Chapter 11

There was a weight next to him when he woke up, his dark blue eyes sliding sideways toward the body curled up beside him. Phantom looked smaller somehow with soft lashes brushing over pale cheeks and that odd slow rise and fall of his chest. Ghosts imitated the human form, a memory leftover from when they were alive, though some didn't even retain that memory, winding up as shapeless blobs. Their insides, however, didn't reflect the same complexity of a living human. Ghosts didn't have lungs or the need to the breathe. Why did Phantom breathe? It was a question that barely registered in his mind at the hospital when he was trying to get the ghost to calm down and explain things to him. Was it simply a recalled memory from his life, thinking he still needed to breathe even though he was dead?

Whatever the answer, Vlad decided it best not to mess with the ghost's logic. Disrupting a ghost's belief could be very dangerous if they were to react negatively to the truth. It was like when a ghost didn't realize it was dead until someone pointed it out to them, and then the ghost responded violently to the news. Vlad had see it happen once or twice before, newly formed ghosts that didn't have any recollection of their deaths or understood how to control their powers. Those types were dangerous.

Vlad shifted on the bed, trying to quietly climb off it without alerting the ghost. But the moment he moved, Phantom sat up, head snapping around in search of an assassin sneaking into the house to kill his father. In less than a second, the relaxed posture turned tense, muscles growing taut with the thought of an oncoming battle. Then his green eyes found Vlad, and the air seemed to deflate from him as his shoulders slumped forward.

"I wasn't sleeping," Phantom stated firmly, glaring at the man like Vlad accused him doing just that. Ghosts didn't often sleep, not in the same sense, but there were occasions after expelling too much energy when they needed rest to recover what was lost, or they consumed ectoplasm to regain their energies. The little starry light show that Phantom put on last night wouldn't have used up much of his energy at all, but on an emotional level, Phantom was running on fumes and need the rest before he broke completely from the stress.

"I said nothing." Vlad stood, controlling the smirk that tried to stretch across his face. As tempting as it was to make a teasing remark, he held back on it, deciding that Phantom didn't need to feel like a failure for falling asleep on the job on top of everything else he was feeling. They left the bedroom and headed down the stairs toward the kitchen where Phantom's parents were already preparing breakfast.

"It was nice to visit Alicia," Maddie said as she served up a nice stack of pancakes, not burnt this time, onto Jack's plate. "I don't really get to see her that often, so even after I realized that the whole message about Alicia having breast cancer was false, I decided to stay a bit longer there. It was nice catching up with her again, even if she does-" Maddie winced as she glanced at her husband.

"Hate me?" Jack completed what Maddie wouldn't finish, but he didn't look bothered by the fact that his wife's sister didn't particularly like him.

"Aunt Alicia always thought Dad was an idiot," Phantom whispered, sticking close to Vlad so that his parents wouldn't overhear the comment. "She thought Mom could have done a lot better, but well, when it's love, things like a rich husband doesn't always matter."

Vlad turned and lifted an eyebrow at the ghost, and Phantom blinked then his eyes widened as he raised his hands and waved them before him, trying to work up a protest.

"Good morning, Vlad!" Maddie greeted when she spotted the pair still in the doorway of the kitchen.

"So you had a pleasant visit with your sister?" Vlad strode over to the table and took a seat as Maddie made up plates for herself and him. "That's good to hear."

Maddie nodded as she sat down next to her husband. "But it's good to be back home. I don't mind roughing it, but I must say it as nice to have a working bathroom and to sleep in my own bed again. I had a terrible time falling asleep while I was there."

"I didn't sleep all that well with you gone," Jack admitted, and at the look they shared with that unquestionable love in their eyes, Vlad felt jealousy rising up in him. This time, however, he recognized it not as being jealous that Jack stole Maddie from him but that they shared a love that he had yet to experience himself.

