Chapter 50
Women were so weird… Pamela refused to put Lilith down and Junior was already her next victim of intense affection. But he liked that she was so happy about her daughter, her grandchildren, and even him. It was a huge plus that she'd been so against Jeremy all this time. And to track the days until Sam was due? Impressive. He actually had no problem allowing her near the kids, letting her hold them, doing all the things grandmas were supposed to do. Who knew she'd make a good grandmother?
He yawned as Pamela scooped Junior up and somehow kept both of them in her arms. Junior was completely bewildered and Lilith couldn't make sense of anything. They were both distracted by her and that was totally fine by him—she was the only one making any noise and it wasn't loud enough to wake Sam or Faye. Plus, he didn't have to keep them occupied. Win-win.
Only exception would be Jeremy's continuous protests about being shut out of the house. He didn't deserve to come in here. He wasn't worthy of labeling himself a grandfather. There was nothing "grand" about him. But on the other hand, if he came in and saw the life he'd never been involved in—concrete proof that Sam was successfully raising these kids, alongside himself, and proof that she was excelling as a person, parent, and significant other—he would see what his life had been lacking. He would see what he'd been missing and what he'd kept Pamela from. He would praise Sam and maybe, just maybe, she would be able to feel a little better about her domestic life. That which had been lost to her for so many years had a chance at redemption…more or less.
He walked past Pamela and the twins with a heavy sigh and opened the door. Jeremy was right there, impatiently waiting to come in and expecting to have the same privileges his wife did.
Despite being unwelcome, Danny moved aside and let him through anyway. Pamela gave him a short glare before returning her attention to the twins who, poor things, still had trouble understanding why this weird woman was holding and coddling them, and understanding even less why their dad was allowing this to happen.
Jeremy inhaled. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LOCKED ME OUT LIKE THAT!"
He panicked and slapped his hands over the man's mouth to shut him up, listening closely for any noise that wasn't coming from Pamela. It was only a few seconds before he heard Faye start to cry.
He took his hands off and narrowed his eyes.
"There's a special place in Hell for people like you…" he growled.
"Danny?!" Sam's muffled voice called.
"Com—" He stopped Pamela from rushing upstairs and practically threw Jeremy back when he tried. "Coming!"
"Everyone please stay here for now," he told them.
"That is my grandchild up th—" Jeremy began to protest.
"Yeah? She's my daughter," Danny quickly returned. "My word, my decision, overrides yours."
"Another little granddaughter!" Pamela quietly squealed. "Oh how sweet!"
He ran upstairs and to make sure Jeremy had absolutely no chance of seeing Sam or the baby—and an equal reason to prevent Sam from seeing her parents yet—he phased through the door. Sam was on her side, propped up on one elbow and trying to sing Faye back to sleep. He noted that she wasn't up, wasn't trying to rock her first, and still had half-open eyelids.
Yeah. No. She was going back to sleep and was not going to further drain her introverted self by socializing with two people that had caused her so much stress over the years—though in fairness Pamela had been totally against all of what Jeremy did and didn't do.
"Hey, dove, how are you feeling?" he asked as he walked over to her.
She gave him a sarcastic look.
"Sorry, sorry, stupid question."
"Danny, can you please get Faye?" she murmured.
"Oh! Sure, of course!"
He carefully took the baby from her mother's arms and started slowly rocking her.
"What's going on down there anyway?"
"The twins woke up from their nap, which I know someone else needs." He looked at her.
"Trust me, I know. It's just really hard when everything is always so loud…"
"Do you at least want anything to eat or drink, if you can't sleep?"
"No…I just want to rest."
"Come on, Sam…" he groaned. "Work with me. You won't go to a hospital, you won't eat, you won't drink, you can't sleep, and I can't force you to go anywhere or do anything. Can't you at least drink hot tea or something?"
He switched from regular rocking to swaying his body, which seemed to work slightly better in that Faye was back down to little baby noises instead of full-blown screams. It was so big a relief he almost committed the sin of sitting down.
"Or maybe not hot tea, don't want you to burn yourself. Uh, just really warm tea?"
She stuffed her face into the pillow and groaned. "I'm tired, I'm sore—"
"And you won't get any better unless you have something in your stomach," he interrupted.
"I did good just to get the last thing out."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "Sam, that's not what I mean and you know it."
She didn't bother to grace him with an answer this time and rolled over to her other side, facing away from him.
If not for a newborn in his arms he would've thrown his hands up in frustration. Instead he sighed heavily in exasperation for the sole purpose of letting her know she was really irritating him.
"I'm getting you something anyway, you need the nutrients right now and you won't go to a hospital so you will get them here."
