It was about half-past midnight. 12:37. AM. Danny still wasn't home.

It would do no good to try this while she was angry, so Maddie chose not to be angry. An easy switch to make. Just separate the situation from the emotions. Try a breathing exercise. Then she'd go down there and—

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Very calm. As calm as that smug... Using, threatening her children—

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Think of a river. Flowing over smooth stones, lapping at the shore. The soft rustle and burble of the water. Calm, blue water.

It may well be a coincidence that Danny was missing the night she had wanted to talk to him about his involvement with the ghost. To get him to see the error of his ways, so she could stop pretending that that

Not angry. Breathe in. Breathe out. Danny wanted her to try talking to Phantom. Jack thought it required a more human approach. Jazz told her it was Phantom's story to tell.

Fine. The people she was trying to protect thought she was being unreasonable, she would show them otherwise. She was going to talk to Phantom. Calmly.

She threw open the door to the lab and calmly walked down the stairs, gripping the banister tightly in one hand and hefting the tape recorder along in the other. The squeaky floorboard on the landing croaked in protest as she passed, cutting a determined line across the lab; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Phantom hurriedly sitting up on the cot, setting down one of Jack's science fiction magazines. She glanced at him as she went and saw a spike of fear in his eyes. Completely unwarranted fear. She was just here to talk.

Jack was hovering over a workbench on the far side of the lab, soldering iron in hand. When he caught her eye he set it down in its holder and walked over. "Maddie, I didn't know you were still awake."

"I am, yes. I would have found it very difficult to sleep, considering our son is currently missing. Again." She gave Phantom another accusatory glance before hefting the tape recorder up onto the lab bench she had been keeping it on. The remnants of a checkers game sat cold on the far end of the surface. Jack never played alone.

She pushed that far to the back of her mind and remained calm. She plugged in the pair of microphones and the power cord and flipped the switch. The machine powered up just fine, the needles on the VU meters jumping a little. When she looked up, Jack and the ghost were exchanging a look.

"What?"

"Mads, it's real late. Maybe we should call it a night and turn in?"

"This cannot wait until morning, Jack. I had hoped to discuss this with our son first, but it appears he isn't going to be coming home tonight. I wonder why that is." She cast a withering glance at Phantom in his containment unit. The ghost looked like he had been scalded, and for a moment she regretted it. Then it prickled at her nerves. He was doing this on purpose.

"I'm sure Phantom had nothing to do with Danny not showing up tonight," Jack began. The ghost's flinch said otherwise. "Probably didn't want to talk about the birds and the bees again. Or maybe he's having a sleepover! You know he's always staying over at his little friends' houses. He musta just forgot to call home. He'll be here tomorrow morning, I bet you anything."

"I might have believed that if I hadn't found out that Jasmine has been sabotaging our operations to help that ghost."

Jack looked taken aback. Finally. "What? Is that true ghost kid?"

From his little cot, the ghost nodded, but he wouldn't make eye contact with Jack. "She... She's been trying to help me not get captured. For a couple of months now, I guess."

Maddie scoffed. "That's only what we know of. I can hardly imagine what else we don't. I also suspect Danny may have been involved in this subterfuge, Phantom nearly admitted as much earlier. I just didn't see it for what it was at the time. I wasn't being impartial."

"Come on sweet pea, knowing what we know now, that makes a lot of sense! I wouldn't want us to have captured Phantom any earlier. Not before we gave him a real chance."

"Are you hearing yourself? He's a ghost, Jack! If it had a real chance, it would..." There were a lot of things it could have done. Should have done. He could have... Well, all those times they gave him an opening, to escape, or, to attack them, and he didn't... He must have been plotting. The ghost was clearly a strategist.

"Phantom's not gonna hurt anyone. He had plenty of chances to get the drop on me today. I was unarmed. We played checkers. Nothing happened."

"He's playing a long game, Jack!"

Her husband had the nerve to laugh. "He couldn't play a long game to save his afterlife." Phantom had the nerve to look annoyed at the slight before he caught her looking at him.

"Then why does it have to be our children?"

There was silence in the room for a moment. She hadn't meant to shout. Calm. Think of water. Breathe in, breathe out. Re-holster the ectogun.

Jack was staring at her. "Explain it to me. What about our kids?"

