Chapter nine! I hope you guys enjoy, thank you for the feedback! I do not own Danny Phantom, Nickelodeon does.

"Lilith."

"Lilith. Wake up."

"Come on sweetheart, you gotta wake up."

Blinking her eyes open, Lilith was met with the familiar sight of Danielle's ceiling. Supporting herself on her elbows, she was able to get up a little. Looking around her, she could see her entire family gathered around her.

"What-what happened?" Everyone's face fell. Heavy silence drifted around the group, before Danielle – who she didn't even know was laying right next to her in bed – spoke up.

"After you and Dan just sorta...dropped after your fists connected, Valerie and I called Mom and Dad. They rushed over quicker than lighting when they heard our brief explanation. You can guess how angry they were." Lilith gave a dry laugh at that. "Anyway, when they got there, mom single-handedly threw you over her shoulder and ran with you all the way home. Dad flew Valerie to the hospital and Tucker and Grandpa locked Dan away in the ghost locker."

"Ghost locker?"

Her lips pursed together, trying to hide obvious laughter. "It's Grandpa, are you really surprised?" No, she wasn't in the slightest.

Before the two even knew what was happening, their mom climbed onto the small middle space between them – it was extremely little, due to the fact that Dani only had a twin-size bed – and pulled both girls into her sides, hugging them as tightly as she could. "Don't you two ever scare us like that again; I think I lost ten years off my life."

"Sorry, mom."

"What happened when you guys passed out?"

"I'm not sure." She half lied. "I just-it's all so confusing. I don't even know what to think." She felt the guilt swirl around in her stomach, but until she knew exactly what that…that dream, whatever that was, meant, she decided she would lay low with this information. This was her mission to complete and she didn't want her family involved with what she could easily find out. Hopefully.

"Should we... go see him?" Her voice was hesitant as she met her dad's tired eyes. She also hoped that would soon change now that they had Dan locked up.

"Yeah, I have a few things I need to say to him." Lilith was surprised to hear the venom in her older sister's voice.

They could do this.

"We finally caught you, you monster."

"We have questions. And you're going to answer them." Danny said, his voice held no room for arguments. He stood tall, his arms crossed together over his chest as his feet were planted firm to the ground. But knowing the elder ghost, it wasn't going to be easy extracting the answers.

"I need a moment alone with him you guys." They turned to Danielle as her words reached their ears. Her stare never leaving Dan's evil glare.

"Are you sure you want that honey?" Maddie asked, coming over to place her hand on her granddaughter's shoulder. The slight tension under her touch in her granddaughter's shoulder worried Maddie. The knotted muscles are weighed from heavy thoughts that she kept to herself. Maddie knew this because she had the same thoughts running through her own head. She also knew the halfa wouldn't show it. Danielle only nodded in reply and everyone made their way back upstairs. Once she heard the door being shut rightly, she spoke up.

"You'd think." The technically youngest Fenton quipped. "That with you being trapped in that Thermos the past couple years, you wouldn't be so content in such a cramped space."

He just grunted and faced his back to her; refusing to give her his attention. He couldn't care less about what she thought.

But she persisted on. "Using Vlad's voice on me was an all-time low, and we just met." He couldn't help but move his head a bit sideways to catch a glance at Danielle. Danielle's sarcastic cherry tone made his blood boil. She thought she was so high and mighty now that he was trapped behind a glass wall, unable to do anything to her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry princess." He hissed through his teeth. "How should I make it up to you? Do your chores for you? Make your fluffy comfortable bed? Well here's some news for you, your highness." He was now completely facing her again, his hands placed against the walls of the tube that he was forced in.

"I don't give a damn."

His words came out in a low growl. He was honestly surprised that the sheer force of his voice didn't make the halfa brat jump back in fear. "When are you going to get it through that pretty little skull of yours that I stopped caring long ago. You could be dying on the streets and I wouldn't bat an eye. Don't forget that I'm half the fruitloop that created you. Stop thinking I'm savable."

