Hello there. Coming up these next couple of weeks I'm probably going to do shorter updates, just for the sake of my sanity and getting a bit of a buffer. I feel like it would be worse to go on hiatus, because I've read a lot of fics where the authors say that they're just taking a little break and then they disappear forever.

MsFrizzle: Hello and thanks for your reviews. The main problem isn't how long they've had to go, or how far they've gone, but rather where they've gone. That will be explained more in the next several chapters. For the other thing, Danny not having much say over what happens to his parents is one of the things that I'm playing up for conflict, but it is my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) that children in allegedly abusive situations in our own world don't have a lot of say over what happens to their alleged abusers. Then, the ghosts involved believe, correctly, that Danny wouldn't be able to be rational about punishing Jack and Maddie because of his obsession with making sure that his people are safe.

Mara jade chase: Hello fellow teacher! I'm glad you like this! I am trying to keep everything reasonably consistent and coherent.

Thank you all for reviewing!

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Chapter 101: In the Eye of Time

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It took time for Azalea and Wolfsbane to arrange for Jack and Maddie to take their 'field trip,' as Azalea called it. In the meantime, they read letters. Lots of letters. Dozens and dozens.

Alliances were the topic of conversation in most of them. Vlad's letter (Which they still hadn't responded to). What could be given, traded, taken. Proposals of combined force and arguments that could be made. Wolfsbane recommended some of them, argued against others, and stayed neutral with several.

Azalea had made almost the exact opposite arguments. She and Wolfsbane said that it was practice, her being the devils advocate, as well as being a good thought experiment.

Some of the letters were terrible, frightening. The options they espoused were troubling. They spoke of all the fates that could befall them. Or Danny. Many of them, including Vlad's, wanted them to sign over Danny in exchange for helping Maddie and Jack get a lighter sentence. That was, in a word, disgusting.

Others desired Jack and Maddie's service. They wanted something from Jack and Maddie, or they wanted them, themselves.

Maddie didn't know what to think, honestly. Wolfsbane and Azalea were trying to explain the legalese to them, the reason that such and such a punishment was worse than another, why some things wouldn't even be considered, but it all seemed incredibly arbitrary.

But there were no letters on the table today. They were all stacked neatly in their boxes. Jack and Maddie were going out today. They were just waiting for their chaperons. Apparently, two was too few a number for Libra when those two were Jack and Maddie's lawyers.

The door opened, and a young woman walked in, smiling. Her eyes were glowing white except for black lines delineating her irises. She had four arms, three of them holding briefcases. Her hair was black, and pinned tied back with glowing, star-shaped hairpins. She wore a neat suit and skirt, and a pin shaped like a pair of scales on her lapel. Her skin was as white as marble, her teeth sharp and even.

"Hello," she said, not quite looking directly at Jack and Maddie. She held out her free hand to the two of them, even as she pushed the door closed with her opposite elbow. "My name Astraea. I was the first sponsor of your case." She paused. "I'm sorry, are you from a culture that doesn't do handshakes?" she asked, lowering her hand.

"Apparently," said Azalea. "How are you, Astraea?"

"Well, thank you. How are the bees?"

"They're great."

"Still pursuing madness?"

"I think I'm catching up, yeah."

Astraea smiled, then turned to face more in Wolfsbane's direction. "And how are you, Wolfsbane?"

"Quite well," said Wolfsbane. "Do you know when Lord Clockwork will be arriving?"

'Lord' Clockwork, Danny's 'guardian' was going to be the fourth chaperon. It would be Maddie's first time meeting the man... The ghost. She hadn't made her mind up about whether or not she wanted to hate him. On one hand, she was furious that any ghost had so much influence over her son. On the other, it sounded like he really had helped Danny, protected him from those 'Observant' people.

"He will be on time, as always," said Astraea. "It's still early." She paused, smiling gently. "Court just let out for the day. Mother wants to give the halls a chance to clear out. Do you two know what you will be seeing today?"

"Some art," said Jack, shrugging.

"Well, that, too," said Astraea. "I'm afraid I don't have any first hand experience, but I'm told that it is quite stunning. But, it should help you to understand our culture a bit more, and we can explain once you have questions."

"Right," said Maddie. Suspicion echoed in the back of her mind. She had become... more relaxed around ghosts, but that didn't mean that she trusted them on any level.

"I don't suppose that you have any questions now?" asked Astraea, tilting her head.

Oh, Maddie had questions. She had so, so many questions. Questions that she had asked, questions she had received no satisfactory answers for.

"Not science ones," clarified Azalea. "We aren't scientists. She means cultural questions."

"Quite," said Wolfsbane, making a face.

Maddie made a face right back. Azalea had been singularly unhelpful on that front. Wolfsbane had been better, but he hadn't been there nearly as often, and had always steered the conversation back to legal matters.

"Yes," said Astraea. "I have spent my years studying constructed laws, not natural ones."

The thing was that Maddie couldn't see that there was anything that could be called 'ghost culture.' Nothing unified, in any case. It was all chaos. Islands of coherence, but nothing else, like the Ghost Zone itself. More to the point, it was all stolen from human cultures.

