It was a beautiful day. A cloudless sky shined a crystal blue, a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of an apple tree overhead, and Maddie Fenton was lying on a blanket with her hair free from her jumpsuit's restricting hood.
Tilting her head, a content smile settled on her face as she stared at her husband asleep beside her, his head resting on their oversized picnic basket.
Looking off to the other side, she watched her two children playing together beneath the trees. It appeared to be some form of tag, in which Jasmine desperately kept reaching out for Danny who was always just out of reach.
"No fair, Danny! That's cheating!"
Jasmine yelled, jumping and swiping at the air as Danny hovered over her, a mischievous grin on his face as he shrugged his shoulders, teasing green eyes watching his sister.
"Hey, you just have to try harder!"
"Mom!"
Smiling, Maddie leaned up on an elbow, giving her son a knowing look.
"Danny, you know your sister can't fly."
"That seems like a 'her' problem not a 'me' problem."
The boy laughed, zipping straight through a tree as Jazz groaned. Lying back down, Maddie watched as Danny poked his head through another tree behind Jazz, blowing a puff of air on her neck that made her jump and scream.
"Not funny, Danny!"
"It's funny to me."
He chuckled, landing firmly on the ground again as two rings of light traveled over the boy, changing white hair to black and green eyes to blue. Running over to his parents, the boy flopped down on the grass beside his mother, grinning at her as he propped his head up on his arms.
"Jazz is just jealous cause I have cool powers."
"As if," Jasmine rolled her eyes, sitting at the base of the tree and folding her arms. "I don't need powers to be smarter than you."
"Jealous."
He sung out as Maddie nudged him.
"Stop bickering you two, it's too nice out for that."
"Except for that storm rolling in."
Danny pointed towards the sky, the cerulean hue shifting into a deep, dark grey as thunder rumbled in the distance.
"What a shame, we only just got here." Maddie sighed, sitting up as Danny rose next to her. "Let me wake your father and we'll go home, better not to be caught in the storm."
She said, reaching over and shaking Jack's arm as Danny began walking away from them and out into an open field as rain started sprinkling down.
"Danny? Danny, where are you going?" Maddie called, her hand falling from her husband's arm as her son continued walking away as if he were in a trance. "Jazz, wake your father." Maddie mumbled distractedly, pushing herself up as she trailed after her son. "Danny?"
"This is your fault, Mom."
He said, stopping abruptly and turning to look at her. Gasping, Maddie stared at her son as the rain grew heavier, a downpour soaking through her clothes as green eyes radiated through the growing darkness.
"Danny? What are you doing, let's go home."
"What home?" He demanded, his hands balling into fists at his sides. "The one where you dissect ghosts in our basement? The one where you'll strap me down and rip me apart? That's not a home, that's a torture chamber."
"What?" She whispered hoarsely, shaking her head as she stepped closer and reached a hand out to him. "Danny, we would never do that to you, never!"
"No? But you'd do it to him."
A flash of lightning struck, momentarily blinding the woman as she flinched away. Blinking the light from her eyes, her son stood in front of her wearing a torn jumpsuit as rain pelted against snow white hair.
"Danny-"
"Here I am, Mom. Take me down to your lab, cut me open and run your tests."
"Danny, no!"
Backing away, Maddie felt tears burning her eyes.
"But this is what you've always wanted, to rip me apart molecule by molecule, right?" Another flash of lightening had Danny stepping closer again; blood rolling down his arms as a large crimson stain began stretching across his chest. "Aren't you happy, Mom?"
He asked, blood dripping past his lips and down his chin as a hand reached out for her, his fingernails gone with bloody stumps in their place.
"I'm giving you everything you wanted. Every answer about ghosts, every specimen you need. And all it cost you was your son. Aren't you happy?"
He screamed, reaching out for her as tears cascaded down her face, her eyes closing tightly as Danny's hands grabbed ahold of her arms.
"Maddie!" Jolting awake to her husband's hushed cry, Maddie stared up at Jack who loomed over her in concern. "You were crying."
Was all he said, sliding away as she sat up slowly, her cheeks wet from fresh tears as she quickly brushed them away. Running a hand through her hair as her heart raced, her eyes looked across their cage to find her daughter curled up in the corner with her head propped against her arm as she slept.
"She fell asleep about an hour ago, couldn't hold her eyes open any longer." Jack said softly, his arm wrapping around the woman's waist as he pulled her closer to him, her head leaning back against his chest. "Are you alright?"
"What are we going to do, Jack?"
She whispered, tilting her head to look up at him, her cheek brushing against the scruff that had covered his face from his inability to shave.
"What can we do, Mad's? These cages, they're impenetrable and we have no way to fight back."
"That's not what I mean." She shook her head, her fingers grabbing ahold of his hand and intertwining them together as she held on tightly. "What are we going to do about Danny?"
There's a beat of silence as Jack ran his thumb across her hand, a heavy breath puffing out his chest before he spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"How do we fix what we've done?" Closing her eyes, Maddie could still see her son standing in front of her, blood pooling beneath him as cold, hateful eyes called out her atrocities. "How do we ever make him feel safe again?"
"We'll talk to him, we'll explain our side. We didn't know who he was; we couldn't know this would turn out this way."
"Those are just excuses," She murmured, pulling her hand away and hugging her arms around herself. "We should have seen the similarities. They both sounded the same, they even looked the same. Every time we'd ask him about school and he would go quiet, or when he would sleep through his alarms, why didn't we notice things were different?"
Clenching her fists, Maddie could feel the tears threatening to fall again, exhaustion and worry eating away at her as she stared at the bars across from them, the night sky above a mocking reminder that on any normal occasion their son would be flying through the clouds, running from his parents.