She continued in an even, calm tone. "It makes perfect sense, Jack. They are the children of ghost hunters. They would be the perfect leverage over us. Or why else would Amity Park's most prolific villain choose to associate with them? Why is it our Jazz who has to keep secrets for a high-level ectoplasmic entity? Why is it our Danny who is probably outside, right now, hunting down Phantom's enemies? Why our kids?"

"Baby, they're—"

"No, Jack. I want to hear it from him." She pointed an accusatory finger at Phantom. The ghost's eyes were darting between the two of them, lingering just a little bit more on Jack, but never losing sight of her or her hands for very long. Maddie placed them very carefully on the counter. "If I'm wrong, I want to hear it from you."

The ghost's hand found its way to the back of his neck again. "I don't know what to tell you. They're just my friends, Maddie."

"Why would you need friends? Why would they need to be human? These humans, specifically?"

"How am I supposed to explain that to you? We get along. They don't run screaming from me. Even when things go bad they stick with me. They're free to do whatever they want and they stick with me, just like I stick with them. That's all this is."

"But why? Why are you seeking out humans in the first place?"

"I barely even tried! At first, I wanted them to keep their distance, but they wouldn't let me. And I'm glad they didn't."

"What are you gaining out of this?"

"I couldn't... I wouldn't be who I am without them. Nobody can be alone forever. I needed them as much as they need me."

"Am I to believe that it's a complete coincidence that the son and daughter of ghost hunters, along with their human friends, all voluntarily spend their free time with a ghost? Lying to their parents," Phantom winced again, "putting themselves in harm's way, running around town when they should be studying?"

"I didn't say it was a coincidence. They know what a ghost running rampant can do, so of course they want to help. I'm just trying to say I'm not like, orchestrating all of this. I didn't want any of this to happen."

"And the fact that they are only accidentally being put in danger is supposed to make it better?"

"I'm not putting them in danger! They'd be out there doing what they're doing even if I wasn't around. They know the stakes. After everything that happened two weeks ago, we all do. At least when I'm around I can try to keep them safe."

"Well, since you bring it up, where were you that day anyway? When Danny and his friend Valerie showed up outside the school covered in bruises? In fact—"


"File Alfa-Papa-1, tape 2, session 7. This is Dr. Fenton. Phantom is just about to explain where he was when the humans he claims are his friends were being attacked by an incursion of violent ghosts."

"I was... Around! A lot was going on that day!"

"But if you are the protector you claim to be, surely your obsession with playing the hero would dictate your chosen humans would come first."

"I was held up by Vlad Plasmius; 'The Wisconsin Ghost'."

"You reportedly fought him multiple times during the incursion. Do you mean to say that with your town being invaded, the whereabouts of your 'friends' utterly unknown to you, you chose to fight another ghost? Ignoring all the responsibilities you claim you've taken on?"

"I'm not perfect, ok? Maybe I made a bad call. I don't know. He gets under my skin sometimes. I was busy trying to figure out what his stupid game was, there was no time to track down every single ghost that came through."

"You certainly didn't hold back against the skeleton army."

"No, I mean before the actual invasion. Before I figured out what was going on. I was just as in the dark as anyone, I had to track down... Not even 'acquaintances', literally, it was a group of my worst enemies. But after they beat the tar out of me, yeah, I got them talking and they told me what was going on in the Ghost Zone."

"So you had advanced warning of the invasion?"

"Maddie, I had no idea what was coming. You know what I did know? There was an ancient ghost that had just been woken up, and A, he was extremely powerful, B, it had taken a whole bunch of ghosts to beat him last time, and C, he was very, very angry about that."

"You mean you'd never heard of Pariah Dark."

"No, they made it sound like he was like a million years old or whatever. They never covered that in history class."

"Spare me. So why didn't you try to stop him from taking over 'your haunt'?"

"Ok, not 'my haunt', just the town I live in. And I did try. To cut a long story short he wasn't at full power without this magic ring. The ghosts called it the 'Ring of Rage'. And going on what they told me about the first time he'd been beaten, I figured I needed to try to fight him before he got it because he'd be just about unstoppable once he did. And I'd need help."

"Surely a gang of untrained teenagers would be of little use against an ancient, powerful ghost."

"No, no, of course not. That's kind of the whole problem I had. I'm sorry that people got hurt, but I didn't want to be anywhere near my friends during this. That would just paint a huge target on them. This time I really had to keep them out of it. Just keep it to ghosts fighting ghosts."