Vlad tossed a glance over his shoulder as he ate his breakfast. Phantom remained at the doorway, leaning against the frame as he stared toward the front hall. If he had only realized the truth of his own feelings sooner, this scenario could be vastly different. He wouldn't have come here as a hit man. Perhaps Phantom would have still been alive, and they could enjoy this family breakfast together. Maybe he could have offered Phantom help with his studies. What if scenarios played out in his mind, but he shook them away because they would only leave him with depression weighing down on him as he stared at the reality around him.

"No special someone in your life?" Maddie questioned as they spent the early afternoon in the laboratory. She shoved a part into his hands and dragged him over to participate in helping them build an ecto-skeleton battle suit that was supposed to maximize their power in fighting ghosts. It was still in an experimental stage and not ready for testing.

Vlad shook his head as he glanced at the schematics for the ecto-skeleton. "I guess I never met the right person." His gaze darted toward Phantom, who sat on a table across the room as he watched them. "Maybe one day though."

"Well, whenever you meet that right person, you have to introduce us." Maddie smiled sweetly.

"Yeah," Jack said and slapped Vlad on the back. "We gotta make sure whoever it is, is perfect for you."

Vlad smiled somewhat in return. In a moment like this, he could almost imagine that the three of them were back in college, working on their projects like always. His gaze drifted around the laboratory, noting all the various inventions, some completed while others remained in pieces still, laying all around the room. Then his eyes halted on the yellow and black striped door set into the far wall. He noticed it before when they spent the day in the laboratory, and it didn't surprise him that Jack and Maddie continued to work on the Portal after college. They worked long and hard on the Proto Portal before the accident, and they would feel unsatisfied if they didn't complete the work on it. Vlad understood the feeling, though the reason that drove him into completing the Portal was so that he would have access to the Ghost Zone whenever he liked.

"I think the plans could use a little adjustment," Vlad said, not with that condescending hint in his voice that he might have used over a week ago while thinking Jack a complete moron.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked, almost pouting that his work was being called into question.

"Well, it seems to me that by these plans, the ecto-skeleton will drain the user," Vlad explained with a frown. "If used for too long, the user could end up dead."

"We did have a bit of concern regarding that," Maddie admitted as she joined Vlad at the table to look over the blueprints. "What do you suggest?"

"You need a renewable power source that won't drain the user." Vlad tapped a finger on the work table, trying to think of a way to make it work.

"Oh!" Jack hurried off to another part of the laboratory, and Vlad and Maddie watched him dig through some other inventions. Then Jack crossed back over to them with a device in his hands. "The Ecto Converter!" He grinned proudly as he held it out to show the other two. "Though we never got it working."

"That could indeed work," Vlad agreed with a hand to his chin as he gave it some thought. If it could take a sample of ectoplasm and convert it into renewable energy, that would eliminate the drain on the wearer of the ecto-skeleton.

"We just never had a good sample from a ghost to test it," Maddie admitted as her mouth curved downward. Violet eyes drifted to the other side of the room where Phantom sat. "We could," she started hesitantly. "Well, only if you agree to it."

Vlad caught that uncertain, apprehension in Phantom's eyes. "Is it going to hurt him?"

"Vlad, you know ghosts don't-" Jack snapped his mouth shut when Vlad glared at him with zero humor in his eyes. Vlad didn't like that attitude, that thought that ghosts were unfeeling entities. He came to know some ghosts in his time as a half ghost and discovered that they, much like himself, were quite capable of feeling pain. He didn't like that uncaring attitude toward ghosts, but Jack and Maddie didn't have the same experiences with ghosts that he did. "Well, if ghost can feel pain, it might hurt a little. But we wouldn't need a very big sample from him. It'll probably feel like nothing more than a bit of a pinch."

"I'll do it," Phantom announced without even a hint of a waver in his voice. "How does this work?"

"You should just have to touch it," Jack explained as he crossed over to where Phantom sat. How could they not see that this was their son? But perhaps it was easier on them not to see, not to recognize their son in a being that they fought against to keep the real world safe. If they saw Phantom as their son, they would have to suffer the pain of realizing it was their son that they fought. Sometimes, being oblivious was better than the truth. "It should pull in a sample of your ectoplasm just from that."