Here, with Libra, it was all Greek themed. But, in the hospital, everything had been Egyptian. The Zone's Core had been keen on Sumerian mythology. Danny's lair had been... different. But Danny was human, too. Danny was still alive, still vital, still creative. Danny had always been creative.

The only things that she understood to have any consistency across all those little islands of 'culture' were the three taboos, and she already understood those. Well, she understood them as well as anyone could. Even Danny had admitted that he didn't fully understand them, back when he first explained them. It was only to be expected. If ghosts were capable of creating a coherent, consistent, comprehensive, set of laws, they wouldn't be such a problem.

The ghosts also seemed to think that she and Jack didn't fully understand the gravity of their crimes, the depths of their sins.

They were wrong. Maddie knew. She had caused Danny's death. She had as good as killed him. It had taken her some time to fully realize that, but here, in this small room, it had fully sunk in. Really, she would be willing to take any punishment, except... She thought back to Danny's letter. He wanted them to survive this.

What she didn't understand was why this had become 'political.' Azalea and Wolfsbane had freely said that there were other murder trials, and that they weren't infrequent. She had thought that, perhaps, it was related to the GIW's attack on the Core, but that didn't seem to be the case. The surviving GIW agents were being held for a separate trial regarding that, but this, about a crime the victim hadn't wanted reported, was the big trial.

That was what she wanted an explanation of, and what Azalea and Wolfsbane both seemed at a loss for.

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"Time out," said Clockwork quietly. He closed his eyes, feeling along the fabric of time. Whatever had happened in that stretch between Elysium and the Digressed Tower had made the blur over his sight stretch and expand. It was giving him a headache, a distraction rivaled only by the itch in his scar.

Despite what he had said to Danielle a few days ago, Clockwork normally would have left to deal with, or at least directly look at, such a block. The time line was his first responsibility, and the obscured region had been far too close to where Daniel was. Now, Daniel was in it, and it was very nearly driving him mad with worry.

But even so, Clockwork was still bound to the Observants and their orders. He had been disallowed from looking into it, disallowed from acting on it, disallowed from speaking of it, except with other ghosts who could manipulate time. He couldn't defy that. The only loophole had stemmed from the Observants' ignorance of Daniel and Danielle's potential, and Clockwork dearly hoped that his use of that loophole would not put Danielle in undue danger.

Clockwork despised this feeling of powerlessness, of uncertainty, but knew that this was what most other beings experienced constantly. Clockwork's abilities were an incredible privilege.

He wanted his children to be safe.

Behind the door he was staring at were two people who wanted the same thing.

Briefly, Clockwork considered changing his appearance to something more impressive. He did want to impress the Fentons, in more ways than one. It wouldn't be wrong to say that he wanted to frighten them, just a little bit. He was a ghost, and Daniel was his. They had hurt him. More than once. It was not wrong to want them to be afraid.

However, that would likely be unproductive, and Daniel would not thank him for it. Besides, too large a change between what he looked like when he was with Daniel and what he looked like when he was with the elder two Fentons would be remarked upon. It was best to just go in as he was. He would be unsettling enough for humans.

"Time in," he said.

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The fight between Ellie and the spectral doctor turned vicious fast. Neither wanted to use anything that could be called 'area of effect,' or that could easily miss, so they moved into a close range melee. At least, that's how Ellie was interpreting events.

The 'doctor' kept screaming about test subjects. Ellie screamed right back, only partially aware of what she was saying. Something about failing his ethics tests in college. That wasn't a bad one. She should save that for if she ever fought a deranged scientist again.

Considering that she was in Missing Theory, that was likely.

The ghost fought with syringes, three in each hand. He got in a couple early, grazing shots on Ellie's. Each needle scratch went numb seconds latter. Actually getting an injection would be bad.

Ellie needed a weapon of her own.

Ellie wasn't as good at ice as Danny was, but she was better at pure ectoplasm constructs, courtesy of training with her 'dad,' so smacking the scientist aroung with a giant green flyswatter was simplicity itself. The implied disrespect also made the ghost furious. Furious was dangerous, but, as Vlad had drilled into her, furious meant distracted. Distracted meant vulnerable.

Ellie whistled.

The ghost, laser-focused on Ellie, never even saw Cujo.

The huge canine ghost clamped his teeth around the scientist's midsection, shook him back and forth, and flung him away at high speed.

"Good boy, Cujo!" said Ellie, patting him on the head as he shrunk back down to puppy size. "I knew you could do it." Cujo wagged his tail briefly, but then whined, and darted down to the surface of the island.

Ellie, as much as she wanted to go to Danny right away, paused, surveying the scene below her. There was Danny, half-held by his balding teacher, at the center. Several other students lay unconscious surrounding them. Others still were up, moving shakily around the island, looking for cover, or simply sitting, staring. It didn't look like any of them had been up for very long.

The air tasted burnt with fear and confusion, and Ellie could hear Danny's core weeping. It made her bones hurt on the inside.

It looked like she had her work cut out for her.