A/N: Okay, so your reviews very clearly showed your confusion and a lot of frustration among you. Some of you have actually lost a little interest in the story because of what happened in the last chapter, and what Phantom's human body looked like. Rest assured, I have a trick or two up my sleeve and everything will fall into place. By the end, it'll make perfect sense. ;)

To clear up a little confusion, this is slightly AU in the sense that Phantom is Maddie's test subject.

The last thing I want to say is that your ideas and theories have been a work of art to read. A couple of you actually guessed that Danny Fenton's call was actually a tape recording, but there's one small problem with that; he was answering all her questions. More of you assumed that it was Danielle acting like Danny. Another problem is that Dani doesn't have a male voice and she sounds much younger than Danny. I think it's fair to tell you that you'll be pretty confused about that until the end. Still, I'm interested in seeing if anyone can get it right, so if you have a theory, please review. :)

Chapter 11

She immediately woke up. Phantom's memory was over. It was done with. She didn't have to see it again. Hopefully. Hopefully it wouldn't be in the next dream. In fact, she didn't want to see any more of his memories.

She wanted to tell herself that it was just a dream and wasn't real but she had to face the truth: it happened. It was real. That was how Phantom died. That was why he didn't like talking about it. That was why he wanted so badly to forget it.

If only his parents could've seen what really happened back there... They wouldn't have treated Phantom so horribly.

In a parental way, though, she didn't want them to see. No mother could possibly watch that without shooting herself with a double-barreled rifle afterward. Being a mother herself... Having a son herself... It... It just... She understood, in a much different sense.

But with Phantom and his parents...and oh, the horrible, definitely unwanted nightmares...! It was like she could feel his every emotion, every thought.

She finally realized that the sun was up. It was morning already, which meant Phantom would want some breakfast.

She went downstairs and... She honestly didn't know what she was making. Her body was on autopilot while her brain was busy overloading itself. How could Phantom just sit there and disobey his mother like that? He was what, fourteen? It was hardly old enough to be that rebellious. Was there something in the site that he had been looking for? Maybe that was the case, and he had merely gotten distracted by all the machinery and "cool" sights. But then what would explain that smirk he had on his face when he entered it? There was just no plausible explanation!

She grabbed her hair. Why was she such a nervous wreck right now?! She shouldn't be! Phantom was a ghost! Why would she care about a ghost?!

She both mentally and physically slapped herself. She had to stop this... Phantom was a ghost. He used to be living, but he was not anymore. He was dead. Those memories happened, but they were in the past.

But they weren't gone...

No, they weren't, but they could be locked away in his mind if she would just shut up about his past. She would ask nothing about yesterday, let alone what happened however many years/months/whatevers ago.

But she had already picked at it to the point where it was now raw in his conscience.

Why did she care? So what if Phantom died? Everyone would die at one point or another! Yes, his death was tragic, but it was still a death. It helped explain-...

She sighed. She hated looking through his memories but it was so vital to her research. If she was ever going to find out the true origins of Phantom, she would have to peer a little further. She needed to see what came next, the events after his parents' rejection. The only thing she knew so far was that he was lost. It was like reading a story one chapter at a time. Problem was, did she really want to read the next chapter? Was it worth it? What if it was just more angst, more of what she dreaded?

Well apparently she would find out because as a scientist, she was all about facts. And right now the facts were...she felt for Phantom. She pitied him and his lost cause of trying to gain the acceptance of his parents. She felt guilty for the way she treated him even after he said he would cooperate and had delivered. She felt compassion, sympathy, and an entire slew of countless emotions, some unrecognizable to her.

She couldn't control the way she felt towards Phantom, but she could control her actions towards him. That vivisection was going to happen. Whether she used it to help or hurt Phantom didn't matter at the moment and she would decide on it later.

She went downstairs to the lab and flipped on the lights, a plate of food in hand.

She was only half expecting Phantom to be laying on the floor, seeming to still be asleep. He wasn't though, being as his breathing was too fast to be at a normal sleeping pace. Then again, this was one weird ghost... Who was she to say his breathing cycles were the same as a human's, even if every other part of him was?

"Phantom," she called to him. "We need to talk."