"Other ghosts would have no reason to assist you, either. Ghosts are naturally selfish."

"Their homes were under threat too, you know. Even if they were in the Ghost Zone. But this was threatening both their world and ours, and I don't think any of them wanted... You know, to destroy Amity Park. At their worst, I think they want to rule it, not raze it. So yeah, I told them that I needed their help to take the fight to the enemy. I knew it'd be dangerous and I told them so. I even said, y'know, there was no guarantee we'd survive this."

"That can't possibly have worked out."

"Yeah, they laughed at me."

"So while you were cavorting with ghosts and getting nowhere, you just left your 'friends' undefended."

"They weren't undefended anymore, they were inside the ghost shield by then."

"Except for Danny. Our college friend found him unconscious outside the ghost shield."

"Like I said, I couldn't be anywhere near him. I wouldn't have drawn him out from safety. What could Danny Fenton do against a ghost king? That was entirely Plasmius's fault. The whole thing was his fault actually. I think he wanted the power or something, that's usually his end goal when he pulls stunts like this. They usually just don't backfire quite so badly. I don't think he expected that Pariah Dark was still alive, or that he'd wake up when Plasmius stole the Ring of Rage from him."

"Excuse me if it seems a bit rich for you to complain about ghosts stealing from others when you stole our prototype ecto-skeleton."

"That was to stop anyone else from using it! You were all lining up to jump in even though you knew it was probably lethal for a human. Did you think I was just going to float around while you tried to die? The only reason I gave away Valerie's secret to her dad was so she wouldn't get in the stupid thing herself. I probably would have kept her secret otherwise, but she was just charging in with some kind of death wish. Leave that to the undead kid."

"You aren't saying you actually used it, are you?"

"Yeah, I did. How else did you think I fought off Pariah's army?"

"But that prototype would have been lethal. I've been going over the schematics, the power draw really was almost entirely uncontrolled. We said as much at the time. You knew that getting into it might have ended your existence."

"...that's not a question."

"But, why would you do that?"

"If you don't want to believe anything else I say, please, believe that at that moment, I was thinking of my friends. My home. I didn't want anybody else to get hurt, and I knew that if I didn't... If it wasn't..."

"Phantom, I—"

"It had to be me, is what I'm saying. It had to. This is all I've got. My friends and Amity Park. If they were gone I don't think I could carry on anyway. Oh, and besides, you know how much power there is in ectoplasm versus a normal human, right? I had the best odds out of anyone to actually fight off the ghost king before it killed me. 'Ended my existence', whatever.

It was still a tough fight, too. Even at 100%, that suit took a beating. This was after Pariah Dark had managed to get his stupid ring, and there were a lot of those skeletons. They'd overrun the town and most of the area around Pariah's keep. I just kept charging after them, and they just kept piling on and on and on, and...

You know, in the end, it was actually those selfish ghosts. My worst enemies. I don't know what made them see reason in the end, but honestly, even with the ecto-skeleton, I would have been screwed if they didn't swoop in to help clear a path. Maybe that's the moral here. It's like, yeah, they're selfish, and yeah, I'm constantly sending them back to the ghost zone, but even they have some kind of limits, you know? There's some boundaries that they aren't willing to see crossed. Or maybe you're right. Maybe it really was just self-preservation, and at that moment helping me was the best way to be selfish. I guess I don't like to think of it that way. It seems too... Black and white. And now that I've seen real evil, I don't think they come close. They're just... What they are.

So anyway, they were able to get me in there. With their help, the suit kept me safe long enough to—"


In the silence that followed, Danny noticed the tape machine making a strange sound. He straightened up on the cot and looked over at it; it had run out of tape at some point. One reel was still spinning, the loose edge of the tape hitting against a piece of the mechanism with a soft fwip fwip fwip.

Mom hadn't even asked what had happened to the ecto-skeleton.

Which was good, because two weeks later, he still had no idea. But looking at her, it might have been less because of a lack of curiosity, and more because she seemed to be in shock. The pen was loose in her grip. Her shoulders were hunched over. She wasn't even really looking at him.

Come to think of it, she hadn't said anything for a really long time.

He leaned forward a bit on the cot so that he was sure she could see him. "Maddie? Are you ok?"

