Taking Over Me

Summary: With Sam gone, Danny has enough to deal with. At the same time he runs into the first ghost he can't beat, and that's Danny Phantom.

Rating: PG-13 for mature themes and language.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, Butch Hartman does. I do not own Taking Over Me, Evanescence does.

Chapter Twelve

I'll give up everything just to find you.

Danny drew back as if burned. At the moment he wasn't sure what scared him more, the idea that he was sitting in a room with a man that was claiming to have tried to kill his mom or that the monster had told him to kill Sam. His eyes burned as if he was about to cry but he had no idea why. He opened his mouth only to close it again. Betrayel washed over him in a hot wave. "You promised," he choked out. The other just arched an eyebrow. "You promised I wouldn't have to hurt her."

The older man smirked. "No, I told you that wouldn't be the favor. And it's not, it's my recommendation on how to fix this." Vlad gestured carelessly with his right arm. "Life's about technicallities, Daniel. You have to learn that to survive. Especially if your like me."

"I'm not like you!" Danny practically spat at the other man. "I'll never be like you."

Vlad smirked and Danny wished like anything that he could wipe it off his perfect face. "Whether you know it or not, you already are. You're doomed to this Danny. Killing your mother was the only way I could survive and I know that it'll be the same for you and that little Goth."

"You didn't kill my mom. You're a liar."

"Ah but I broke her. Took your father years to get her to smile after what I put her through." The older man gave a twisted smile, the kind that will haunt someone for the rest of her life. Danny fought to suppress the shudder that it brought on. "She betrayed you. The same way Maddie did me."

"Sam has never betrayed me. And she never will."

Vlad kept his voice smooth. "But you feel betrayed all the same." Danny opened his mouth but his complaint was waved away. "She left you and it doesn't bother her at all."

Danny blinked. "Of course, it bothers her. She's my best friend."

"Exactly! She's your best friend; not you're her best friend."

"It's the same thing," he retorted. But they both knew Vlad had made his point and he had walked straight into the older man's trap.

The older man arched an eyebrow. "You expect me to think that you actually think she still needs you?" He shook his head slowly. "You're wrong, Danny. About everything. She doesn't need you and as much as you try to deny it you are exactly like me." Danny shook his head mutely, not trusting his voice enough to respond.

The older man snatched up the book lying on the table. "Maddie and Jack had a fall out sophomore year. He was an idiot and went to another girl's dorm room 'to study', to dense to figure out what she was offering. Maddie confronted him and he feigned innocence." He turned and walked over to the shelf to return the journal he had been reading. "They had quite a fight and Jack lost it and smacked her. She left our dorm in tears. It broke her. The only reason she had come to this college was to be with Jack and now he wouldn't even look at her. I approached Jack about it and he lashed out at me."

Danny's gaze dropped from the old main to the boiling beaker again. The older man's face reflected how hard it had been for the three of them to go through it. He tried to imagine his parents and Vlad being best friends. For some reason the image just wouldn't come. "Maddie sort of retreated into herself. She stopped eating and Jack either didn't notice or really didn't care. She ended up fainting one day walking home from class and a girl from her floor found her," Vlad said, his voice sounding distant as if he'd forgotten he was talking to Danny and was just remembering for himself.

"She got put in a recovery home on the edge of town. I took the bus out and saw her after my three o'clock class every Tuesday and Thursday and as often as I could get away on the weekend. Jack never went and saw her." Danny glanced up to see the older man lock eyes with him. The intense look he shot the raven-haired boy made him look down. "That's probably why she got worse. Nobody could make her eat and her parents didn't want her on a feeding tube unless it was a matter of life and death. She got to the point where she didn't have enough energy to open her eyes some days."

"She went on a feeding tube Christmas break of that year. I didn't go home because I couldn't bear to be an hour away if something happened. Jack took the first bus home after his last midterm. I just sat there for hours talking to her, even though she couldn't respond." The billionaire shook his head, tied back hair hitting his shoulders. "I don't know if it was something I said, or if she suddenly just realized she was dying but for some reason she just started fighting it. It was a long year and a half of fighting with her to eat. Some days she just looked so sickly that I never would believe that she'd survive."

He suddenly seemed to realize Danny was there, his eyes snapping to the younger boy. "One night, Jack and I got in a fight one night in the lab after Maddie left to go to a study group for British Literature. I just remember bits and pieces of what was said but it woke Jack up to what he'd almost lost. And he decided that he needed to be the one that she needed. Even though the time she needed him, he turned tail and ran. The lab accident that ruined my life happened about a month later. Maddie and Jack didn't come visit me in the hospital. I was there every second I could be for her and then she just abandoned me. I lay there and just obsessed over it till I hated her. When I was finally was released, all I wanted to see was her dead. I'd given every moment of a year and a half to her and she only visited me twice. And always hanging on Jack's arm, smiling and bright-eyed."

Danny couldn't believe his parents did that but despite his disbelief drifted up in fourth grade when his parents had stood him and Jazz up at student art night at their elementary school and their principal finally had to call and ask dad to come pick him up. How his parents had missed Jazz's eleventh birthday cause they were asked to be key-note speakers at a Paranormal Science Convention. They weren't bad people, but he had to admit that they had always had odd priorities and a sort of not-completely-there persona.

"I waited till the perfect opportunity to kill her and finally it showed up. We were supposed to meet for a lab on the sixth floor of the science building for a lab. I peered through the door and saw just Maddie standing over at the open window. I saw my shot and I went to take it. Just as I got close enough she started whistling this song her and I used to sing with the radio freshman year. Jack always hated that song, didn't see why we liked it. And I couldn't do it. I decided I couldn't kill her. But yet I couldn't get rid of the idea once I had it. It sort of possessed me until one night I lost control of my powers completely. I showed up in Maddie's room one night as Plasmius and beat her till she'd lost so much blood I didn't think there was anyway she could survive. Jack called soon after I left and when she didn't answer, he came to check on her. He got her too the hospital and they managed to save her."

Danny finally Vlad seemed to stop. He looked straight at Danny. "But I don't get how trying to kill Sam will change anything. I mean isn't the point that you couldn't kill her."

The older man shook his head. "The point is I resented her. My ghost side latched onto that emotion and fueled it despite everything until I didn't have any control over it anymore. And you resent Sam. I can see it in your eyes. She left you."

He stared down at his knees of the old, worn pair of jeans he had on. "She couldn't help it," he responded, but his voice lacked all conviction.

The older man stared at him. "That's why I told you to kill her. All I know is I fought it when I had the urge and it almost cost Maddie her life. If you try it now, you can still have a little control."

Danny glanced down at his shoes still not entirely sure he could trust Vlad. "What if that makes it worse?" He glanced up through dark bangs and scrutinized the defeated looking man sitting before him. "Why are you even helping me."

The older man looked at him his eyes losing focus. "My whole life I've had to live with the guilt of knowing I could easily have killed her. I can't live the rest of my life knowing I'm giving her son the same burden."

Hey. We have plot now. I'm hoping everyone followed that. And if you think its OOC give me a little while. It will all work out in the end. Thanks to my wonderful six reviewers: CoLdPLaYeR813, RainbowSerenity, RavenForever, Aeris9919, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and Silverflare07. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY KEWL!