Phantom gulped visibly, and Vlad wondered if Jack or Maddie ever noticed those distinctly human responses, or if they kept themselves blinded to how strange Phantom was as a ghost. He placed his hand onto the Ecto Convert, his face immediately contorting in a wince of pain. A green glow spread from his hand to the Converter, and after a moment, he yanked his hand back with a hiss. The Converter continued to glow for several moments afterward as Phantom shook out his hand. It didn't look like it caused any harm to the ghost, and Vlad breathed out in relief that beyond a small bit of pain, Phantom didn't suffer any lasting damage.

"Now we'll be able to test it out and see if it works," Jack said excitedly, like a kid that got a new toy for Christmas and couldn't wait to play with it.

"We first need to figure out how to add it to the ecto-skeleton," Maddie reminded him as the doorbell ringing echoed through the house. With a sigh, she put down the blueprints that she was examining. "Who could that be?" After he set down the Ecto Converter on a work table, Jack followed his wife out of the laboratory.

"How's the hand?" Vlad questioned as he walked with Phantom up the stairs.

"Stings a bit." Phantom frowned, staring down at his hand as he curled and uncurled his fingers. There was no visible sign of injury, luckily. "But I've experienced worse fighting."

Vlad didn't doubt that if Phantom acted as protector to Amity Park, but it still brought a frown to his face. They remained in the kitchen, much like the last time someone came to the house, but they were alert, ready to spring into action should an attack come. Phantom's eyes narrowed as he stared into the hall, watching his parents as they opened the front door.

"Why hello!" the woman at the door greeted, and her voice sounded painfully false with that sugary cheer in it. Vlad was fairly certain he could already guess who it was. He didn't hear her speak while they were at the hospital, but the voice matched what he imagined to be Pamela Manson's voice. "I brought apple pie."

The door had closed after they allowed the woman to enter their house. Beside Vlad, Phantom tensed up, his hand gripping the doorframe until the knuckles turned white. They knew that she would try again to assassinate Jack, it was merely a matter of time, and it seemed that poison was her choice of killing methods. It wasn't even a question in his mind. Vlad knew the pie would be poisoned. Pamela Manson would likely use a much faster acting poison, something that would ensure Jack would die before they could get him to the hospital or figure out an antidote. Maybe she even hoped all of them would sample the pie so that none of them would be left to try to save Jack.

Maddie's hand lashed out, knocking the pie from the woman's hands. The pie made a splat as it hit the wall in the front hall then the tin clanged upon the floor when it fell. Jack groaned in disappointment to see the pie destroyed in one swift movement. Pamela, whose face he could see between Maddie and Jack, gawked at her in shock of Maddie's action.

"So much for letting her continue to think we aren't on to her," Vlad mumbled to the ghost beside him.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Phantom whispered back.

"What are you really doing here?" Maddie demanded with anger in her voice as she placed her hands on her hips.

"I happen to work at the hospital," Pamela answered, mustering up the snobby tone of a woman of class as she smoothed down her pink dress with white gloved hands. "I heard that your husband was brought in the other night, so I thought I would bring over an apple pie as a sort of get well gesture."

"Jack hates apple pie," Maddie said firmly.

"But I like-" Jack started to argue but swallowed his words when Maddie snapped her head around to him. "Right. Apple pie. Hate it." Jack pulled a disgusted face.

"Well, I'm not surprised that your son had such bad manners." Pamela huffed, tilting her head up and giving that sniff of disdain. "With parents like you, it's not surprising that he ended up dead at so young an age. At least it saved him the humiliation of having freaks for parents." If she was looking for a reaction out of Maddie, Pamela got it.

Maddie drew back her fist then drove it forward at the woman's face. Vlad was aware of Maddie's fighting ability as she was already a ninth degree black belt when he knew her in college. Sometimes, as a break when they were all studying, she would run through some moves, saying it helped clear her mind when it got too full of everything she was trying to remember for exams. Vlad always thought she looked like she was performing a beautiful dance as he watched her graceful yet strong and powerful movements flow from one strike to the next. He briefly wondered if Maddie trained Phantom while he was alive. It would explain his great capability in a fight.

