Super important A/N! Please read before chapter! Okay, so I was editing my stories a few days ago, looking over all of them and stuff, when I realized I made a huge mistake in this one! Apparently, when I edited chapter four a while back, I accidentally replaced the real chapter with the chapter four of my other story 'Phantom Changes'! Oops. Anyway, I don't know when this happened, but it must have been a while ago since I haven't edited it for a while, and this means a good number of you could have read it and, since it actually kind of makes sense in the part of this story it was put in, thought it was the chapter for this story! So either you a: are really confused, or b: have the totally wrong idea about this story. So, I strongly recommend that all of you out there go back to chapter four, and read the first paragraph. If it doesn't look familiar, you should probably scan over chapter three, read chapter four, and scan over chapter five again so you can see exactly where this part of the story happened and catch up on other things since it's been a while. Everyone, go ahead and check, don't worry, I'll wait here.

Okay, to everyone who just reread, great, you're back! To those who didn't, thanks for waiting! Now that everyone's on the same page again... enjoy!

Phantom wasn't as worried by the threat as Maddie might have hoped. He simply lifted his head as far as he could to look at her and sighed loudly (wait, ghosts can breath?) while letting his head fall back onto the table with such force that Maddie cringed. That wasn't the only thing that made her cringe though, his eyes. Sure, they were no longer grey, but they were still just as lifeless. It was... creepy. For the first time, Maddie found herself wondering what exactly happened to the young ghost that lead to her finding him in the condition she had. So much so that she found herself forgetting about the human blood (1). Well, until...

"How much?" The echoing quality just caused the dead voice to be all the more empty. It sounded so apathetic, the voice of something that just didn't care.

"Um, what?" Maddie shook her head to clear her thoughts, ashamed to be caught unawares by her test subject. The ghost closed his eyes and turned his head to ceiling.

"How much blood?" it chillingly asked again. "... red blood, on me," it added.

Now, she knew the statement should have sent her spiraling straight back to cold scientist mode but yet, something was off about the way the ghost said it. More curious than worried, with a morbid undertone. Now, with any other ghost this could be dismissed as a sick and twisted curiosity to how much suffering they left their prey in, but Phantom had always at least put up the elaborate facade of valuing human life. It was not like ghosts to suddenly break character like that. So instead of immediately going into a frenzy, Maddie is ashamed to say that she allowed the human to slip her mind, and focused on the ghost. She told herself it was so that she could retain a collected focus on the problem, but really... well, she was not only extremely curious, but felt the smallest tiniest sliver of maternity towards the teenage specter.

"Why do you ask?" she lifted a single red-brown eyebrow.

"Hmmm?" Phantom disinterestedly groaned as of his mind had been preoccupied with something different. He rolled his head to face her, his sad eyes slowly opening and boring into hers.

"Why do you want to know how much blood?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and shifting her weight. This seemed to finally catch the ghosts attention, just not in a way she would have expected from Phantom specifically.

He tensed up and his hands balled into tight fists. His aura brightened slightly, and the first flash of life she had seen yet flashed in his eyes... in the form of white hot anger.

"Why do you even care!?" he growled menacingly. What really caught the ghost hunters attention, though, were the nearly translucent green tears flooding out of his eyes. Rather than feel threatened, she felt like the question was some sort of an accusation.

"What do you mean, ghost?" she questioned, reaching for the Fenton ecto blaster at her waist just in case.

"You could have noticed way before there was any blood! You just don't..." his tone suddenly changed, become softer and thoughtful, "... because I'm not human. You don't notice because I'm not human, and so you just don't care," he blinked his eyes, trying to see past the tears obstructing his eyesight.

Danny didn't even know why he was crying so hard. It was ridiculous, he didn't want his mother to notice! After all, he had done it to himself, so that meant he wanted to hurt, right? He didn't want her to stop him from hurting himself, in fact, it had felt so good he planned to do it again next time he ever felt so down on himself, providing he ever got out of this situation.

However, despite what he told himself, he felt sorta'... angry at her. She didn't care about all the ectoplasm she found, because he wasn't human, so if she knew the blood was from him, and he wasn't human, she wouldn't care either. Danny found himself once again asking himself why it seemed people couldn't care for him the same way he did for them, especially those who were supposed to love him the most, like, for example, oh say... his own damn parents!

Maddie clenched her fist, sure she was confused, but she didn't take very well to being accused of anything, and that's sure what it sounded like the ghost was doing.

"Of course I don't care about you! Why would I?! You're nothing but a blob of protoplasmic remains!"

"Nothing but ectoplasmic remains!?" Phantom seemed outraged for some reason she simply couldn't grasp. "How can you say that!? I'm your s-" he abruptly cut himself off. Tear blurred eyes wide.

"My what, you're my what?" She asked scathingly, that seemed to restart the ghost.

"I. Am. A. Person," he spit out, eyes daring her to contradict the statement, oh, and contradict it she did.

Maddie put her hand to her mouth and pretended to holdback a giggle, letting a sneer pass her lips instead.

"A person?" She scoffed, "don't make me laugh, you're not a person, you're nothing, in fact, the world would be better off without you! If it weren't for the excellent scientific opportunities you present, I would regret saving you, ghost," Maddie was not proud that she let her anger get the best of her, especially when this ghost was obviously just trying to rile her up, but still...

Phantom's 'anger' cracked so easily under her words. Maybe if Maddie knew it was her son she was talking to, she would be able to understand half the pain she had just caused him, and actually regret it. As it was, she took childish pride in being able to 'hurt' the phantom enough that his mask cracked, she hadn't expected his psych to be so complex that he knew when to react a certain way, such as when to implement anger and hurt. His ruse wasn't flawless though, for example, he was acting way to hurt now than a normal person should be to the words of a practical stranger. He shouldn't care that she would have left him there to rot, and so she knew he was trying just a tad to hard, and took pleasure in breaking down that facade, piece by piece.

"As it is, I'm thinking of tracking down whoever left you in the condition I found you in, and giving them a medal," she sneered. The reaction she got from the snow haired specter blew everything the thought she knew about his emotions straight out of the water.

"Then go ahead," he glared at her, his words barely more than a pained whisper, "after all, you're already talking to him,".

A/N: Ta Da! See, told you all I would get around to it! I'm actually really proud of this, just because it was so hard for me to overcome my epic laziness and just write out the chapter already, but I did it, and there it is!

(1) Wow, Maddie's quite forgetful in this story, isn't she? First Danny's (her son's) injuries, than Danny (her son) missing, then the human blood covering Danny (as a ghost)? All pretty big things to forget.

I know I don't deserve it because of this tremendous wait, and I'm sorry,but still... Review?

p.s. they took Danny Phantom off Netflix, not cool! Where am I supposed to get my Danny fix now?!