Author's note: I would just like to take a moment to tell you all that this is the most difficult fic I've ever written.


Dissembled

Did I ever really leave?

He could never get away from her. Nowhere to go and everything to feel.

...

The sun would not be rising for a few more hours. She had enough time to get some sleep before her husband and daughter woke.

But how could she sleep when her son was still gone?

Maddie entered the darkened house and shut the front door behind her as quietly as she could, praying that maybe Danny had come home while she was out, that maybe he had decided to return all on his own.

The police were pretty convinced he'd come back eventually. She desperately wanted to believe that, too.

She searched the whole house, hoping to find him somewhere, anywhere. She stood in his empty room, stared at his empty bed.

Still gone.

She was exhausted. She hadn't slept at all the previous night. If she wanted to have a clear mind to properly search for Danny, she simply had to get some sleep.

She moved to the window and stared out at the night sky. She wondered if Danny was sleeping right at this moment.

She hoped he was safe and comfortable. Wherever he was.

Maddie slipped into bed beside her husband, not disturbing his sleep even a little. She had no idea how he could sleep so soundly when their son was still missing.

The bed felt hard and cold. Her stomach was knotted tight. So exhausted and drained and yet sleep just wouldn't come to her.

And thoughts of someone else kept trying to creep into her mind, someone strapped down to a table with nothing else to do but wait for her to return. His wintry hair tousled and his chest completely exposed just begging her to tear into it.

No she wasn't allowed to think about Phantom now. This was the promise she had made to herself. When she was in Vlad's private lab, she had resolved to think about only Phantom and not her son. No stress, no worries, just her hard-earned prize.

But when she was home, it was all about Danny. All about finding Danny. No Phantom. That had to be the trade-off.

Maddie pulled her knees up close to her breast and nuzzled her face into her pillow, tears trickling and dampening the fabric.

Until she found Danny, Phantom would have to be her only escape from this crushing loneliness.

The hours passed. If she had managed to fall asleep at all, she wasn't sure. She couldn't remember any dreams. But the sky was lit again, and she couldn't waste any more time in bed regardless. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to massage some energy into them. Had she even brushed her teeth or washed her face the night before? She couldn't recall. Probably not.

She crept down the hall and stood outside Danny's room, peering in through the open door. Still empty. Still gone.

"Mom?"

Maddie stumbled a step at the sound of the voice. She turned around to find her daughter dressed in a nightgown and looking at her curiously.

"You okay?" Jazz joined her by her side and looked into Danny's room.

Maddie nodded and leaned against the door frame.

"How long have you been standing here?" asked Jazz.

Maddie studied the sky outside of Danny's window. It was suddenly much lighter than she remembered it being before.

"I don't know," she murmured.

They both remained quiet for some time. The normal sounds of the house became more noticeable.

"Do you want me to stay home from school again?" asked Jazz quietly. "To help you look for Danny?"

Maddie broke out of her trance. "No, you should go to school. But the police may be coming to talk to some of your teachers or classmates." She frowned. "Or at least, I hope they will."

The police were not taking this as seriously as she wanted them to, as she needed them to. Her son was missing, her child was gone. And yes, they were supposedly working on locating him, but because he was only a runaway, they didn't seem particularly concerned.

He'll come back, they kept telling her. They always do. We've seen this before. This is what overly dramatic kids like your son does. They storm off with heated flair but always eventually return. Your son is just a runaway, that's all. Don't worry so much.

Runaway. They kept using that word. Almost like a pejorative label, as if he was just a degenerate teen who wasn't worth their time or resources. They had people who were actually missing that they still needed to find, after all.

She had spent the entire day yesterday searching for him. Talking to the police, giving a report of everything leading up to him running off, gathering all his most recent photos, asking anyone and everyone if they had even the smallest idea of where he might be.

Sam and Tucker seemed genuinely shocked at the news of his disappearance. Maddie had been so sure he was hiding out with one of them, but they both insisted that they did not where he was and appeared legitimately concerned and even alarmed.

Where could he have possibly gone if he wasn't with his friends, though? Who else did he have to go to? Did he have other friends she didn't know about?