Her eyes narrowed.

"No."

He tried his best to hide his shock, but he knew some of it seeped through his hard exterior. Her arms crossed over her chest; she stood strong and determined in her stance. He could tell she was going to be difficult. An almost reflection of Danny. Her face was almost healed from the punches she took from his hand. The hope that swirled in her provoking eyes made him scared and angered all at once. Who did she think she was to be able to judge whether or not he was still redeemable?

"Cut the crap." The words rolled off his tongue in a hazy rage."We both know you care as much about me as I care for you. Nothing." His eyes followed her as she moved about the room.

"That's where you're wrong. I don't care about Vlad. I can't after all that he's done to me. He could come crashing back down to earth, begging for me to love him as my father, but I wouldn't. I can never forget what he did, but I have forgiven him. I needed to, for my sake. The Vlad in you makes me sick to my stomach. But there's one thing you didn't think of."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"You're still my dad. As twisted and messed up as that is, my dad is buried deep down inside from everything you faced. From losing Grandma and Grandpa, Mom, Auntie Jazz, Lancer-"

"Shut up!"

"No! It's time you shut up! Now sit down and let me finish. You are going to hear what I have to say." He didn't even know how to respond to that, so he just did as told for once: He shut up.

"I don't care what everyone else says." Her voice held no shakiness, she wasn't afraid. "Everyone thinks they know you, and to a point, maybe they do. But I know they're letting their fear of what you've done, mixed with the idea that a part of you is Vlad, cloud their judgment. There's a person down deep inside you that knows how to love. You just forgot how to do it. You lost everything, I get it, there's still so much you can gain."

"Yeah, like what?" He snapped.

"A family."

And just like that, she turned to leave. She stopped, however, mid-way up the stairs. A lifeful smile graced her lips. "And to the Vlad that's in you, I know the real Vlad will be back one day, as much as I don't like it. Whether it's in weeks, months, or years, he'll find his way back down here. So I need to say my small piece."

His eyebrows raised in anticipation of what she would say.

"Fuck you, Vlad."

With that, Danielle walked out of the room, giving not even a single glance back at Dan.

He was not sure how many hours blurred by, but before he knew it he heard the door creak open as Sam slowly trekked inside.

"Ah Samantha, my old muse. It's strange seeing you after all this time. Come here to say how I can be saved, how I'm just a lost soul that needs the right guidance?"

She looked at him and reached into her pocket and pulled out an odd looking weapon. "You see this, ghost? This is called the Reality Blaster, cute name, right? Kinda named after the Reality Gauntlet. You see, after Danielle was kidnaped by the Shadow Master we have been developing this to completely erase any ecto DNA without leaving a single atom." She pointed the blaster at Dan. "You hurt my family, ghost. You hurt them badly and now you have to pay." Her hands were shaking as she gripped the weapon as tightly as she could.

"Why do you keep calling me 'ghost?' You know who I am, there's no way you could have forgotten."

"I call you that because you don't deserve to share the same name as my fiancé! You don't deserve to exist!" She sneered at the diabolical monster that just stood there, tauntingly.

Dan smiled. "Go on then. If I truly mean that little to you then fire. End my existence, protect your family!" A taunting smile find its way on his mouths, parting his lips to reveal sparkling white teeth. His crimson soulless eyes daring her to pull the trigger.

Sweat coats her hands, making the weapon hard to grasp as she put slight pressure on the trigger. Her knuckles turn white from the force of her grip. She tries to steady her hand as it begins to shake. Her knees become stiff, locking together.

Fear struck her.

Her lips become cracked, dry without the saliva from her mouth drying out. She's rooted to the spot as fear creeps its way up her arms, leisurely taking control of her throat, spreading up her face, and trickles down her spine, swallowing her whole. She was immobilized. The pounding of her heart is gone, its usual echo in her ears is hollow. It begins to hurt her chest as her lungs beg for her to breathe, but she couldn't.

