Author's note: You who I cradled in my arms. You, asking as little as you can. You didn't ask me to be born. Why should you learn of war or pain? To make sure you're not hurt again, I swear I'll give my life for you.
Sometimes I wake up reaching for him. I feel his shadow brush my head, but there's just moonlight on my bed. Was he a ghost? Was he a lie? That made my body laugh and cry? - Miss Saigon
The bond between a mother and son seems almost sacred, doesn't it?
(after being) Disparaged
The penitent
Maddie ran barefoot out the door, but Danny was already gone. She looked up one street, down the other. No sign of him. How had he disappeared so quickly?
She had to find him. He didn't have his cell phone. He didn't have any anti-ghost weapons to defend himself. She had to go out and locate him and hold him to her and never ever let him out of the house again and maybe even homeschool him because he wasn't doing so great in school anyway and she didn't know what she'd do if she ever really lost him.
But what if she already really lost him?
What if you're the one hurting me?
She wasn't hurting him. She was trying to help him. He just didn't understand. He was just too young to recognize what was best for him. He was just being a typical angsty teen.
A streak in the distant sky caught her attention. She squinted at it. A glittering trail of glowing energy. She ran back into the house and grabbed her ghost equipment by the door. Back outside, she pulled out a scanner and aimed it at the band of light.
Error
Maddie retried the scan. Another error. She frowned and again studied the streak. It was quickly disappearing, fading away.
Only one ghost's ecto-signature ever gave her equipment an error reading.
The streak was now completely gone. Maddie pulled out her goggles and placed them over her eyes. She tapped into a new feature she had installed and focused on where the streak had been. The goggles picked up on the ghostly particles that were still left behind. A clear trail. She could just follow it and then she'd have Phantom at last he'd be all hers he'd be—
No, wait, Danny—
Maddie again looked up and down the street. She needed to look for Danny. He was so much more important.
But she hadn't seen any sign of Phantom in so long. This could be her best chance. Her only chance.
And hey, she had no idea which way Danny went. She had to choose a direction to start in. Might as well be toward Phantom.
She ran back into the house and pulled on her boots. No time to put on a jumpsuit. No time to wake Jack. She fastened a utility belt around her hips, clipped everything she needed to it, and ran back outside with ecto-gun in hand. She repositioned her goggles and stared up at the sky. The ghost particles were still there. She hopped into her car and drove toward it, followed the sparkling path.
And she looked for Danny, too. Of course.
She scanned the sidewalks and streets. He was nowhere. She looked up at the spectral particles, scowled at them.
She drove a fair way to the edge of town. She parked at one point and gazed up at the glimmering ghost particles still hanging in the air. She'd have to continue on foot now. But no matter. It'd be easier to sneak up on him this way.
Still no Danny, but maybe…maybe he'd be this way…?
Across grass. A starry expanse. And above her, the ghost particles stretched on and on and stopped at a tree.
And in the tree?
Maddie placed her goggles on top of her head and stared up at him.
Him.
Dazzling. Shimmering. Sitting on a branch near the tree's trunk, long muscled legs hanging, head bent over.
Crying. Phantom was sobbing about something. Anguished and tormented wails, slightly dissonant at times with ghostly power that shook the branches around him, disturbing flowers that fluttered listlessly to the ground.
She silently stood below him with a glare increasing in fury. How dare he distract her once again when she was supposed to be looking for Danny. How dare he disappear for a week and then show up so suddenly now.
And how dare he act so distressed. What did he have to be so damn upset about? What problems could he possibly have? Not fulfilling his ghostly obsession to be a beloved hero for this town? He was only an imitation. His problems were only imitations. This expression of emotion wasn't real, and yet he was insisting on this pretense.
Perhaps he knew she was there. Perhaps he was hoping to draw sympathy.
But she'd never fall for it. She knew ghosts too well. They were all the same. They would do whatever they could to satisfy their compulsions.
Phantom was no different from any other ghost no matter how genuine he seemed and no matter how well he could emulate humanity and no matter how well his suit so enticingly gripped certain parts of him and no matter how much she just wanted to rip it off and dive in and discover him all of him every inch of him and claim everything he had been keeping from her.
Resentment. Phantom had been disturbing her for far too long. It was finally enough. She would take possession of him once and for all. After tonight, his persistent evasion would never haunt her again.
She soundlessly detached the dart gun from her belt and loaded it with her solution that would render him effectively powerless. She could just capture him. She should just capture him.
But she wanted to earn him. She wanted to play with her toy before locking him away. Just a quick romp.
