she missed it before, but she could see it in his eyes. It wasn't that he was weighed down with the worries of the world or that he looked so haunted by everything that he went through. He didn't look aged or defeated or deterred by what happened to him. He looked as if he was comfortable with weight of the world, that sure, it was on his shoulders, but he could hold it just fine. He looked as if he did see a lot, and yeah, some of it might have been terrible, but he used them not as something negative, but as something that could teach him, to guide him for what he will overcome in the future.
She saw the same look in his eyes as she did in her son. It was like the ghost of his spirit was residing in the depths of the boy's eyes in front of her.
She was awestruck by the familiarness of it all.
He looked at her then, she wasn't used to being looked at in that way. She didn't know why, but she felt lighter. "Don't worry about your son," he smiled, but she could see it was a bit timid as if he didn't know exactly what he was trying to say. "He will come to you eventually, and I think he will be happy to know that you are there for him."
She didn't even get a chance to convince him to stay. He was gone before she could even move. In any other situation, if she wasn't feeling the way she was right now, she would have chased him down, too worried that he was going bleed out or get in trouble, but she wasn't worried. Well, not desperately so.
No, she just sat there, breathing slowly until a smile began to form on her face, she could feel it tugging her mouth, making it impossible to fight. She could feel the tears begin to prick her eyes, but they weren't out of sadness of the truth she just discovered. They were out of the too many emotions of pride and wonder bubbling through that they could no longer be held on the inside. Her little boy... the glimpses she saw was only on the surface, there was so much more than she ever thought. "I will always be here, Danny," she said, not able to stop smiling at the spot where he once occupied. She didn't know when he would tell her, but she didn't mind standing on the sidelines a little bit longer. She was still going to be there to catch him if he falls.
A/N: I was going to go a whole different way with this, I wanted to make it all depressing and angsty, but then I started really writing this out. And, for once, I didn't want to focus on how hurt he got, but I wanted to focus on the inner strength Danny had in the end of it all. I wanted to show that despite all the bad things that he had to go through, that they actually shaped him into a better person and made him stronger. Haha, I just went the totally opposite way. Thanks for all the reviews in the past, you guys are great!