"Danny, for the last time, where were you?"

Danny growled. "I was just late getting home! There's not much else to it."

Maddie pulled her phone out of her suit pocket to check the time, and turned the screen to face it towards Danny. "It's two hours past curfew! That's not just 'late getting home'. By that point that's a conscious choice, and even if it wasn't, if you'd actually carry your phone on you when it wasn't broken, you'd know what time it was!"

"I don't know what you want from me when I'm telling you the truth!" Danny threw his hands into the air.

"I want you to tell me the actual truth!" Maddie yelled. "I wish-"

Danny's ghost sense went off. "Mom, wait-"

She gave him a look and continued anyway. "I wish you wouldn't lie to me."

She watched Danny shiver and look around the living room with a look on his face similar to Jack's when he's searching for something in the lab.

"Danny." She said sternly. Danny's gaze traveled back over to her, his posture tense. "Why were you so late coming home?"
He stood and stared at her a bit, his lips pursed together before his voice finally spilled out.

"You wanna know why I'm always late coming home and missing curfew?" He asked and Maddie nodded. "I'm Danny Phantom and I've been fighting ghosts for the past three years and they don't exactly follow my office hours."

They stared at each other for a few moments before Maddie scoffed.

"That isn't funny. I said I wanted you to tell me the truth, not tell me a joke."

He ran his hands angrily through his hair. "It is the truth!"

"If it's the truth why wouldn't you have told us before now?" Maddie shouted. "You realize how that'd be such a convenient excuse right?"

"I wouldn't have told you before now because you are ghost hunters! You hunt ghosts! You hurt and dissect them, and have talked about wanting to dissect me! And, maybe, I'm telling you right now because you let the w-i-s-h words slip when there's regularly a genie ghost in town!"

Maddie just looked at him in disbelief, disappointment on her face.

Danny stared right back into her eyes. "Fine. I'll prove it."

A bright flash of white appeared around his waist and Maddie stumbled back as she watched the rings travel around her son's body. Phantom's jumpsuit appeared underneath them and Maddie could finally see the very familiar stitching on it. She stared at him in horror.

The rings disappeared and Phantom stood in front of her, an angry expression on his face.

"I'm gonna go catch that ghost."

He turned intangible and flew through the ceiling and away from the house.

Maddie stared at where he disappeared, panic starting to rise. What happened to her son? Did he die? Was he dead? Did Phantom do this to him? How was this even possible?

She ran and grabbed an ecto-gun and hurried out the front door, slamming it behind her. Who knows how hurt he could get!
Actually, she knew very well how hurt he could get.

Guilt flooded her stomach and she started running up and down streets, checking the ghostly hot spots in town. She ran past the high school without stopping. The ghosts never bothered with showing up there when school wasn't in session, so Danny wouldn't be there.

She ran through downtown and to the park when she saw it. A light glow sitting on a picnic table near a tree. As she got closer, she could Danny sitting on the table with his knees pulled up to his chest, face tucked into them.

Maddie slowed to a walk, trying to get her breathing under control before walking up to him. She reached a hand out to him before hesitating but finally placed a hand on his shoulder.

He tightened up further at the contact, hands gripping his arms tightly.

"Are you going to dissect me?" Danny whispered.

Her heart broke at the sound of his voice, how defeated it sounded.

"Dear, no. Danny." Maddie pulled him toward her and into a hug.

All the tension in his body slipped out and he wrapped his arms tightly around Maddie. His breath hitched and Maddie could hear him sniffle as he started to cry.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, Danny." She ran a hand through his hair. "You don't have to apologize for this."

"Why?" He looked up at her. "I lied to you guys for years."
She wiped a tear off of Danny's face. "It's like what those posts online say. Don't come out unless you know you're safe or have stability to be on your own."

"That's different though." Danny said.

"That it is." She whispered.

They sat in silence for a moment before Danny spoke up again.

"I got that ghost. She's in the thermos now so her powers wore off."

"That's good." Maddie took a deep breath. "I think it's time we head home. You need some sleep and we can all talk about this tomorrow."

"Yeah." Danny stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. "There's a lot you guys need to know about now I guess."

"It can wait until your dad's awake. But when we get home, I don't want to find out that you went off into the night again chasing something. Wake one of us up instead." They started walking out of the park.

"But mom-"

"No buts." Maddie cut him off. "This should never have been your responsibility. You've been doing this since you were, what, fourteen?" Danny nodded. "This is something your father and I should have been more vigilant about, but clearly we weren't doing a very good job with our work."

"But some of the ghosts are so strong. What if you got hurt?"

Maddie stared at him with wide eyes. "What if we got hurt? What about you, Danny? A teenager should not have to go through everything we saw Phantom go through. What we put you through. It's not your responsibility to keep your parents safe. It's the other way around."

"It feels like my responsibility." Danny mumbled. "I was the one who turned the portal on. If I hadn't none of the ghosts would be here."

Maddie stopped him and grabbed Danny by the shoulders. "Did you build the ghost portal?"

Danny's brows furrowed. "No."

"Was it your idea to build it?"

"No?" Danny sounded confused.

"It would have eventually turned on. Your dad and I could have figured out what was wrong, we could have taken it apart and built it again. It would have been turned on at some point. It's not your responsibility, it's ours."

Danny was silent for a moment. "I guess."

They walked up to the front of their house and Maddie opened the door. Danny transformed back into his human form and began heading up the stairs.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then." Danny said.

"Goodnight Danny." Maddie waved at where he stood on the steps.

He smiled. "Goodnight, mom."