Pamela, however, was ready for the attack. She ducked under Maddie's arm and swept her foot around to unbalance Maddie. She failed as Maddie slammed a foot into her chest. With a gasp, she stumbled back until she hit the closed door. Aqua colored eyes narrowed, anger twisting upon the woman's face. She charged forward at Maddie, but a flash of silver flew from her hand as she went in for the tackle.

His movements felt sluggish, the world seeming to slow in that moment as he raced forward to help. Vlad caught movement beside him, and Phantom darted past him, flying at great sped toward his father. Pamela tried to force her opponent to the ground, but Maddie grabbed her by the arm and threw her over her shoulder. Pamela slammed her back into the ground with a rush of air forced from her lungs. But Vlad's gaze was on Phantom and Jack. He heard the knife bury itself into Phantom's chest with a sickening thud before the ghost hit the ground. Green ectoplasm oozed thickly from the point of injury, and Phantom gritted his teeth to keep from screaming out. Jack dropped to his knees as Vlad reached them. No matter what he believed about ghosts not feeling pain, in that moment, he threw out that thinking when Phantom saved him from a knife being buried deep in his own chest.

"We've got medical supplies in the lab," Jack stated, his voice louder than necessary in his panic. He lifted the ghost into his arms, wrenching a strangled growling from Phantom as the movement jerked the knife in his chest. Stupid questions raced through Vlad's mind. Why didn't Phantom just turn Jack intangible to save them both from the knife? Why didn't he just throw up a shield around Jack? But how could he expect Phantom to think rationally when his own mind was racing with panic?

"So what exactly is going on?" Maddie questioned, eying Vlad as she held Pamela pinned to the ground under her weight. Jack, meanwhile, rushed off to the laboratory to tend to Phantom's injury. "Why exactly did this witch of a woman just try to kill my husband?" She frowned severely in that way Vlad remembered well when she wanted answers and wouldn't let him escape without getting them.

At that moment, Vlad really wanted to follow Jack and make sure that Phantom was okay, but he sighed as he crouched down beside Maddie. "It turns out she was hired to kill him. She's the one that poisoned the fudge." He frowned down at Pamela, who was snarling like a trapped beast. His dark blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who hired you?"

"I'd sooner bite down on a cyanide pill than tell you," Pamela shouted as she struggled, thrashing uselessly beneath Maddie.

"That," Maddie said with a coldness in her voice that chilled Vlad and made him shudder, "can be arranged." She grabbed hold of Pamela's auburn hair, messing up the perfectly styled locks, and tilted her head back so that their eyes met. Violet glared icily into aqua. "But I suppose I'll just have to settle for detaining you until this little mess is cleared up. I'll try to remember that you need to be fed."

Yes, Vlad was definitely grateful that Jack would be keeping the secret of Vlad's own role as a hit man. He didn't want to have Maddie's wrath turned on him.


maltese: I'm glad! 8D Yay headcanons! You're welcome~ Had to have a little bonding in there to build up their relationship. XD;;

midnight: So much stress! D: He'll be able to rest easy (easier?) once the whole hit on his dad is resolved. DX He's not alone anymore! Yay! *celebrates*

Kraehenhexe: It's slowly working it's way in there. XD I think Vlad's definitely coming to care for Danny, even if he doesn't fully realize it yet. XD;;

Sammi: *plays You've Got a Friend in Me in the background* XD;; Hopefully it won't be too, too long before it becomes more.

WriterChic: Yay! Things making sense is always good. If ever things aren't making sense, let me know? D: Why thank you! X3

Phantom Trainer: Hello! =D Did you have a fun vacation with your family? Currently, Vlad is the only one that's put together Phantom is Danny. Slow, but yes! Vlad forgiving Jack! Ugh, I wanted that in the show just because I wanted them to be happy bros again! *sobs* They were such good pals in college. orz