If anyone asks…
She took aim.
My religion is you.
The dart hit him right in the arm. Phantom froze, did not move for some time. She watched him shakily pull the needled point out of his triceps and stare at it in his gloved hand.
She pulled a different launcher off her belt and aimed a little lower, releasing a weighted compressor of her own design calibrated to neutralize his specific flight capabilities she had been studying for so long. It collided with his ankle and wrapped around it securely, disrupting his balance on the branch and forcibly dragging him down to the ground.
Facedown. Maddie charged up her ecto-gun and waited for him to look up at her. Straining, he pulled himself up onto his elbows with dazed focus that sharpened instantly the moment he saw her.
She aimed her gun at him and locked right onto his eyes with steely glower. Neither moved for some time. Maddie inhaled deliberately, smoothed the quivers of her body with each breath.
He finally rose, lifted himself. She watched every line of his figure, bending and straightening and curving with his arduous movements.
"How did you find me?"
His hushed question. Standing apart from her with arms down. She allowed her gaze to drop just briefly from his face and soaked up the artistry of his entire being.
Years and years of studying ghosts. And he was the pinnacle of everything ghosts were. The breadth of her research was always on a course leading to him. She had worked so tirelessly even in this faithless world, but the universe was at last obliged to reward her. He was her destiny. He existed solely for her.
A possessive smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Even God wants me to have you."
Phantom made no sound, no movement. His expression remained vacant. Just like the empty shell she knew he really was.
She was riding high on this anticipation. He would be hers. There was no other alternative this time. She'd make sure of it.
But the night was still young, and she still wanted to play.
She'd give him one last chance, something he could cling onto, a hope she could then dash and wink out. She'd watch the light in his eyes fade with the solemn realization that she was always his superior. And then his captivity would be all the more pleasurable for her.
She lowered her gun and issued him a wordless challenge with a cock of her brow. He took one step back. She nodded encouragingly.
Are you as excited as I am?
He stepped a few more times with uncertainty, his eyes trained on her as if seeking her permission to continue. He then turned and sprinted away.
Maddie waited. Watched him. Allowed him a head start.
He vaulted, soared a tiny distance before the compressor latched to his ankle dragged him back down. Her lips twisted into a satisfied smile as he tripped and floundered a few steps before resuming his sprint.
Ready or not, here I come.
She lifted off after him with euphoria in her bound. The distance between them was closing rapidly. Was Phantom really so much slower running than flying? Was the ankle weight that cumbersome? Or perhaps he was already exhausted. He had looked rather distraught in that tree, and his strides did appear unsteady at times, as if he had to maintain his balance in addition to moving forward. She slowed just a little, just enough to allow him more time. She didn't want this to end too quickly.
His head turned side to side, scanning his surroundings which currently consisted mostly of trees. She waited for him to look back, to see that she was still there. But he never turned at all.
She couldn't have that. He couldn't avoid her by refusing to see her. She had to make that known to him.
She raised her gun and sent a blast of light just past his shoulder. Phantom almost fell over with arms flailing.
If she didn't know better, she could swear his fear was real.
The chase continued. Maddie stayed far enough to give him motivation to keep going but close enough so he could hear her at all times. She ran possibilities through her mind. She was still convinced he had stolen a vial of the cancelling agent for her ghostly solidifier from her lab. What if he had it with him? What if he used it? No matter. She had more of the concoction, and he had only one vial at most. She could easily inject him again.
What about his ghostly wail? That was the one power he could still use, his most lethal one. But she knew it took time for him to pull in enough air to unleash that kind of energy, and he had to brace himself, stand almost still to use it effectively. If there was even a hint of him thinking of using that power, Maddie would either shoot or capture him immediately.
She had already won. Now it was just a matter of making him realize it, too.
He looked off to the side. Maddie scanned the area to see what he was suddenly so interested in. A building under construction behind a chain-link fence. With sharp movement, Phantom jumped onto the fence and quickly but clumsily scaled it. Maddie wasted no time in doing the same, effortlessly sailing over the fence and landing neatly on the other side.
She waited a few moments and watched Phantom head toward an open window in the unfinished building.
This boy was too much fun.
He dove through the window. Maddie slowed even more to give him a little more distance. There was no danger of losing him. His glow was so gorgeously bright, and even if he did manage to hide, she'd have only to slip on her goggles and look at the trail of ghostly particles he was leaving behind.
She leapt into the building and quickly located Phantom's attractive light flickering around a corner. With ecto-gun still in her hands, she bolted down the halls after him.
