A/N: Welcome to chapter eight. My sincere apologies for having taken this long to get this out, I can only say that life has been absolutely insane since I last posted, and that if I'd rushed this chapter you would have gotten far lower quality writing.
On that note, chapter nine will be the last chapter of Phantom's Sketchbook. I am going to do my absolute best to get it out before the end of the month, but there are no guaranties. If it's not out by the end of September, it's likely that you won't see it until mid to late November. I'm doing my professional degree in teaching this year and it's an extremely busy program, with October being The Month From Hell (TM). Sorry for the inconvenience.
Anyway, while I really liked the ending to chapter seven because it made for a good ending, it wasn't quite as clear as I would have liked. So this chapter picks up a little before the ending of the last one.
It was exciting to write this chapter, and I hope you guys like it as much as I do. Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Logic
. . . Okay. It's Danny Fenton's sketchbook. I saw Danny Phantom drawing in it. That picture is the only one that could potentially be by Phantom, but stylistically you can't tell it from anything else. Why? How is that possible?
Unless of course, the teacher thought jokingly, Fenton is Phantom . . . Lancer's eyes snapped open. The thought had been tongue-in-cheek, but it caused a jolt of recognition to run through him. Could it be? Could something so ridiculously stupid and inconceivable be the truth?
But . . .
"But that's not possible!"
Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom.
The thought was a train wreck inside Mr. Lancer's head.
Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom.
It wasn't possible, it absolutely, one hundred percent, was not possible. Of course, three years ago ghosts weren't possible either.
Slow down, the teacher told himself firmly. Slow down and think it out logically.
Right, logic. Because logic works so well on ghosts. . .
"Okay," he muttered out loud in an attempt to derail his thoughts, "some kind of logic has to apply here. Even if it is weird logic. After all, the Fenton's study ghosts."
The Fenton's . . . I wonder if they know that their son is ghost . . . Getting ahead of yourself! You don't even know if he's a ghost yet.
Right.
A million different thoughts vied for his attention, Lancer did his best to stomp on them all until he had managed to retrieve a pad of paper and a pen.
Where do I even start?
Basics, start with the basics. It's comparison and contrast.
"Physical stuff first, it's the easiest."
Phantom was a ghost, while Danny was human, at least to all appearances . . . That was basic. Taking off the cap of the pen with his teeth, Lancer jotted that down.
Details.
Phantom had white hair and green eyes, Danny had black hair and blue eyes. Otherwise . . . Lancer closed his eyes for a moment, trying to picture the two next to each other. You know, I don't think I've ever seen them together. Not on topic, but that information was important enough to be written down as well.
Going back to physical stuff. There was a definite resemblance, outside of coloring. Phantom. . . Phantom glowed, and he was somewhat insubstantial, but then, he was a ghost. Other than that though, in terms of build and facial features, the resemblance was uncanny. I wonder why no one seems to have noticed that.
Lancer paused and stared at the note he'd made on the physical resemblance. So . . . there is some connection. Ghosts don't just randomly look like people, there is something there, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're the same person. Phantom could be a dead family member, or some kind of . . . I don't know, ecto-plasmic projection or something.
Or Danny could be possessed . . .
The last wasn't an option that Lancer was too keen on.
How likely is that? Phantom's been around for what? Three years? That would be a rather long period to posses someone. And Danny has acted normally the entire time . . . well, relatively normal.
Three years . . .
That time period meant something else.
What. . . wait. Isn't that exactly the amount of time that Danny's been having problems?
"There are officially too many coincidences now," the English major muttered to himself as he added 'Three Years!' to his list.
Maybe Phantom manifests himself through Danny?
A shudder ran through Lancer, Now there's a disturbing thought. It raised an interesting question however. If . . . if Phantom and Fenton were the same person, were they really the same person? Or was there two beings inhabiting the one body? Or was it some kind of weird multiple personality thing?
How in the world would the whole thing work anyway?
Would it mean that Danny is dead?
Uncomfortable with the direction his thoughts were taking, Lancer refocused on the task at hand. No point in asking unanswerable questions about an as yet theoretical situation.
"What else?"
Phantom is confident, almost to the point of being cocky. He's a fighter, he risks himself to save others on a daily basis. Danny is shy and clumsy, and won't stand up for himself even to prevent being hurt, he's certainly not a fighter.