Or was he alone on the streets somewhere in the next town over?

Or had he gotten a ride with someone, a stranger who perhaps didn't have good intentions for him?

What if the reason he hadn't come home yet was because he couldn't come home?

God, she didn't want to think about that, didn't want to even entertain the thought that her boy was being held somewhere against his will.

He had only been gone a little over thirty hours now. Still a relatively short amount of time. She could still be optimistic.

She smiled at Jazz. "Well, I'm gonna go make breakfast. See you in a bit."

She pushed past her daughter toward the stairs, keeping her smile plastered. Just one step at a time. First, make breakfast for her family. Then, see Jazz off for school. After that, shower and dress.

Breakfast passed in a strange blur. She knew she had cooked bacon and eggs and yet couldn't remember actually doing it. And then Jazz was suddenly gone, but she didn't remember saying goodbye or hearing the sound of the front door closing.

In the shower, she contemplated the next best thing to do. Call the police to ask for a status update? Or maybe call Vlad to see if he had found anything? Although surely he would've called her by now if he had come across some sort of clue.

The day before had been nothing but interviews and reports and exhausting all possible resources and leads. After filing with the police, it wasn't long until she was standing in the mayor's office, the office of a man she knew far too well, a man who was completely in love with her and would of course do whatever he could to help her if he thought it would win her love.

And as she had predicted, Vlad Masters was only too happy to see her. He had immediately stood from behind his desk when she walked in and practically ran to meet her. She almost felt guilty using his infatuation to her advantage.

And considering she was also taking advantage of his private lab outside of town, she had to wonder if she did owe him something for his generosity.

She proceeded to explain the situation to him, that Danny was missing and that she had already searched everywhere she could think of, that the police were not taking his disappearance seriously at all. Vlad listened to her story intently, nodding and asking thoughtful, clarifying questions throughout.

"You have cameras set up around the town, don't you, Vlad?" she had asked him anxiously.

"Well, yes," Vlad had confirmed, "but—"

"Can you look through them? Or can I maybe look through them? Just for last night when he took off? Just to see if one of the cameras caught him?"

"The cameras aren't set up everywhere," said Vlad somewhat apologetically. "I do not have them set up in private neighborhoods, for one. Just in public areas. And they have sensors that are only set to record when triggered by ecto-signatures. They're for watching ghosts, not humans."

"But there could be something, right?" Maddie popped her knuckles. "Maybe Danny was caught on camera at the same time a ghost drifted by? Or…" She didn't want to mention the possibility that a ghost had maybe attacked him, but it was certainly not at all unlikely. And Danny would've had no way to defend himself.

"I'll take a look," Vlad had promised her. "And I'll allocate whatever resources I can to finding him."

His hand went to her shoulder. Maddie allowed him to keep it there.

"I'll let you know the moment I find something," he assured her.

And now as she finished up her shower, her confidence in Vlad's connections and abilities was waning.

As usual, if she wanted something done right, she had to do it herself. And when it came to finding her son, she was dedicated to ensuring it was done right.

She switched off the water and hastily dried herself off and dressed. No more wasting time. Now it was time to gather more clues.

She first gave Jack instructions as to what he should do to try to find Danny: make some phone calls, get status updates from the police, stay at the house in case Danny came home, call her the very second that he had any new information.

"Wait, where are you going?" asked Jack as Maddie picked up her keys and headed for the front door.

"I'm going to see Brandan," she replied coolly. "I don't think the police have talked to him yet, and I don't know when they will. But I'm not just going to wait around for them to do everything, especially since they clearly don't think Danny is a priority."

"Brandan? The therapist we had Danny see on Monday?"

"Yes. Maybe Danny said something to him that might give us an idea where he might be."

"Seems like a good idea. But don't you want me to come with you?"

Maddie quietly stared at her husband for a moment, fabricating an excuse in her head because no, Jack couldn't accompany her for this. She had to see Brandan alone. There was something she needed to talk to the therapist about privately, something that the therapist had hinted at when she had gone to talk to him alone Tuesday afternoon, something that she did not want Jack to know.

Something she did not want the police to know either.