"We were too wrapped up in ourselves," Jack finally replied, shifting where he sat to pull her into his lap, arms wrapping around her as his head sunk against her shoulder. "We let our work become our priority instead of our kids. Jazz is always so put together, always handling her own problems, and Danny kept to himself. I guess we let that become our normal routine, and we forgot to check in, to make sure that they were doing alright on their own."
"Why didn't he tell us?" Maddie asked weakly, her head leaning against Jack's as her hand reached up to brush her fingers against his cheek. "Why didn't we make him feel secure enough to be able to trust us?"
"I don't know," Jack mumbled, hugging her tighter. "We can sit here and blame ourselves, we can blame Danny, we can blame the Manson's or school. But I don't think there's any one thing that led to this."
"Are you saying that to make me feel better?"
"Danny has always been closed off, kept to himself. We failed in giving him the ability to come and freely talk to us about this, but if we had, would it have changed anything?"
His question only drew a dozen more to the woman's mind, her eyes moving to her own hands, her fingers curling in as she ran through his statement.
"Maybe not," Maddie murmured, extending her fingers out again. "But I still hate that we've made him feel this way."
"Things will be better when we see him again. We just need to sit down and talk. And I'd for one like to know what happened, how it happened."
"I just want to hold him, to know he's safe. Did you see him on the screen? Jack, he looked terrible."
"He was probably up most of the night. But those kids made it to the Op Center, they'll be safe there."
"Do you think they're going after those gems like that Freak wants?"
Turning around, Maddie stared up at Jack who wore a grim expression.
"Now that I know who he is, and what he can do? I have no doubt he's doing exactly that."
"We've failed as parents."
She groaned, dropping her head into her hands as Jack pulled away.
"What else could we have done, Mad's? Every parent makes mistakes. How could we have known Danny was the ghost boy unless he'd told us? Regardless of who he is, I'm proud of him." Peeking up, Jack wore a small smile as he stared out through the bars, his back shifting against them. "He has saved countless people; he's fought ghosts we've only hoped of fighting."
"He's a child, Jack."
"Maybe, but he's our child, and we raised him well. Can you imagine if that Baxter kid had ghost powers? Amity Park would be in ruins. But our Danny? He saves people, he puts his powers to use in good ways. Maybe he's lied, and maybe as a teenager he shouldn't deal with any of this. But you can't look over the fact that our boy is a hero."
Inhaling a deep breath, Maddie let it out slowly and found herself nodding.
"Maybe we did something right after all."
"Do you remember the Fenton Finder? How we finally stuffed it away because it kept locking onto ghosts that weren't there?"
"It kept locking onto Danny."
Maddie stated, her eyes widening as Jack chuckled quietly.
"We were so sure that thing was busted, but really it had Danny pegged all along."
"And the Booo-Merang! It attacked Danny at the table that day, I was so upset with it for hurting him!"
She was laughing now too, a weak one, but it brought a smile to her face as Jack started grinning.
"How many times have our gadgets acted up, or the house, and we chalked it up to different bugs or wiring issues?"
"Oh, we were so blind."
She laughed harder now, shaking her head as Jack snorted.
"The Fenton Ghost Fisher," His laughter wheezed out as Maddie clamped a hand over her mouth to refrain from being any louder. "How many of our inventions do you think he has?"
"Oh, who knows? I'm sure he's what happened to the thermos."
Maddie guessed.
"The Ecto Skeleton."
"My lipstick blaster."
"My Fenton Phones."
Jack frowned, a pout settling on his face as Maddie smiled.
"You know, I knew he took those."
"What? I loved those!"
"They were easily replaced, Jack."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
He demanded as Maddie patted his arm.
"Haven't you seen Sam wear them occasionally? I thought he took them to give as a gift to her, you know, like boys do." She explained, squeezing her husband's arm as her smile faltered. "Though I suppose it wasn't for that reason after all. But if taking all those things helped to keep him safe, I'm not angry."
"I liked those Fenton Phones.."
He grumbled still.
"I hope they'll be alright. Traveling alone like that, who knows what could happen."
"If he could get by with our crazy gadgets picking on him, he'll be just fine."
Jack promised her, his pout fading as he laid back and beckoned her closer. Following after him and laying down, her head resting on his arm, she curled in towards his chest.
"We'll do better after this, we'll earn his trust, and we'll make things work."
She said firmly, her fingers trailing over his jumpsuit as he mumbled out an acknowledgement. Letting out a soft breath as Jack's evened out beside her, she stared past him and out through the bars once more.
She didn't want to fall back asleep. She didn't want to see Danny like that again, with the pain in his eyes and hatred in his words. She would give anything to be in their home, watching him shuffle in after school. Now they knew why his grades were so poor, why his teachers constantly complained about him falling asleep in class.
When they were free she would help him. They would figure out a way to make what he did safer, so it didn't interfere with his school and sleep schedule anymore. They'd work together to make him equipment that would help him, but wouldn't be at the risk of being used against him. They could make this work. They would make this work. The only issue that stood in her way now was getting out of her prison and getting back to her son.
A/N
Another shorter chapter, but I liked this one a lot. I think a lot of people talk so much shit about Danny's parents when honestly, they're just dumb. Obviously they don't know their son is Phantom during the series, but when they do find out? They're accepting of him. Never would they let their own obsession with wanting answers get in the way of the love they have for their son. So while writing this, I wanted to keep that in mind. I think it's very possible for them to slip over the edge and do regrettable things to Danny, but since I'm sticking to the solid plot of the original show, I really wanted their love for him (and their utter cluelessness) to shine through. Hope you guys enjoyed, I would love to hear your feedback, good or bad!