... ... ..No breaking. Only sprinting. No leniency. Only hounding. Between frames and over mats and
... ... ... ...around bends and down passages timber and concrete and fiberglass and aggregates and
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... fragments and copper and reverbs and bangs and abrasions by and at and
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... between and within and there right there just there
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... up this five and a half minute hallway
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... that expanded and then shifted
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...apprehended and detained
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..and stockaded and
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .curbed and
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .shut in and
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .jailed.
Maddie slid to a halt. Ahead. He was there. Surrounded by walls he could not pass without his powers. With his back to her, he stared straight ahead. He remained motionless as she approached, did not even acknowledge her presence.
But by the way his shoulders rose and fell, the way his back muscles tensed and shivered, he knew she was there.
She walked close enough so he could hear the droning of her ecto-gun trained on him. She stopped and breathed, readied herself for his climactic capture.
She had him. He was hers.
And she deserved him. No one else could ever deserve him as much as she did, not after the long nights that stretched into long years of seemingly futile efforts.
And what else did he expect to happen? After all he had done? After all he had demonstrated? After all his vaunting heroics and spotlight stealing? Did he really think he could be free to do whatever he wanted forever? When he wasn't even human and didn't have such rights?
He deserved this.
Flushed with his foretaste, she could not summon any words for some time. His head low, he did not even attempt to turn. She kept her gun on him, aligned her breaths with his, imagined fondling the throbbing pulses racing across his back.
She raised her gun higher. This mounting pressure could not be held back much longer, ached to flood and contract already.
She could just seal him away as her prisoner now. But it wasn't enough. After all he had done, the grief he had caused her, the strain he had put on her life and relationships, the distracting fantasies he stirred.
He had to be punished.
"Get on your knees, Phantom," she commanded coolly.
His head lifted. Maddie watched him intently, quietly waited for him to acquiesce to her control. He stayed motionless for some time. No hurry. She could wait. A little tease could only heighten this pleasure.
Let's do it raw, Phantom. This 0.02mm wall is getting really annoying.
His whole body stiffened, his fists and back and neck muscles. He shot a scowl at her over his shoulder, turned fully before she could reprimand him. Facing her squarely, he stared her down with arms out and palms toward her. A desperate final act of rebellion even in surrender.
Maddie's temperature rose as she gripped her gun tighter. "Phantom, I'm warning you—"
"If you want to shoot me, then do it," yelled Phantom. "But you'll have to do it facing me."
Maddie scoffed with an inward sneer at his pitiable attempt to assert power. "Don't think I won't, Phantom. But you're much more valuable to me alive."
"Then just take me already. If having me means so much to you."
Maddie frowned and lowered her gun slightly. She studied him intently, his open yielding stance that was somehow still as cocky as ever.
"No fight at all?" she finally asked him.
Fine, then. If he was ready to be captured, then she was ready to take him. She reached for the Thermos attached to her belt.
But then something changed.
His glare softened into something far sadder, something she had seen so many times before but never on him. Maddie sharply focused and tried to make sense of it.
His eyes clouded over and lowered, lidded so that she could no longer see their radiance. "I just recognize that what I did was…irresponsible."
His tone was tapping against her heart, begging to break it in the most peculiar way. But also in a way she was certain she had felt before. But when? The recollection wasn't forming.
No, this was what he did. This was what ghosts did. He was trying to imitate something familiar to trick her. She couldn't let him. She restrengthened her stance and hold.
"So just take me already," he managed to rasp out with whispery cadence. "Because I can't do this anymore."
His words were hardly intelligible, suffocated by constricting torment, asphyxiated by shivering defeat. I can't, I can't continue, I can't go on, it's you, you're always there, you are everything and I am nothing and you are right and I am wrong and you are real and I am artificial a shame a sham. And it's all my fault, I shouldn't be here, I should've never existed. I am a disappointment and I've been disappointing you for so long and I try to make up for it but it's never good enough for you because I am just not good enough for you.
"And maybe I'm not needed anymore. There are plenty of ghost hunters that are so much better at this than I am." He paused, but he kept his eyes lowered. "You're so much better at this than I am."
His train of thought was so strange, his utterances seemingly unrelated to each other. Her gun was shaking in her hands with this perplexing wave of familiarity.
"I don't want to wait anymore," he continued with a gasp for air, his words still so low and strangled and indiscernible.
Find me, hurt me, get closer to me. Keeping you out, drowning you out. But this is it. I can't run from you anymore.
What if you're the one hurting me?
