Author's note: Thanks so much for the great response so far! Writing this series is always so rewarding.

Disillusioned

I hurt you so much

...

He could hear her. Whispering his name. Danny, Danny, Danny.

The darkness of sleep lifted, up and up, pulling him toward her.

He opened his eyes to find her hand reaching toward him. Danny's heart lurched as he jumped to get away, his head banging against the top bar of his bed frame, which vibrated with the impact.

"Oh, God, Danny. Are you okay? That sounded like it hurt."

Danny pulled up his knees and clutched the top of his head with both hands, ducking and drawing his elbows close to hide his face. "I'm fine. You just—but I'm fine."

He rubbed the sore spot on his head, trying to force back his tears. He really was fine, he was okay, he was safe in his own bed and not shackled to a lab table. His mother wasn't here to torture him.

He sighed as his heart slowed and uncovered his face. Sunlight streamed in through his window; his mom must've opened the blinds.

"Are you okay now?" asked Maddie.

Danny nodded, noting that she was dressed in a grey pencil skirt and white blouse, not her normal jumpsuit. Now he could definitely be sure that she was not here to run any experiments on him.

"I'm really sorry for waking you like that," said Maddie, taking a seat on his bed. "But I can't let you sleep all day again today. We have to go to the police station this morning. I was able to convince them to put it off for the weekend, but they won't let us delay it any longer."

Danny wrapped his arms around his knees. "I don't want to talk to them," he whispered.

"I know you don't, sweetie," said Maddie gently. "I wish I could take care of all of this for you. But they want to talk to you."

"But why? Why can't we just tell them that I ran away but decided to come back? Why can't that be enough?"

"Well." Maddie pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. "They no longer believe that you simply ran away."

Danny's shoulders tensed. "What are they going to ask me?"

"They'll probably ask you a lot of questions about me."

"About you? Why would they ask me anything about you?"

Maddie hesitated. "Danny, back in the lab when I—" She looked down at his bed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you remember anything that happened there. But remember when I told you that the police think I had something to do with your disappearance?"

That final memory in the lab made him shiver, but yes, he remembered the way she hunched over in that chair and confessed to him that the police were investigating her connection to his disappearance, that they suspected she was abusing him. Right before she undid his restraints and set him free.

"That was real, sweetheart," continued Maddie. "That's what they're investigating, that's why they want to talk to you and me in person."

She smoothed out a few folds in his bedspread.

"And they're right." Her voice quaked. "I'm the reason you couldn't come home."

Danny lowered his knees, keeping his legs under his blanket. "Mom—"

"So if we're going to cover this up, we need to get our story straight," said Maddie, meeting his gaze again, her voice regaining its strength. "To protect us. To protect you. Because we don't want the police figuring out that you're a ghost hybrid."

Danny slowly nodded. "I know," he murmured.

"Because I can't stop the Guys in White or some other organization from taking you if they were to find out."

"I know," Danny said even more quietly.

"I talked to Vlad over the phone yesterday, and he says he'll help us," said Maddie. "Somehow. I'm not sure. He implied that he would use his powers."

"So he already knows I told you that he's half ghost, too?"

"Yes. He knows." Maddie narrowed her eyes. "And I lectured him about why he didn't tell me sooner. More specifically, why he didn't tell me about you sooner."

"About me?"

"About you being half ghost. If he had just told me you were Phantom, none of this would've happened. He's supposed to be my friend, he should of course tell me if my own child is caught up in something dangerous."

Danny folded his arms against his stomach. Vlad probably didn't tell her that he actually visited Danny in the lab while he was being held captive.

"And not just him, but if any of you had just told me the truth—Jazz, Sam, Tucker—I just don't understand why you had to keep this from me. I'm especially disappointed in Jazz." Maddie shook her head. "But I can't lecture any of them about it. Not when we're trying to hide the truth even from them." She looked at Danny again. "Which means I have to pretend I still don't know you're Phantom."

Danny nodded, unsure how else to respond.

"Here." Maddie held out her hands toward him, palms up. "Can I have your hands, please?"

Danny furrowed his brow but complied, fitting both of his hands into hers. Her fingers wrapped around them loosely as her thumbs passed over the yellowing bruises on his wrists.

"Your wrists look so much better than they did a couple days ago." She angled his hands to get a better look, turning them over to inspect all the scars and lingering discoloration. "But they're still pretty noticeable. I guess you just don't heal as quickly in human form. Do they hurt anymore?"

Danny shook his head, but his throat was too tight to get any words out. He put all his energy into keeping his tears back.

Maddie raised her eyes to look at him and frowned. "Danny, are you okay?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah," he managed to get out.

Maddie sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make you relive anything." She softly stroked his wrists with her thumbs. "I'm so sorry I did this to you."

She continued caressing his wrists for some time, her eyes glazing over. Danny could only imagine what she was thinking.

And he didn't like it.

"They don't hurt anymore," he said quietly.

Maddie blinked out of her stupor. "Hmm?"

"My wrists. They don't hurt," said Danny. "Same with my ankles. They really only hurt when they were actually rubbing against the restraints."

"Oh, God." Maddie let go of his hands and clutched at her chest. "Do your ankles look bad, too?"