"No," said Maddie. "I'd really feel better if you stayed here. Someone needs to be home in case Danny turns up."

"Are you sure?"

He looked almost sad. Maddie's heart fluttered with guilt. It seemed she was keeping so much from him these days, so many secrets.

And the longer she kept him locked out, the harder it would be to explain if he were to ever find out just what Brandan had said to her on Tuesday, just what Danny had said to her before he ran out the front door and seemingly vanished.

And just what she had been doing the past couple nights with a certain ghost boy.

But her husband could never know. He wouldn't understand. He already thought her pursuit for Phantom was hitting peak levels of derangement. How could she ever explain to him why she had gone out to hunt Phantom when she was supposed to be searching for Danny? How could she tell him that she just wanted to keep Phantom to herself and didn't want anyone else touching him?

She ignored her guilt-laden heart and left the house without another glance back.

The traffic was busier than she would've expected for a Thursday afternoon, but she was mostly numbed to the sounds and lights, her mind planning out her list of questions to ask the therapist as her arms and legs steered and maneuvered the car seemingly on their own. When she finally arrived at her destination, she couldn't recall any details at all of the drive itself.

Maddie quickly hopped out of her car and headed up the nearby stairs of the building that housed a pizza restaurant on the first floor and therapy offices on the second. The greased smell of cheese and cooked tomatoes wafted strong; she might've ordered some to take home to Jack on any other day. But she didn't have time to think about her husband. The only one who mattered right now was her son.

She entered the front lobby of the therapy clinic. An older woman was sitting in one of the chairs and knitting something, glancing up briefly before returning to her craft. Maddie marched up to the receptionist, someone new she had not seen before the last few times she had been here. "I need to speak with Brandan."

The receptionist smiled at her warmly. "Okay, well, let me look at his schedule—"

"I really need to speak with him right away."

The receptionist's smile didn't change. "He's currently with a client, but let me look—"

"This is really important. It's an emergency."

"Okay, I understand. Just a moment."

Maddie impatiently crossed her arms while the receptionist typed something into her desktop computer and looked over something on the screen.

"I'm seeing that someone cancelled their session for tomorrow at two." The receptionist turned back to Maddie brightly. "Is that all right? Should I schedule that for you?"

"I'm not one of his clients!" hissed Maddie. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the older knitting woman look up in surprise. "I don't need to see him for therapy. I need to ask him some questions. It's urgent."

"I see. Well, he's booked today—"

Maddie growled, set to walk to his office herself and demand he make time for her right then and there.

"But if you really need to see him, I'll send him a message, and perhaps he can come talk to you between sessions." The receptionist picked up a cell phone. "You're Maddie Fenton, right? The famous ghost researcher?"

"Yes," she replied in a low voice. "And he already knows who I am. We've met."

"And you just have some questions for him?"

"Yes. Please tell him it's an emergency. A dire one. It can't wait."

The receptionist gave her another smile, one that looked somewhat skeptical this time. She tapped out a message on her phone. "Okay. He'll be finishing up his current session in about fifteen minutes if you want to wait here."

Maddie sharply turned around and swiftly moved to take a seat without another word.

"Would you like some water or coffee while you wait, Maddie?"

Maddie shook her head and did not even look at the receptionist again. The woman knitting peered at her curiously from one of the seats across from her. Maddie kept her own eyes on her phone, watching the time move forward.

Another woman came in from outside and joined them in the lobby. Her coiled hair framed her face in a disheveled mess, her eyes appearing puffy as if she had been rubbing them. Maddie only gave her a cursory glance.

Someone stepped out into the lobby through the door leading to the therapy offices. Maddie looked up but then irritably looked away again. Just a man with ill-fitting clothes and combed-over hair. Not who she was waiting for at all.

The door opened a minute after that. Maddie looked up again to see another man, this time one with a strapping physique and impeccably coiffed blond hair. Exactly who she was looking for.

"Maddie?" Brandan approached her, looking concerned but also apprehensive. "I got a message that you needed to talk to me. Is everything all right?"