She grunted.
"Yeah, I know, I'm being terrible taking care of you. How dare I."
He took a deep breath, this time to prepare himself to face Sam's parents with, as Jeremy would put it, the baby of "his bloodline" in his arms. Pamela would be all over her and he was sure even Jeremy would be a little curious. After all, it wasn't Faye he hated. Although he couldn't be entirely sure considering she wasn't entirely human, like he probably wanted.
He moved her to the crook of his elbow and quietly opened and closed the door—he really was going to get Sam something but as tired as she was, he'd probably have to wake her up by the time he got back. Hopefully his family and hers wouldn't meet each other for a while. He knew his father could talk for hours on end so perhaps he was doing just that right now, which would keep them all down in the lab for some time.
There was an immediate reaction from Pamela as she saw this new little baby. He had to put a hand up to signal her to stay put. There were several things to do already, one of them being about the twins meeting their new sister for the first time. It was true that he and Sam had tried to prepare them for a new arrival by explaining as simply as possible that there was a baby growing inside Mommy's tummy, but it took a while longer to assure them that Mommy did not eat a baby. In the end, the stork was bringing them a baby sister and that was that. Mommy's tummy was hardly mentioned for the rest of the pregnancy. Of course it didn't help when they would point out how big she was getting and her hormones turned from depression to rage and the arrow pointed to him every time.
But after all that crap she gave him and only him over the course of nearly a year, one of the biggest things he had been looking forward to was the twins' reactions to this new baby.
Secondly, he had to keep Sam's parents quiet but at the same time satisfy mostly if not only Pamela by showing her her newest grandchild. And her last one, at that, because he was not going to suffer through nine more months of Sam's ridiculous "normal" hormones ever again.
Thirdly, he wanted to get Sam to eat or drink and the only thing he could think to do would be to bring it up anyway and coax her into it.
"Hey, kids," he quietly called to them once he reached the bottom of the stairs. "Come look."
He slowly knelt down to let them see their new little sister. Junior was surprisingly much more curious than Lilith, who more than anything seemed desperate to escape Pamela's TLC. They both tentatively poked at Faye first and thankfully she barely moved.
"What is it?" Lilith asked.
"Who is it," he corrected. "And this is Faye. Remember how Mommy and I told you the stork was bringing us a baby?"
They both looked at him and nodded.
"This is the baby he brought."
"Why isn't she moving?"
"Well, he just brought her today. She'll spend a lot of time sleeping for a while."
"Why won't she say hi?"
"She's too young to talk yet," he said. "But I bet she's old enough to hear you say hi."
The both looked at her for a minute and waved their hands.
"Hi, stork baby," they said in unison.
That seriously must be a twin thing because he and Jazz never did that.
"She's not a stork baby, she's just like you two."
Junior leaned in closer and poked her again. She made a little clicking sound in response.
"I don't talk like that…" he muttered.
Danny shrugged. "You don't anymore but you used to."
Both of them gasped as if this was just unheard of.
"Actually you used to look like her too," he added—this time just to see what they would do.
This breaking news shocked them further and they gasped again, much more audibly than before. Lilith even covered her gaping mouth.
Every else in the room snickered.
Pamela hovered over him to see "the littlest one" for herself. He had absolutely no problem with her but when Jeremy took two steps towards him he shot the man an intimidating glance. Jeremy froze in his place, an annoyed look decorating his "innocent" face.
"Hello, sweet girl," Pamela cooed as she knelt down next to him. "It's been such a long time since I've seen such a tiny baby. But…what's wrong with her hair…?"
He chuckled. "Nothing. Sam calls it my 'negative hair' since it goes from black to white when I change. She just inherited my negative hair."
"And the powers?"
"Let's hope she doesn't have any…" he mumbled back.
"Did you ever wonder about that before trying?"
"Oh. Uh, well, she sort of um…was a surprise?" He nervously cleared his throat. "So we-we weren't expecting this." Let alone trying for this.
At first he was sure she would pass some judgment upon him but she didn't seem to. If she did, she wasn't saying anything.
"I still don't quite understand though…shouldn't she be human? I mean, your hair is black and so is Sam's hair… Were you always a ghost just looking like a human…?"
It was always a hard question for him to answer whenever someone asked him what he really was. He always just said he was half ghost but he never really knew what that meant—was he a human-looking ghost? Was he completely human at all? If he could function without Phantom and if Phantom could function without him, then was he really half of anything? He always preferred not to think about things like this…things he would never be able to understand.