Danny looked down at his legs, still covered under his blanket. "They're not as bad as my wrists. I didn't pull at those restraints as much."

Maddie shifted her position on the bed. "As long as you wear pants, the police won't see that. But your wrists…"

She was looking at his wrists again. Danny wrapped a hand around one and pulled them both in close to him.

"A long-sleeved shirt probably won't be enough to completely hide the bruises, but I have some makeup that can cover them up," said Maddie with a nod. "You'll just have to be careful not to rub them too much."

"I know," said Danny. "I've used makeup to cover up bruises before."

Maddie raised a brow. "You have?"

Danny looked over at his wall. He had used his powers to phase through and hide so many things behind it, things that he wanted to be sure his parents would never find, including the liquid foundation and concealer Jazz had given him.

"Yeah." His mind blinked through the memories he could barely believe were his now. A life where he was strong and powerful, an existence where he was a hero that wasn't so easily beaten. "I got bruises all the time fighting ghosts."

"Oh, Danny."

Danny turned back to Maddie. She was looking at him with such concern and sadness. Danny shrank away and looked down at his lap.

"Wait," said Maddie. "Can you look at me, please?"

Danny hesitantly raised his eyes.

"Do you mind if I…" She held out her hands toward his face. "I mean, can I look more closely at your eye?"

Danny tensed, frozen for a few seconds. But then he leaned forward. She reached for him and gently placed her hands on either side of his face, tilting his head and studying his scarred eye from several angles.

"Are you able to see any better out of this eye?" she asked, using her thumb to tug at the skin under his eye.

Danny shut his right eye and looked around the room with only his left eye. Blurred shapes bled into each other with no distinct outlines, and a hazy aura surrounded the light shining through his window. He could see a mop of red hair on top of Maddie's head, but her face was a smudge of neutral colors.

"It's not any better," said Danny. "My vision's been the same in this eye for a couple weeks now."

He opened his right eye again to see that Maddie's eyes were brimming with tears.

"There's no way we can cover this up with makeup." Maddie sniffled and let go of his face. "I have no idea how we're going to explain this to the police."

"I could just say I tripped and fell on…something," said Danny, realizing how stupid that sounded before he even finished the sentence.

"I don't know if they'll buy that," said Maddie. "It looks like something that was done on purpose." She moaned. "And of course it was. God, why did I do that? I knew it was a bad idea but I did it anyway because you—"

Maddie inhaled deeply and shut her eyes, holding up her hands and clenching them into fists before relaxing them. She released her breath slowly.

"Because I made you mad," said Danny, lowering his eyes.

"No, Danny, it wasn't your fault. You didn't deserve that." Maddie slumped. "But I can't take it back now."

Her words sank through him, a crushing weight that made him want to fall onto his bed again and bury himself in the darkness of sleep.

Everything that happened was real. This right now was permanent.

Nothing could rescue the boy who used to live here before all of this. He was gone forever.

He rubbed his arms and pulled up his knees again in an attempt to calm his lurching insides.

"Go ahead and shower, get dressed," said Maddie, standing up. "Come downstairs for breakfast whenever you're ready."

Danny's stomach flipped even more. The last thing he wanted right now was to eat.

"Cooking helps me think," said Maddie. "I'll make pancakes. And then we can go over the details afterward. My lawyer isn't going to be at the police station until nine anyway, so we have some time to hash it all out."

Danny tilted his head. "Your lawyer?"

"Yes," said Maddie. "Vlad got me in touch with her, and he says she's really good and that she'll make sure the cops don't ask anything that might incriminate me." She rubbed her neck. "We just have to hope Dad and Jazz won't say anything that might make me look bad."

"Dad and Jazz? Are the police going to be interviewing them too?"

"Yes. All four of us are supposed to come in this morning."

"But today's Monday, isn't it? Is Jazz really going to skip school?"

"The police are very insistent." Maddie smiled. "Besides, Jazz has offered to skip school several times to help look for you. Believe it or not, there are some things that are more important to her than academics."

"She really did?" asked Danny, touched.

"She really did. She was so worried about you." Maddie groaned. "And now I know why she kept asking me if I had seen Danny Phantom lately. God, it's so obvious now."

She pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes, her body shaking. Danny massaged the sore spot on his head where he hit the bed frame.

"It'll be okay," she said quietly, letting go of her nose. "We'll figure this out somehow. You and me."

Danny said nothing, didn't even nod. Maddie headed for his door but then stopped, her hand frozen on the door frame. She turned back to look at him.

"By the way, I'm going to start giving you antibiotics to take every day," she said. "Please try to keep them hidden from Dad and Jazz, but if they see them, just say they're vitamins."

Danny frowned. "Antibiotics for what?"

"Your missing spleen," said Maddie. She left his room without another word, shutting the door behind her.

Danny's gut twinged with the memory of her digging around inside of him, pulling out his intestines and winding them on a rack—

He shuddered and rubbed his wrists, looking around the room. It still felt so strange to not be shackled to a table anymore, to be free to get up and walk around, move wherever he wanted.

And yet, even with his freedom, all he wanted was to curl up under his covers and avoid the rest of the world.

But instead, he forced himself to get out of bed. Because he had to be Danny Fenton right now. Whatever that even meant anymore.