Yeah, Echo is a little weird, but remember how he was made, and what Danny was thinking when he was made. My initial character concept for Echo was basically (Danny)+(Blames his parents for Accident)+(More Psychotic)-(inhibitions)=Echo. He's still got a lot of that.

Anyway.

I hope the cliffhanger didn't turn too many of you off.

*Puts on TV show narrator voice*

AND NOW THE CONCLUSION

(But not really. This isn't the last chapter, after all.)

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Chapter 34: Should Have Spoken

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"You... Want us to kill ourselves?"

"No, no. You can't become a ghost from suicide. It doesn't work that way. I'll take care of that part. Besides, you just dying wouldn't satisfy me at all. I want you to become ghosts. Prove that you love him more than you hate ghosts. Prove it. Or else."

"But-" said Ricky. "Your boss is in Danny! If you hurt him-"

"My 'boss?' You mean Phantom, I assume? That just gives me another motive. You can't get stuck overshadowing a corpse, after all. Now, choose."

Danny's vision snapped back into focus. He wanted to see this. He wanted to know. He wanted... He wanted... He saw the hesitation on their faces. No. Maybe he didn't want to know.

"Too far," he croaked.

Echo froze, not even breathing. Then he sighed, his cold breath tickling Danny's cheek and nose. "You think so, huh?" Then he turned a little, briefly nuzzling Danny's neck. Then he licked Danny, right along the jawline.

Danny jerked away, and glared at Echo, although Echo kept a hold on him. "The heck?"

"In my defense, I have no impulse control."

Slowly, and very reluctantly, Echo let go of Danny, took a few steps back, flickered, and reappeared several feet away. Danny, for his part, felt like he had just run a mile. The sudden loss of sensation was a shock.

Echo smiled at the class, eyes almost shut, then tilted his head slightly, and said, "Consider this a warning, okay? I've been pretty lenient so far. I want you all to get along." His eyes drifted to Dash, then Valerie. "All of you. Oh, and Danny? Your shoes are under the bed."

He vanished.

"Danny, sweetheart, are you okay?" This was Danny's mother. She seemed hesitant to approach. Danny vaguely remembered yelling at her last time she had tried to touch him.

"Dunno," said Danny. He blinked. "Just surprised, I guess." His eyes flicked between Maddie and Jack. The question was at the tip of his tongue: Would you have let me die? It didn't matter that Echo's threats were utterly empty, less than smoke, less than fog, nothing more than a play of mirrors. He had to ask. He couldn't. He looked away.

Sam walked up to Danny, patted him on the back, and gave Maddie and Jack a glare that could curdle milk. She was rapidly joined by Tucker and Jazz, and it was rather ridiculous, all of them trying to touch him. Heartwarming. Awkward. Ridiculous. A person could only take so much. (Danny wanted more.)

"Why did he keep bringing up the Red Huntress?" asked Danny, in a transparent attempt to turn attention away from him.

It worked, with all (almost all) heads swiveling to Valerie.

Danny, for his part, didn't listen to Valerie's stuttered attempt at an explanation (She was worse at this than he was. What was up with that?), and instead opted to sink to the floor.

"So," he said quietly, "you guys didn't seem to be as surprised about Echo as I would have thought."

"Yeah," said Tucker. "He kind of showed up last night while you were asleep."

"Really? That explains that dream." He rubbed his shoulder. "Did he get stabbed?"

"Yes," said Jazz. "Mom stabbed him."

"Why?"

"Your guess is as good as ours," said Sam.

"Yes! Fine!" shouted Valerie, suddenly. "I had a truce with him! So what? He was possessing Danny!"

"What do you mean, 'so what?' You can't just break a promise like that! Besides, it sounds like Danny was okay with it. Right, Danny?"

"Huh?" said Danny, as everyone turned back towards him. "Oh. Yes. It wasn't like it was his fault, anyway." He was a bit surprised that Mia was the one leading the charge. He had expected Paulina to take a running leap off of the deep end, she was so obsessed with Phantom that it was almost ghostly, but apparently the 'more timid' personalities of the class had preempted her.

In Danny's opinion, this was great.

"He's still possessing Danny! You don't know what Phantom's making him say."

"No one is making me say anything," said Danny, irritated by this being brought up once again. "And before you start, Echo wasn't going to hurt me."

"Danny," said Maddie gently. "Surely you can see-"

"His goal was to get a rise out of you. He's not allowed to hurt anyone here either."

"What about me then?" whined Dash.

Danny glared at him. "You opened the door for that by trying to hit Ricky."

"Danny, he hurt you."

"Did he?"

Maddie frowned. "I might not always be the most attentive person in the world," she said, "but I can tell when there's something wrong with you."

"Can you?" asked Danny, ice creeping into his tone. "Really? I would never have noticed." He put his hand over his chest defensively.

"You didn't fight him, Danny," pressed Maddie. "Your eyes went blank. You went limp. I know that you wouldn't do that normally if someone suddenly grabbed you."

"I know," said Danny, shortly. "I have a slowly starving ghost trapped in my body. If you think that isn't going to come with side effects you're in denial."

"You knew-?"

"No. I didn't know. It isn't like I've had to deal with this exact situation before. I'm just not surprised." Danny rubbed an eye. "Look, if nothing else," please, nothing else, "Echo's right about one thing: He's been pretty lenient with us. There are a lot of ghosts that probably would have killed us for what we've done. For just being here." He shivered.