"We need to talk. In your office." Maddie stood and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

Brandan looked over at a different woman in the room, the one with the puffy eyes. "I have clients booked today, Maddie—"

"She won't be seeing you until the hour, right? We still have eight minutes to talk, don't we?"

"That's not really something I usually—"

"I wouldn't be asking to talk to you if this wasn't extremely urgent," insisted Maddie snappishly. "Believe me, I don't want to be here talking to you, Brandan. Not after what you said to me last time."

Brandan audibly inhaled but did not reply.

"It's about Danny," Maddie said more quietly. "I just need to ask you some questions."

Brandan stared at her for some time, his brow furrowed. He then sighed, shrugged, and led the way back to his office. "All right. But right at ten, I'll have to take my next client."

"I understand."

The friendly, personable air she had first encountered from him at the beginning of the week was now replaced with frosty distance. Not that she was surprised, not after their last meeting when she told him right to his face that she now understood why his wife had decided to divorce him.

But that was his own fault for being such an ass and implicitly accusing her of scaring Danny into submission and letting her ghost research consume her and prevent her from being a good mother to him.

He briskly walked ahead, but he at least had the courtesy to hold the door to his office open for her. Inside, she didn't bother sitting on the sofa. She simply waited for him to close the door.

"All right. So what do you need from me?" He stood apart from her with his arms crossed. "What's going on with Danny? I saw that you cancelled all future sessions between him and me. Are you wanting to maybe have him see me again?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "No, Brandan. Danny will not be seeing you again. But I need to know what exactly he told you during the one session you did have with him on Monday."

Brandan's expression became more stoic. "Even though he is no longer my client, I am still obligated to keep what we discussed private."

"I really need to know, Brandan. I wouldn't be here asking you if this wasn't urgent."

"I understand, but I still cannot tell you anything specific."

"Aren't you supposed to tell me anything he might've said that could suggest he's in danger or that he's going to hurt himself or others? Or that someone else is hurting him? Things like that?"

Brandan's stance faltered. "Yes, of course. But nothing like that transpired in our one session together. If you have suspicions and you'd like me to try talking to him—"

"No, you can't talk to him again."

Brandan's lips shut tight.

"If Danny is in danger, is it not okay for you to reveal details of your conversation with him to help me help him?"

Brandan's forehead creased. "Is Danny in danger?"

"He's missing."

Brandan's mouth dropped open slightly.

"He's been gone since late Tuesday night." Maddie's voice was suddenly shaking.

"Missing? What happened? Did he go out and just not come home? Or did someone…" He trailed off, looking unsure whether he should finish the question or not.

"I don't have time to give you the whole story," said Maddie. An excuse. Using lack of time as an excuse when she actually just didn't want to tell him the whole story, didn't want to tell him that Danny wasn't just missing but had run away, hadn't just run away but had run away from her.

Brandan had already hinted during their last meeting that Danny had expressed fear of her, that he didn't feel safe with her. She in no way wanted to give Brandan any further evidence that could corroborate his possible hypothesis.

God, this guy just really pissed her off.

But she had to know the meaning behind Brandan's hinted accusations. She had to know before the police came and talked to him. She had to know first so that she could prepare her own defense if needed.

"He's been missing for a day and a half now," said Maddie, her voice warbling again. "Does that qualify to you as danger? Is that enough of a reason for you to disclose what he told you? So that maybe we can get some clues about where he might be?"

"Yes," said Brandan slowly, his eyes directed across the room and not at her. "Absolutely."

He moved a short distance and lowered himself in the office chair in the middle of the room, his eyes still glazed as he stared ahead. Maddie remained standing and watched him curiously.

"I'm guessing you've already filed a police report?" he finally asked, raising his head to look up at her.

"Yes," said Maddie. "Of course."

Brandan nodded and lowered his head again, his gaze once again distant, one elbow propped on an armrest, fingers placed loosely under his chin.

Maddie put a hand on her hip. "Well? Did Danny say anything to you that might help us know where to find him? Where to look?"

Brandan stayed quiet for a moment, far too long for Maddie's liking.

"I still can't tell you anything, Maddie," he said solemnly.

