Ghost King

A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

Maddie settles slowly into the old kitchen chair, running her fingers over the worn tabletop. Her bones ache – a storm is on the horizon. Gray hair flutters in her face and she gently tucks it behind her ear.

"Ready, Mom?"

She looks at her daughter. Jazz has come over to help pack the last few items before closing up the house for the last time. "Just give me a few minutes, Sweetheart."

The younger woman smiles at her, grabs the box that had been sitting on the table, and walks out the door. With the exception of the table and appliances, the kitchen is empty. The table is staying with the house – for many reasons.

Quietly fingering the thicker scratches and stains in the table, Maddie sighs. So much of her life has revolved around this table. She regrets having to leave it behind, but she's thought long and hard on it.

Her eyes trail over to the basement door. Someone – likely Jazz – has covered the bright orange door with a thick coat of white paint. The basement is empty and clean. But if you walk down there and stand still and listen, you can still hear the past. The click of technology. The whirr of ectoplasm. The bone-deep buzz of the portal.

The portal was dismantled almost three decades ago, but if you stand in the right spot and close your eyes, you can still smell the ozone. Beyond a horrible reminder of what had happened to her son just shy of his twenty-first birthday, a physical portal hadn't been necessary after the Truce was signed. The ghosts stayed in their world. Maddie and Jack (and several other scientists) had been gifted free access to the ghost world.

Besides, as she and Jack had found out, ghost portals didn't need all the fancy equipment. As Danny had explained it all those years ago, a portal needed nothing more than a belief in ghosts and a link to someone in the other world. Portals can be made from a hole in the ground, a device in your hand – or even a stain on the kitchen table.

Maddie glances at the door Jazz has vanished through, then presses her fingers to the stain on the table. It's barely there anymore – a splattered green-red stain thirty years old. She closes her eyes and imagines.

She imagines a tall young man. She imagines the child she used to hold in her arms. She imagines a teenager, sleeping on his bed. She remembers the boy she lost all those years ago.

When she opens her eyes, she's not alone anymore. Standing in the kitchen is a ghost, appearing to be in his early twenties. Dressed in black and white, with an aura that sparked up around his head like a crown, the king of the ghosts looks around the kitchen. "It's kinda empty in here," he says as a way of greeting.

"I'm moving," she says.

The ghost peers at her with curious green eyes. Confusion clouds his expression. "Oh," he says. "That's good."

Maddie smiles sadly and leans forwards on the table. The ghost has forgotten who she is. It had been getting worse and worse the past few years. Maddie knows she's been hanging onto her son too long – this is a sign that it is time to allow the ghost to move on. "I'm not going to call you anymore," she says, tipping her head to the side. "I just wanted to say goodbye."

Ghosts don't care about saying goodbye, especially to a human - they are too fleeting and short-lived. Instead, the ghost just arches a puzzled eyebrow and prowls around the kitchen, opening doors and looking out the window at the human world. The human world, being out of bounds for the ghosts since the Truce, is likely very tempting and interesting to a ghost with few memories left of his life.

With a sigh, Maddie tries to remind herself that this ghost hasn't been her son in nearly three decades, and Maddie can't kid herself anymore. While time moves on for humans, it doesn't for the dead. Very likely, this ghost can't even tell that Maddie has grown old. He doesn't even remember who she is.

"How is Vlad doing?" Vlad Masters had died a few years after Danny, and Jack had always delighted in knowing what his old friend had been up to. Even though Jack is now gone, Maddie can't help but keep up the tradition this one last time.

"Plasmius?" When Maddie nods, a smirk appears on the ghost's face. "Walker's tormenting him," the ghost tells her with delight. "Chasing him from end to end of the Zone for…" Maddie watches as the ghost trails off, a confused look clouding his face. "Something he did," the ghost finishes quietly.

The worst of Vlad's crimes happened while the two of them were alive – it isn't a surprise that the ghost can't remember them anymore. Life fades fast after death. Memories disappear like fireflies, flashing out of existence one by one. Maddie isn't sure the ghost remembers he was alive at one point.

"I'm sure he's done many things worth being chased for," she says.

The ghost is staring out the window again. A bird is fluttering around outside. He's smiling, hands pressed against the counter, watching the little animal carefully. He doesn't remember what a bird is – he probably won't even remember this conversation in an hour.

She sighs and shakes her head. Even though she used to call the ghost here and sit with him and talk for hours and hours, Jack had asked her to stop doing that. He said it wasn't doing her any good, sitting her and talking with the dead, and he was right. She needs to move on with her life.

"Why are you so sad?"

Looking up at the question, Maddie smiles. "Time moves on."

With a bright smile, the ghost slips across the room and settles down next to her. "I can fix that," he says. "I can stop time for you, if you want."

Even though he doesn't remember her, he still wants to do anything for her. She lets herself be tempted by the offer a moment, but when he raises his hand to actually stop time, Maddie takes hold of his fingers. "No."

"Why not?" he asks. He's looking at her with those earnest green eyes, his skin cold against hers.

"Because times passes in this world. That's how life goes, Danny."

The use of his name makes the ghost blink. The strange crown-like aura vanishes. He looks suddenly younger and more real. "Mom?" he whispers.

"I know you don't understand," she says, very quietly. "But try to remember that I love you."

He tips his head, slightly confused. "Are you okay?"

She smiles. "Yes, Sweetie. You be good, okay?" She pulls the ghost towards her, throwing her arms around his shoulders, surprised and delighted to get this last, special moment with her son.

He hugs her back, gentle and cold as death. "I'm always good," he says in her ear.

"I know." When she finally lets him go, he pulls away and the childish aura almost immediately starts to fade. The brief flicker of life in his eyes dies and the crown appears back over his head.

He really is a good ghost. Ruler of the ghost world, creator of the Truce between the human world and the afterlife, and general protector of anyone smaller and weaker than him. She watches him for a long moment more, knowing this will be the last time she gets to see him.

"Goodbye, ghost," she says, then presses her hand against the strange stain on the table. The ghost fades from view, back into the ghost world.

Long, silent minutes pass as she sits there, silent and thoughtful. Her fingers run over the stain, over and over again, and desperately wishes she can call him back.

But she can't. She won't.

Pushing the chair back from the table, she stands up. This table is her last connection to her son – the stain of his blood spilled on the table. Nobody else would be able to use it as a portal, and the table would stay here, where she wouldn't be able to use it either.

With one last brush of her fingers on the spot where her son had died thirty years ago, Maddie walks out of the kitchen. Her daughter is waiting in the living room, the last of the boxes packed into the car. "You ready to go?" she says in a quiet voice.

Maddie looks into her daughter's eyes. A small smile crosses her face. "Yes," she says, walking out of the hours for the last time. The door clicks shut behind her.

In the empty basement, lost somewhere between the phantom sounds of ectoweapons and the stench of the portal, someone whispers, "I love you too, Mom."