He went with the only answer he'd been able to give himself all this time. "I was uh…Phantom…um…at the time of her, you know, uh…c-conception." It would be nice if she could drop this conversation before it went any deeper…and more specific…and detailed…
"Ohhhh, so, you were in your ghost form… That's…well, um…creepy."
He scratched the back of his neck and flushed new shades of red.
"A-Anyway, that, um, might explain the white hair."
"Yes," she agreed, fiddling with her thumbs. "It looks very pretty on her."
Hopefully Pamela was being serious because the realization that her daughter slept with a ghost must've hit her hard. And it seemed that in the eyes of the world, Phantom was a ghost and Fenton was a human. It was like there was no actual connection between the two—they simply shared the same body and conscience but were ultimately separate beings. So sleeping with Phantom, with a ghost, and not with Fenton, with a human, was…wrong. It was probably seen as some interspecies relationship. He could've just changed back to Fenton. He should've. He didn't.
He knew Sam didn't care though. She loved Phantom just as much as she loved Fenton. She didn't care that her second daughter was part ghost. She didn't care about the color of her hair. Either way Pamela's opinion mattered now. Jeremy's, screw it.
He and Sam would still stay together— Wait. Wait… What if Sam knew her mom was against her dad? What if she knew she was welcome back to her home? The one she left? Her mother loved the twins the very moment she laid eyes on them. And Sam had always struggled with letting go of her parents. Now one of them would probably want her back… What would she say? No matter what she said or did, she longed for her parents' acceptance ever since they—Jeremy—kicked her out.
"What are you thinking about?" Pamela asked.
He immediately snapped out of his thoughts and replied, "Nothing."
"Are you sure? It doesn't look like 'nothing' to me and I don't want this day ruined for anyone."
He shrugged and said, "I was just wondering if you want Sam back now."
She almost clapped her hands together but stopped just a millimeter away when she remembered Faye was asleep. "Absolutely."
He inhaled, knowing that now the decision rested with Sam and despite the name change he still had no legal guardianship over the twins—he had no say in what to do with them if she chose to leave.
"But…" Pamela continued. "Every parent wants to protect their babies, as I'm sure you already know. We want to keep them and make sure they're always taken care of. We love them and we never want to let them go. I don't want to let my little girl go. I want what's best for her. I want what's best for her babies."
He stood up.
"You've been the one doing what's best for her all these years. You've been the one taking care of her. You've been the one protecting her. You've been the one who's loved her. It hurts me to say this but we're not what's best for her anymore. You are. I can't take her away from the life she's made here. I can't take her babies away from you. She has a new family that she clearly loves, what kind of mother would I be to convince her to leave all this behind?"
He cracked a smile. "Sam's wanted to see you both since day one—"
"Well I—"
"Can it, Jeremy!" he growled.
He turned back to Pamela. "I'm sure she would be really happy to see you, but she might be a little happier when she's feeling better. She just gave birth today and it's been really hard on her."
And speaking of hard…
He moved closer to Pamela. "Want to hold her while I get Sam a drink? She won't go to a hospital and now she's just being ornery."
She let out a quiet squeal and eagerly took Faye into her arms. At least he didn't have to worry about her being judgmental of a part-ghost infant.
He sighed and left Faye in her care while he went into the kitchen to rummage around for anything with the utmost nutrition. The twins were still huddled near their new sister, which took his mind off them running around anywhere.
A/N
I want to reach a 3k+ word chapter each time. This one almost hits that mark. Not the best place to stop. What happened?
Me: Hey I gotta finish this.
Head: Lol 'kay. *splitting headache*
Why update when I'm close to a 3k chapter?
I work in a deli and we have days called "case night"—each Monday. Welp. Today's Monday. Case night. It takes FOREVER, and under our new manager five people have quit the deli, so we won't have a lot of people helping take down EVERYTHING, cleaning it all, then putting it back together. It takes a long time. I'm going to be bushed tomorrow and it's already been over a week since this thing was last updated. I'm updating it now. Normally I'd be disappointed if someone didn't like it but it's freaking case night, terrible headache, I don't even care right now…
Review replies:
Flyman123Oak- I'm glad I could meet such expectations. Many people do hold high expectations for my fics, actually, so I sort of pressure myself into meeting or exceeding them.
CornerstoneKey- …Lord I have no clue where to even start on that review, that was a chapter in and of itself… Um…thank you for your thoughts though… And glad you like it so far.
BountifulGames- Daaaaaang. That's a lot. Many chapters, many words…just dang.
LittleBoomBoom- I've always noticed you. XD I decided it was best to just do a mass reveal. And I base the twins off my little sister. Danny is kinda based on what I think he'd be like under the given circumstances of Sam's past (which he shared with her).