He groaned through the intercom. "What happened yesterday...? Why does my head feel like a hundred pounds of concrete...? My stomach hurts... I hate this..."

"Are you feeling nauseous?" she asked.

He slowly raised a finger to his lips.

"Keep it down..." he hushed. "My head is going to explode into tiny bits. Whisper if you don't want to pick up brain. Please, I'm begging you...keep your voice down... We need to be shhhhh... Quiet... Soft... I want a pillow... And a blanket... I'm freezing... And some ginger ale... My stomach hates me right now..."

He kept mumbling all these things that added up to the conclusion of a hangover. Nice... Not only did she get her subject drunk, but she also managed to put him through a hangover. At least a hangover made sense, though. A pillow would even make sense. It was the strange desire for a blanket that baffled her. And then he said he was freezing. Ghosts couldn't freeze; they couldn't feel cold. He was dead, nothing more than a spirit now. So why would he want a blanket to warm up with? That was what literally made no sense whatsoever.

She went over to her desk, set the food down, and reviewed a few written observations before adding on a different piece of paper his drunken actions, as well as the aftermath.

"Mom, can you turn the temperature up? It's an ice box in here..." he murmured.

At first she didn't catch it, having grown very used to being called 'Mom' by her children, but upon realizing what Phantom had called her, something inside her just started to...hurt. He probably didn't even mean to call her that but it didn't change the fact that he did. Wait a minute... He called her that without even thinking about it, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Why? What would make him think it was okay to say that? Especially in front of her!

Could she have been acting maternally towards him without knowing it? Well...it was possible... She had been much kinder than normal ever since she learned that he could actually remember his death and his life before it. She was a little shaken and should've been furious at him, considering he wasn't her child. But...she wasn't. Why didn't she want to do something like she did last time when he compared himself to her precious son? It was like she didn't care! She could've cared! She should've been absolutely irate! Maybe it was because he just didn't know what he was doing.

Wait... He didn't know what he was doing, meaning he did it not with intentions of comparing himself, but with intentions of speaking to his mother. She obviously wasn't his mother and even for a hangover that was just... Why did he think that about her? Why had he spoken to her as if she really was his mother? Did he think that he was actually talking to his real mom? It was definitely possible. He was practically in limbo right now. Still, it was extremely unexpected and if only she had time to brace herself for that...

"Phantom...do you know you just called me your mother?" she asked, with for once, a heavy and honest heart.

His head lolled to the side and he looked at her through half-lidded eyes. "Yes."

"W-Why, exactly? I've been using you as an experiment all this time, so...just...why? I-I don't understand..." she breathed.

"Come in here and I'll tell you," he said.

She did as told, unlocking the door and slipping inside. She locked it back just to make sure he wouldn't try to escape; although with the condition he was in right now, escape was completely out of the question. She knelt beside Phantom and he moved his eyes from the door to her, clearly sluggish from his hangover.

He inhaled nervously and said, "You're the closest I've ever had to a mom. A mom's job is important to her, and you've made me your job. That must mean I'm important to you. My real mom never gave me the time of day but you listen to me and know I'm there. She never paid any attention to me but you do every day. Most of the time I was the one raising myself but you take care of me. She never listened to my problems. Maybe you tuned me out but you didn't walk away. When I died I thought maybe she would finally care but instead she turned her back on me. I don't think she ever did care about me, but you do and that's what matters."

She didn't even realize she was crying until she heard herself sniffle. It suddenly made perfect sense as to why he viewed her as his mom, rather than the woman who gave birth to him. It perfectly explained why he had always been so comfortable in his unit when she always thought he should've been in a panic. But when had he started feeling this way about her?

As if sensing her unspoken question, he answered, "I was playing with you all those times. I knew you could hurt me, so naturally I fled, but it was fun, you know? It was like a game of tag, except you could never catch me."

She managed a weak smile with an even weaker, "Says the boy trapped in a containment unit."

He smirked. "I let you catch me."

"Which is why you were so surprised when we shot you with a tranquilizing dart, right?"

"Yes, exactly."

Before she could open her mouth to speak, he added, "By the way, what are we doing today?"