Maddie's jaw dropped, her teeth practically baring. "What? You said you could tell me if he was in danger!"

"Yes, but in this particular instance, there's a protocol I need to follow. I cannot just tell you anything without seeing a police report first." He rose to his feet and checked the time on his phone.

"What?" Maddie snapped. "Do you think I'm lying or something?"

"No, I just—"

"My son is missing, Brandan, and every second matters here. I need you to tell me now so that I can have a better chance of finding him!"

"I understand, Maddie, but I can't say anything without seeing a police report. And the police are going to want to hear from me directly since they're the ones leading the investigation."

"I don't want to wait around for the police to talk to you. I'm taking this into my own hands. The police just think he's a—" Maddie stopped herself.

Brandan cocked his head. "They think he's a what?"

Maddie inhaled deeply as she stared at him, precious seconds of their time ticking away.

She couldn't tell him Danny had run away. She couldn't tell him Danny had run away after a fight with her. She couldn't tell him Danny had run away from her. Because he had already insinuated that he thought Maddie was perhaps hurting Danny in some way.

But the police would tell him. There was no way to keep this secret from him and learn what he and Danny talked about.

There was no way to prevent it. The police were eventually going to interview Brandan. But what would the therapist tell them? She had so hoped she could learn beforehand.

What if Danny really had confessed to Brandan that he was afraid of her? That he felt that she was threatening him into submission? What would the police think of that? How might that change their view of his disappearance?

She had spoken to the police at great length about the circumstances leading up to him running away. How he had been grounded for sneaking out about a week earlier, his dealings with bullying since the beginning of high school, his poor attendance and performance in school, the secret texting app on his phone that she couldn't break into, and of course, his struggle with an addiction to pain medication including narcotic analgesics that she had only just discovered. She told them how she had locked up their pain medications and had proceeded to get him help, beginning with therapy, detoxification, and a full health examination including bloodwork.

She told them that the night he ran away, she had found him downstairs in the kitchen stealing painkillers from their medicine cabinet. He had somehow gotten through the lock, but she had managed to stop him before he could swallow any. When pressed for information about how he had gotten into the cabinet and the secret texting app on his phone, he became defensive, angry. He ran off, and by the time she had gotten to the front door to stop him, he was already completely gone. He had just...vanished.

But there was one detail she hadn't told the police. One detail she didn't want them to know. The very last thing Danny had said to her before he ran.

He wanted her to just let him keep his secrets. She told him she could not since his secrets were hurting him.

"And what makes you think my secrets are hurting me?" he had asked.

The memory of his pained strangled voice still haunted her.

"What if you're the one hurting me?"

Those were the final words he had left with her. And she would keep that to herself forever. Because she could in no way allow the police to even speculate that she somehow had a dastardly part in Danny's disappearance. She couldn't allow them to waste their time investigating her because she knew very well she had done nothing wrong, had done nothing but be a good caring mother toward her son, so leaving this little detail out wasn't going to impede anything.

She could only hope that whatever Brandan had to say to the police, it would not incriminate her. But getting angry with him now and demanding he tell her anything would certainly not make her look any better.

"They think he's a what, Maddie?" asked Brandan again.

Maddie straightened up. "The police are definitely going to talk to you at some point, but I don't know when." She shrugged. "I just thought that maybe I could speed things up by asking you first."

Brandan's gaze lowered. "I wish I could do more for you right now. I really do. But I can't break protocol on this." He stood and looked at her intently. "But please ask them to get in contact with me as soon as possible. I'll make time for them."

Maddie mustered up a smile. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Their gazes locked for some time, a time long enough to betray so many unspoken words and distrust between them.

The remainder of the day proved just as fruitless. The police had no significant updates for her, no promising leads. Teachers, classmates, friends, no one had any information to offer to assist much in the search and investigation.

The night was now old, the sky was completely dark.

Jack was sleeping deeply. Jazz was in her own room with the door closed.

Danny's room was still empty.

Maddie's lower body groaned with weighted frustration, her upper chest and arms shook with tense restlessness.

She had to relieve all this pressure.

She crept out of the house, locked the door behind her, and drove away toward her secret lab.