She's completely frozen

The pressure from the weapon is gone, even though she can see it still firmly in her grasp, pointed directly at the monster in front of her. It was still there, but it couldn't be, she couldn't feel it.

"Do it!"

A clatter could be heard throughout the confined lab as it meets the harsh titled ground.

Everything came crashing down around her, tearing her from her numbed state. The air swiftly entered her lungs once more. She crumbled to her knees and wrapping her arms protectively around herself. "I can't, I just can't. Not even to you."

Dan's smile widened.

"And that's what makes you so weak."

"You're a monster!"

"No, technically I'm your fiancé."

"You will never come close to the man he is." Her shrilled words fired back as hot tears trailed down her cheeks, blurring her vision.

The ends of his lips twitch and spread into a heated sneer. "I'm what he should have been! It just took watching you turn to dust to do it."

Danielle came running in along with the rest of the group. She wrapped her arm around her mother and led her upstairs. Maddie sat in the back of the room as she watched her family inch closer to the tube.

"Oh look, the Scooby gang is all here."

Leading her mom up the stairs, making sure to support most of the goths weight laid on herself, Danielle guided them to Danny's and Sam's room. Carefully setting her on the bed, Danielle then transformed back to human, and crawled into bed next to her mom and snuggled up to her side, trying to relay comfort to the shaking woman.

"You're… You're the kid here. I… I should be comforting you here. Not the other way around." While the words are broken every few seconds, Sam still choked them out to the of her abilities. That doesn't stop her from receiving the warm embrace from her daughter.

"I'm not the one needing comfort, mom. You're still human, with human emotions that require love when she's down. Just because it isn't the standard role of mother comforting daughter, doesn't mean you deserve any less. You have all people should know about not raising to normal society roles."

Tears burned her eyes, blurring the world and the outline of her daughter. That earned her a dry chuckle. "Yeah, I guess."

Her cries grew until they're fully unleashed, racking her in endless shudders. She just lets it go, the pain of seeing the one person she cared for most, other Danielle, turn in that. The weight she had been carrying in order to hold Danny up while he was dealing with his own inner demons came crumbling down in the arms of her daughter. She was done putting a fake facade and for the moment, in the space of these four walls, she would let her own down. Tomorrow she would wake up, put a brave maks on, and continue on for the sake of getting rid of Dan, but for now, she could be the person she buried long ago from a buried past.

A girl, just trying to find a way to carve her own path in this world

It baffled her mind of how Dan got to the point that he had. Squeezing her daughter closer to her, Sam brushed her fingers through her raven locks, as her breaths started to slow and even out with every stroke of Danielle's hair, along with the snot that dripped from Sam's nose matting in Danielle's hair.

"This doesn't make you any less than the strong woman that you are, mom. Crying, other emotions than the strong face that you put on for everyone; it doesn't make you weak. Its okay to let people know when you're breaking inside."

"Maybe I need to remember that. It's hard, my only idea of getting my voice heard was to make sure I screamed loud enough. Maybe there are other ways to get people to listen. I can't let this fear inside me of being drowned out by and taken advantage by people keep eating away at me. My parents have grown up, I need to learn to grow along with them. Dan will not be the thing that ends me." They fell back into a comfortable silence once more. The only noise in the room was that of the wheezing from the air vents every few seconds.

Sam could feel Danielle shift her in the hug, wordlessly asking to pull away, which she does so to look at her. "I was thinking, how about we go to that gothic bookstore thingy where you like to write gloomy poetry. We'll get you cheered up and come right back. Sounds good?"

She gave a wordless nod, menureving out of the bed, putting light pressure to her feet as she regained her bearings and her mood slowly loosened into a calm wave instead of the abrupt storm that had taken claimed by the monster's words.

