He was only gone for a few weeks but that was just too long for the people who truly appreciated him. But there was one who could truly claim to miss him the most, his mother. Maddie felt a hole in her heart that only Danny could fill. But he couldn't come back and maybe things were better that way. He was the most hated thing in Amity, the saddest thing was no one ever wanted him to show his face in their town, human or ghost. That hurt Maddie the most, she couldn't understand why people had to ban him from his home. But wherever he was no matter what he was doing, it had to be safer than trying to stay here.
Maddie sat down on the couch, exhausted from a long day of hunting and catching ghosts. She'd never realized how much Danny had actually done. The thought of a teenager doing all that work and more amazed her, and he caught more ghosts than she did in one day all in one night. How did he ever balance school, a social life, and ghost hunting with a secret identity? She wasn't sure how Danny did anything anymore, in fact she wondered what else he could've been hiding. But once Maddie got into thinking about him it opened up a wound. She worried like any mother would on where her son was, and what he was doing. Was he even alive, or did word of his secret identity slip onto the streets outside of Amity.
Maddie immediately fought back tears, she refused to cry. He was almost an adult and was stronger than she imagined, and she knew he could take care of himself. Even if she desperately wanted to be there when he fell, she knew better than to search for him.
"Hey Maddie. How are you doing sweetie?" Jack asked. He knew how hurt she was by Danny's departure. He had been devastated as well but he could never show it. Jack joined her on the couch sitting beside her tiredly. 'How on Earth did he do it?' He thought.
"I'm ok dear. But boy am I tired. Was Danny really doing all of the work for us?"
"I don't know, but it seems to be that way." Jack answered trying to keep the thought of his missing unwanted son away.
" I really miss him Jack." Said Maddie with tears brimming in her eyes. " I try not to think about him, but I do everyday. It's not fair! He wasn't a monster Jack, he wasn't." She cried.
" I know, I know." Jack agreed while trying to comfort her.
Jazz drove home in silence. She really missed having her little brother in the car. Soon her senior year would be over, and she'd planned to locate him in secret over the summer. She didn't care, she knew he said not to make contact with him, but this town was falling apart without him, and their family was breaking too.
"You can't just take the supporting beam down and expect the house to stay up." Jazz told herself. She often talked to no one, just to get her thoughts out so she didn't repress them into something worse. It was a strategy that worked for her. "I don't know what's going to happen to this town. It's going to fall all because we let them take out the one thing that was holding this whole town up. Why didn't they understand? There isn't much to it, Danny was a hero, how is that so hard to process?"
Jazz was so frustrated, the whole town said upon his return he would be destroyed, no questions. But she didn't understand that, he was harmless Danny Fenton before they knew he was also Danny Phantom, and he never did anything wrong. At least not on purpose, he never asked to be their savoir it was bestowed upon him, by accident too, not like he agreed to be the ghost boy.
" I'll find you Danny I know I will. I just hope nothing happens to you till I do, or to us." She whispered as she pulled her car up to the driveway. She looked to the house and felt the sick nausea that returned to her every time she thought about who used to live here and how much she loved that individual.