But that wasn't really true, was it?
He'd fought that ghost at the mall, hadn't he? Done well at it too, showing agility and reflexes that logic said he shouldn't have. He'd saved a little girl and hadn't given up until he was knocked out of the fight just before . . . Just before Phantom showed up.
And Phantom had been moving oddly, like he had hurt his back, right about the place where Danny had hit the counter. Danny had recovered from that injury at an almost inhuman rate.
Phantom panicked too, right when Maddie and Jack started to look for Danny. Disappeared. And then Danny came out from behind the counter. . .
The pattern forming almost made Lancer groan at his own blind stupidity.
How often had Danny disappeared or ran off over the last three years, only to come back looking tired and bruised? And most of them immediately before or during a ghost attack.
Doesn't prove anything, not yet anyway. Keep on going.
Danny had two exceedingly close companions in Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley. Phantom . . . as far as Lancer knew, Phantom didn't have anyone.
But that wasn't quite true either, he'd seen Phantom with Sam and Tucker just a few days ago. Sam and Tucker, the two most important people in Danny's world (not including his family), had been there while Phantom was fighting Technus.
And they hadn't seemed concerned in the least little bit. Sam had even helped by giving Phantom the Fenton Thermos, almost calling Phantom by his first name in the process. The three of them had disappeared only moment later, which, now that Lancer thought about, might be more literal than he first assumed.
And Danny hadn't been there.
Then there was the sketchbook, filled with, amongst other things, pictures of ghosts. Detailed, accurate pictures with captions revealing the names and natures of the ghosts rendered.
The same sketchbook that he was sure belonged to Danny, but had definitely seen Phantom sketching in.
True, it was possible that Danny got his information on the ghosts from his parents, or from simply being a Fenton and having to deal with ghosts so much. But if that was the case, wouldn't that interest, that knowledge, have come out in other places, in other ways? This was Amity Park after all, it wasn't like anyone would laugh at him.
Instead it was like Danny was trying to hide it, only letting out his knowledge of the paranormal in his drawings. Which no one, save perhaps Sam and Tucker, ever saw.
And then there was the fact that the sketchbook held absolutely no pictures of either Danny or Phantom.
Uncertain, and more than a little freaked, Lancer put down his now very full note pad and began to pace.
If it's true, it would explain so much. It would explain Danny's problems, it would give Phantom an understandable motive for what he does, and it would explain why Phantom is so weird for a ghost. Because really, he wouldn't quite be a ghost, would he?
What would he - or they - be? Some kind of ghost-human hybrid?
Lancer almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that particular thought.
He sobered up almost instantly. If I'm right, do Jack and Maddie know?
Frowning, the teacher considered that question and came to an almost inevitable conclusion. No, not with the way they hunt Phantom. Sam and Tucker, however, almost certainly would.
What about Jazz?
That one was another interesting question. Jazz, who was currently away at college following her dreams, might or might not be aware of the situation.
Of course, there might not be a situation to speak of, I might be jumping to a rather large conclusion.
Somehow Lancer didn't think he was.
Meandering into the kitchen, Lancer mused over the whole thing. He was more or less convinced now.
It was a lot to take in.
Mr. Lancer's gaze fell on his kitchen table, and on it, the still uncorrected assignments. Danny's assignment, the one that had fallen out of the sketchbook, lay on top.
Picking up the creative writing assignment, almost frightened of what meaning it might hold now that he had an eye for the truth of it, Lancer began to re-read.
He went through the whole thing, once, twice, three times, before coming back to the part that kept nagging at him.
Few people knew the truth about him and the sword, they saw only the part of him that he allowed them to. But he was their protector, it was a role he'd taken upon himself even though it brought no accolades with it.
Lancer let out a long puff of breath, "Twelfth Night ."
The English teacher in him couldn't help but be pleased at Danny's use of the sword metaphor, but the implications were beyond imagining.
Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were the same person.
There was no proof, all Lancer had was coincidence and conjecture. But it was true none the less.
Mr. Lancer stared blankly at the nearest wall, wondering how it was possible that a sketchbook belonging to a seventeen year old boy had completely re-written his world view. Wondering how Danny - shy, clumsy Danny - had become the ghost-hero of Amity Park. Wondering what the implications of that were.
And most of all, wondering what in the world came next.
