Yes it is incredibly short, but I am almost done. Two more chapters and a short epilog will be the end of it.

Chapter 4—Growth

Maddie Fenton had a hard time sleeping after Phantom had left. She had stayed up most of the night, mindlessly turning her clock off when it blasted its alarm at her and going through the methodical routine of getting ready for the day.

Had she been dreaming? She had to have been! There was no reason for Phantom to call her 'Mom' without good reason. Perhaps the ghost was delusional, thinking her as a replacement for his mom. Perhaps he had been sleep walking last night –well sleep flying in his case—and just mumbled those words to her in his sleep. Plausible, but they didn't set well with Maddie as the right answer—neither of them did.

As she got ready to eat breakfast, she came across the camcorder on the kitchen table. Phantom must have brought it up last night after the ghost attack. Curious, she sat down and picked up the battered piece of equipment and pushed the play button. Amazingly, it was still able to play the tape, with jerky movements and unfocused moments after she had been unconscious yes, but it was still unbearably clear as to what had happened after she blacked out.

The camera got everything after it had fallen from her grasp.

"Mom!" Phantom shouted, his face looking worried as the camera crashed to the floor and set the picture sideways. "You'll pay for that Skulker!"

Phantom had then gone into a blind fury. His aura was so bright and so terrifying that Maddie had to turn the tape off, but Phantom's voice and face at the beginning of the tape was enough to confirm what she had feared. He really thought that she was his mother.

"Did I take this too far?" she wondered, terrified of this outcome after she didn't need Phantom any more. "The only reason he would call me that is if I really am his mother."

Maddie sat stock straight for a moment in her chair as it hit her. Slowly but surely, she began to think back, to almost a year ago, when the portal first started working.

She and Jack just got in the door when they heard screaming from down in the lab. Terrified that one of their children was hurt, they rushed down the stairs and came upon the glorious sight of the portal—up and running as they had dreamed since college. Danny and his friends were down in the basement, all three looking worried and freaked out of their minds. Danny looked the worst, pale and barely keeping his knocking knees under him so he could stay on his feet.

"What happened down here kids?" Jack asked as he went straight for the controls to make sure everything was safe.

"We just . . . it came alive," Tucker blabbered out in his fright.

"Yeah, we uh just looked inside and it blew up on us," Sam said, looking a little more coherent then the boys. "Um, we think Danny got a little shock though. He was the closest and it was spitting some strange stuff at us."

"Oh my baby," Maddie went to her youngest and looked at him. "Are you alright hun'? You must have had quite a scare."

"Uh . . . I don't know," Danny's gaze was unfocused as he looked at her. "I can't really remember, but I felt something shock me."

He brought his left hand up to his face, but there was nothing to suggest that he was hurt. After looking him over, Maddie sent him up to his room and when she checked on him, his friends were gone and he was asleep in bed, still in his street clothes. He must have zonked out once he got up to his room. She took his shoes off and tucked him in, making sure he was comfortable before leaving to help Jack keep the portal stable.

"What if it wasn't a little shock?" Maddie asked herself. "It would explain so much, but why would he keep it a secret, if he has a secret to keep that is. I mean, I have no idea where he is now, so why wouldn't Phantom show up if he knew for certain that I thought Danny Fenton was somewhere else nowhere near Amity Park? Why else trust me with this information? Why else call me mom when he thought I couldn't hear?"

She sat in silence for a moment, clutching her mug so tightly her hands were turning white. Something tapped her shoulder and she jumped. She turned to see Phantom standing behind her, looking sheepish.

"Sorry, I tried to be loud, I knocked," he said, but he frowned when he saw her face. "You okay? You look pale."

"Um, yeah, I just—I guess I'm not completely recovered from last night," she hesitated to answer, but the excuse was all she could come up with.

"Oh, well I wouldn't want to stop you from resting."

He jumped up to leave, but Maddie stopped him.

"Phantom no, this test should just take a second," she said and got up and walked down to the lab.

She was surprised to find it clean and in repair after the fight last night. She clearly remembered a table and its contents being knocked over. She looked at Phantom with a raised eye brow.

"I tried cleaning up the mess," he said, looking embarrassed at being caught. "I hope that's okay."

"It's very considerate of you," she said, but said nothing more about the subject.

She went into the computer, brought up a file, then began to scan the pages.

"Okay, this is the file constructed on you almost a year ago when you appeared," she explained to Phantom who was hovering over her shoulder. "It holds all of the GIW's information on you, even your height as of a year ago. If you've grown any, we'll know by measuring you now."

The file read 5ft 2ins as of a year ago. It was easy enough to have Phantom stand on the ground and her measure him with the yard stick, but she had to tell him twice to not slouch—teenagers. When she was able to get his full height known, it displayed 5ft 4ins.

"A whole two inches and a year? Wow, you can expect quiet a growth spurt in the future Phantom," she said as she wrote down the results.

Inside, she was quaking. That was how tall Danny was now. She remembered that very plainly at his last doctor's visit.

"That's it?" Phantom asked in surprise, but sounded pleased. "Well. I guess I'll be going then. Ghosts have showed up and I got to track them down."

"Bye Phantom," Maddie muttered after the boy after he phased through the basement walls. "Note to self, coat lab walls in some anti-ghost resin so they can't pop in whenever they want."

Maddie frowned as she looked at the results again. Phantom passed yet another test, two more and he would officially be labeled living, and if he was labeled living, then people would start looking for his human half. Although Maddie was pretty sure that the ghost boy was her son. Now that she thought about it, Phantom sounded like Danny. To her groggy mind last night, she had wondered if Danny got back early from wherever he was, but when she registered the cold hand, she knew it wasn't Danny.

Phantom displayed a lot of her son's attributes, as well as the over protectiveness he often had when Vlad or one of Jazz's boyfriends was around. Could it be that Danny had known Vlad had been after Maddie since the billionaire and he had met? After learning of his intentions in the Rockies, Maddie had understood why Danny was so hostile to the man, but that still didn't explain the ghost powers—if he had any that is.

Putting the papers down, Maddie rubbed her temples, that headache from last night rearing its ugly head. She went upstairs, took a few aspirin and went back to bed, tired and strung out from thinking her son was a ghost.