After running down the stairs, both girls raced to the door, Danielle winning and yanking open the door. Cold air poured in from ouside, banging the door open without effort from Danielle. Tugging their jackets across their torso as a shiver ran down from the ice cold air. Before they're completely out of the house, Danielle grabbed for the scarfs hanging by the doorway before exiting onto the porch for added protection.

Half a block away from Fenton works, the air had a chilly nip to it as it bit at he exposed skin that they couldn't cover. Deciding to break the silence, Danielle nudged her mom's shoulder to gain her attention.

"So, what exactly do we all do at this book club?"

"So who's next for group therapy, eh? What about you, Dad? Do you want to know how you ruined my life? How if you just would let your stupid ghost obsession go your whole family would be better off. Hell everyone would be better off, with your idiotic self."

Jack looked down in shame as he walked toward Dan. "I know I could be a better parent, but I do try. When you've needed me I've always been there for you, watching out for you. I just wish you would have told us about your ghost half sooner. Maybe we could have helped you back then and prevented all of this. I can still help you now."

Dan chuckled. "You want to know how you can help me and everyone else? Leave! Pack up, get in your stupid RV and never come back. At least that way you wouldn't screw up anyone else's life."

Danny walked up to Jack and placed a hand on his shoulder."Don't listen to him, Dad. He will say anything to get under our skin. That's just who he is. He can't be reasoned with. He is not redeemable."

"Finally, someone gets it!"

"And I get you. You don't want a normal life. All you want is to destroy everyone else's life to make them just as miserable as you. You aren't strong, not even close. Strength is moving past adversity. Strength is remembering those we lost and what they stood for. You are not strong, you're pathetic. My parents may think you're redeemable but we both know well you never will be and if your timelines family were still alive the very sight of you would make them sick."

"You don't understand anything about them, or me. You don't know about the pain that I've endured for years."

"I know more than you think."

Dan looked around the room seething with anger. His lips curl over his teeth, the veins in his forehead are now visible, pulsing to the beat of thing in his chest. Everyone had their heads down or were at least avoiding his gaze as he looked at them. All but Maddie. She never took her eyes off him.

"Shut your mouth!" Dan yelled, pounding on the glass, hoping to crack it, hoping to break free.

"You don't deserve their love! You betrayed your family when they need you most. You let them die!"

Dan screamed as loud as he could, shattering the glass tube. Floating high in the lab he looked down on them all.

"Pause!"

They all stood frozen, their eyes following Dan's deliberate movements. "Like my new power? Turns out, since I'm not actually tied to any timeline, I was... gifted with these new powers. Isn't that great? You are all a mistake! One that I will soon correct. I was supposed to exist, not you. So enjoy the time you have together while you can because soon I will make sure that none of you get in my way ever again.

"Oh, and Lilith," The sixteen-year-old made herself visible to the group again; tears burned her eyes and fear consumed her face as their eyes met. "I know you have been here the whole time. It's kinda cute how you think I can't tell where you are. "

He raised his hand and blasted the ceiling, causing chunks to collapse on the frozen family. "Still think I'm redeemable?" Dan asked as he makes his flight out the building.

Lilith lifted the ecto shield to move the debris that would have easily crushed them. The entire family was able to move once more.

Danny looked to Lilith in utter wonder. "How were you able to do that? How were you not frozen too?"

She could only lift her shoulders in confusion. "Guess that practice with Clockwork is paying off. Maybe he has my medallion fixed so I can't be frozen in time."

Brushing off the thoughts of how Clockwork could make her not being able to freeze – after all he was Clockwork, who knew what that ghost could do – Danny looked back to his family. "Let's make our way upstairs to see the damage."

They all made their way up to the living room…all but Maddie. The huntress strolled over to the broken tube and placed her hand on what remained of the glass, her reflection shining vibrantly back.

"I know you're in there, somewhere."

As always, thanks to my beta reader, silente faery! Until next time!