She was shaking. Crud.

"Hey, uh, Jack?" He stood and looked around the lab to find his dad. It was still weird calling him Jack. It was weirder to see him sitting in an equal state of shock at the workbench against the wall. "Jack!"

His dad blinked a few times and then looked at him for real. "Phantom, that was..."

"Hey, don't worry about me, what's up with Maddie? Is she ok?" He pointed a thumb at her on the stool, still looking at the far wall with a thousand-yard stare.

Dad didn't follow immediately, but eventually blinked back to awareness and swore. "Mads!" He was over to her in a few strides and gave her a little shake on the shoulder. "You ok?"

His mom made a strange, strangled gasp at the contact, and clutched at his arm, nearly falling off the stool. She looked around wildly, and then with a jolt, she was back. "I, yes, sorry, I got a bit lost in my thoughts there..." No kidding. "Ah, Phantom..."

He stiffened reflexively. Her saying his name that carefully hadn't been working out great for him lately. "Maddie, I swear, I'm telling the truth. I really was just trying to protect the town. And I know you don't always want me around, and you don't want me around your kids, but you've got to believe—"

"Phantom, what you did was very... Brave."

"...huh?" He stopped pacing. He'd started pacing at some point. ...He was going to end up as melodramatic as Vlad at this rate. But what was that supposed to mean? Did she think he was trying to act like some kind of superhero to pull one over on the town?

She seemed to guess what he was thinking. "I mean it. And I... Believe you. At least, about the Pariah Dark incident, there are those other unexplained—"

"Mads, now's not the time," his dad suggested gently.

"And I've been calling it the 'Reign Storm'." The joke slipped out of his mouth before Danny could stop it. It was like a reflex.

She almost, almost looked like she got it, but that happened while she was looking very alarmed. It made for a weird conjoined expression. "...of course. What I'm attempting to say is that... I owe you an apology. You didn't deserve these aspersions I've been casting on you."

He had no idea what that meant but it was clear enough from context. He allowed himself a small, careful smile. She didn't try to take back what she'd just said when he did, and he smiled a little more. "You really mean it?"

"I really mean it. And, about what I said earlier this morning. If human contact is important to you..." There was a very long pause.

Danny's smile dropped a bit. "I get it. You still don't want me to see or talk to your kids or their friends. It's fine, I get—"

"No, no, what I'm trying to do is... They are their own individuals. I can't control the company they keep. If they want to... Help you, with ghost hunting, we can certainly discuss that. I want to know that every precaution is being taken for their safety, of course. And outside of dangerous activities, I won't attempt to interfere with your... Friendship."

It sounded like multiple words there were still pretty uncomfortable for his mom to say, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He was over the moon.

"Oh man, you don't know how much that means to me to hear from you!" He may have done a flip, he was hardly paying attention. "Thanks, Maddie! Jeez, I don't even know what to say."

He thought he caught a hint of a smile on her face. His dad was beaming at her side, but at least she wasn't trying to backtrack anymore. "Well, there are a few details we'll need to work out about our arrangement. Precautionary measures. But we can go over that in the morning, it's..." She checked her watch and cringed. "Far, far too late for that."

Dad nodded sagely. "I reckon we'll all feel better after some shut-eye, it's been a heckuva night. Are you good to stay one more day, ghost kid?"

"I can do that." In truth, he was about ready to pass out on the cot. He thought fondly of Danny Fenton's nice warm bed upstairs, far away from heavy conversations with his parents.

But some things were worth it.

"Well, alright. We'll see you in the morning then, we've got a lot to talk about. You go on ahead Mads, I want to clean up a bit."

His mom nodded and clambered to her feet. She seemed weary climbing the stairs, like she'd aged a few years since she sat down. But that was probably just the time.

After his dad shut off the soldering iron, he turned back to face Danny. His face broke into a broad grin. "Hey, Phantom?"

"Yeah?"

"Good work, kiddo."


Author's Note: I'd apologize for that cut, but it was something I've been planning since practically the start of the story and I still went through with it, so I can't be that sorry. What can I say, I'm a sucker for overwrought symbolism. I should write YA novels.

Fun fact: I listened to a single Flight Facilities song on repeat for almost 4 hours while writing the rough draft for this chapter. Music kind of puts me in the zone.