"That's exactly what we've been trying to tell you, Danny. Ghosts are-"

"Stop it," snapped Danny. "Unless the door out opens up right on top of our portal, and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that, or Phantom would have mentioned it, then you're going to have to interact with ghosts without insulting them with every other sentence, and without attacking them unless they have a hostage. You, too, Valerie. You might as well get used to it." Danny got back to his feet. "I'm going to go... do what I was doing." He gestured vaguely to one side. Something to do with food? Getting food for traveling. Right. "You guys can keep on pestering Valerie, or whatever."

That got things back on track, this time with Hannah haranguing Valerie about Area 51 and whether or not ghosts were actually aliens. Danny wondered if Hannah just made things up to mess with people, or if she was serious. Not that it mattered in this case. The truth, that Valerie had been given her suit by a half ghost to harass another half ghost, and when that first suit had been destroyed she had gotten another one from a full ghost, was way weirder than anything Hannah could come up with.

Hannah's tirade about the government (somehow) segued neatly into the nerds' inquiries about the suit's technology, which, in turn, finally captured Jack and Maddie's interest enough for Danny and his friends to slip away, unnoticed, to a quiet space.

Or so they thought.

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Maddie watched Danny, Jazz, and their friends retreat to the balcony.

She knew that something was very wrong with her son. She knew that he had been hurt, somehow, between being at school and now. She didn't understand why he wouldn't talk to her.

No. That wasn't right. She did know. She hadn't been a good mother. She'd been too caught up in her work to notice even the most basic things about her children. To caught up to notice when Phantom had come into their lives. Jack was guilty of the same, but, well, Jack couldn't help it. Maddie was supposed to be the perceptive one. The sensitive one.

That's why she had been trying to give Danny his space. Her children clearly didn't trust her anymore, but she had hoped that, by showing them how much she cared, how vigorously she would defend them from any threat, she could regain their trust. But that seemed to have backfired.

She was a terrible mother.

Why did that ghost... She paused mentally. Should she make an effort to meet Danny... or Phantom... halfway? It... He had called himself Echo. Why did Echo have to ask that question? Of course anyone would be hesitant to agree to die... and become something they hated.

Oh, god, she really was horrible. She should have agreed immediately, what was she thinking? That... Echo was right about her.

Now, here she was, still avoiding her children. Listening to this nonsense.

(It was very interesting, though.)

She looked up at her husband, who was animatedly interrogating a flustered Valerie. He wasn't very good at picking up social cues, or being focused, but she could see a hollowness in his movements, an emptiness in his eyes, which flicked frequently towards the four insular teens who gathered by the balcony.

Maddie steeled herself. Clearly, her 'give them space' method wasn't working. She had to say something, do something, before she lost them entirely.

She extracted herself from the group around Valerie (and, really, it sounded like Valerie needed some parental help herself, but it wasn't like Maddie was in a position to give it), and walked slowly over to where her children were standing.

"... suicidal, Jazz."

"So why did..." she lowered her voice, "... strangle..."

"... didn't actually... He just resents Mom and Dad. I know... problems... that isn't... them."

"If you... so." Maddie missed the next few words. "... better as a ghost?"

Danny sighed. "... sounds like. It goes both ways being... better human and being human... Like I said, I have a lot of problems, but... I like myself okay."

"Alright... just worried... you."

Maddie realized belatedly that eavesdropping on her children was not the way to regain their trust. All the same, it was good to know that Jazz didn't completely trust Echo either.

Maddie took a deep breath, intending to use her next words to get the children's attention, but Danny flinched and turned to face her, eyes wide.

"Mom?" he asked, no longer whispering. His voice was uneven, uncertain. "Are you... Is something wrong?"

"Danny I-" she didn't know what to say. "I'm so sorry. I'm so... You're right."

Danny blinked, surprise evident on his face. "Uh. Cool. About?"

"About what we're going to have to do to get home. I've been... naive about our situation... and... Oh, Danny. I'm so sorry. I should have answered faster and I-"

"Mom, Mom, it's fine, he was being unreasonable and it just- He went way too far." He was wringing his hands now.

"But it's our fault he even exists to do this. It's our fault we're even here... Oh, Danny."

"It's- I..." Danny trailed off, hands still drawn defensively inward.

"And, Danny, Jazz, I- Did I- did we-?"

"Did we ever hurt you, Danny?"

Maddie hadn't even noticed Jack come up behind her. His voice was deep and sorrowful. Except for Paulina, Tiffanie, Dash, Dale, and Star (who was defending her erstwhile best friend from the others), everyone had turned away from Valerie. Family drama was, apparently, more entertaining.

"I- You- I-" Danny bit his lower lip, hard, dislodging the tentative scab that had formed over the split that Dash had given him. "You didn't mean to," he said finally. He was crying (so was Maddie). "I know you didn't mean to."

"Oh, my baby. Oh, Danny I'm so, so sorry. You must think that we- That I'm a terrible person. That I'm a terrible mother. You must hate us."

"No!" said Danny, reaching out towards them. He was crying even harder now. "I don't hate you. I don't hate you. I love you. Please-"

He was clinging to her now. Jazz came up behind him, more hesitant. Jack embraced all three of them.

"We'll change, sweetheart," said Maddie. "We'll change, I promise."

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So the parental problem isn't quite solved yet, but it's getting better.

Constructive criticism would be appreciated. I haven't written this kind of family situation before, and I hope it didn't fall flat.

Thank you for bearing with me and my weirdness.