"So just take me already," he pleaded in a tortured voice. "Because this will be so much easier if I no longer have a choice."
She had seen this before. She had heard this before. This was more than imitation. This was not even an exact replica. This was the original. Somehow. Impossible and yet she was sure because she had seen it before so many times across so many years and could never mistake it for anything else. His expression of remorse, so contrite, so repentant. His bold valor replaced by something so timid and void of self-esteem. Giving up and giving in, submitting to her authority, it reminded her of—
Just like—
Danny—
Danny! She was supposed to be looking for Danny!
Why was she thinking of Danny now? Why did he—
Why would he—
Why was Phantom reminding her of Danny?
Over the past week, the way he shied from her touch, the way he wouldn't keep eye contact with her, the way he seized up around her.
That night he snuck out, that night she terrorized Phantom.
Terrorized him—?
That strange bite on the back of his neck. It could've only been an insect bite. There was no other explanation.
Or it could've been an injection.
Didn't she hit Phantom near the back of the neck? She had forgotten before, but the memory was clear now.
Mom, there's something else I need to tell you. I don't really know how to say it, but it's about Phantom.
It was always about Phantom.
Phantom? What does he have to do with my son?
EVERYTHING.
Why are you so obsessed with catching him?
Phantom was everything. Phantom was her everything.
But isn't he still a person? Doesn't he have feelings? Why do you want to hurt him so much?
Maddie stared at the ghost before her. He refused to look at her.
Why do you want to hurt ME so much?
It couldn't be true. She didn't want it to be true. It didn't make sense for it to be true and it certainly wasn't fair for it to be true.
She was just a researcher. She was just a scientist. She was just doing what she was supposed to be doing. She was just doing what anyone else in pursuit of knowledge and truth would do.
She was only human—
Was she?
are you?
Her arms dropped, her fingers barely clinging to the gun in her hand. She walked toward him, connected the dots of his silhouette, lined them up with someone she knew too well, hoped that they somehow wouldn't align at all so she could be spared from this horror.
But as she stood right in front of him, eyes level with his, it was only all too clear where she had seen this exact expression of sorrow and insecurity and regret before. He had been wearing it all week.
Her fingers lost contact with her gun as it clattered to the floor.
Her knees lost their strength as they buckled and bent and collapsed.
Her air was stealing away as she fought to reclaim it. Her nerves were skipping and jolting, buzzing under her skin and around her muscles.
She stared up at him with splitting pressure that pushed hard against her eyes, filling them, overflowing. Ashamed, forced to recognize her inhumanity, she buried her face against him, hid herself from him. With arms thrown around his back, her tears ran down the material of his suit that she now remembered sewing herself a couple years ago.
He was stiff in her arms, immobilized. She gripped him tighter, pressed him in even closer. Wailing over all she had done to him, bemoaning all she could now never do to him.
She lifted her head to look up at him. He was staring down the hallway behind her.
"Danny."
He blinked but did not move.
"Danny," she tried again.
He lowered his head and met her gaze. Her eyes already puffy and raw, the intense light of his stare only sent more tears streaming down her face.
"Danny." Maddie leaned back and pulled her hands away from his back to rest on his waist. "Danny. Why didn't you tell me, Danny?"
His eyes closed halfway. Maddie studied his face intently, anxiously awaiting his reason for keeping this from her and why he allowed her to hunt him like this for so long.
"I was afraid of you," he said in a very low voice.
Fear. Fear that she had delighted in and thrilled herself on when he was her ghost.
But her child?
Nothing could be more horrific than her own child being afraid of her.
And he was her child first. Always. Foremost. However he became a ghost didn't matter because she knew him since the beginning of his conception. Her flesh, her blood, her pride, her joy, her world, her favorite, her greatest love.
She shut her eyes tight and buried her face against him again with collapsing lungs.
In her arms, he stayed still and straight as she wept and clutched the material of the suit on his back.
But then he moved. Slowly. One hand pressed on her upper back, another on the back of her head. He lowered himself within her arms. Down on his knees with her, he pulled her toward him, fit her head on his shoulder. Maddie sobbed even harder at this gesture of affection and comfort.
"I'm sorry." His voice was struggling. "I'm so sorry, Mom."
Keeping her arms around him, Maddie pulled back to look at him, the wet lines on his cheeks. "Sorry? What are you sorry for, sweetheart?"
"For this. For doing this to you."
He wasn't looking at her. Maddie choked on a gulp of air with a shake of her head. She placed one hand on his face and tenderly swept his tears away. "My sweet boy."
He smiled. Maddie admired the attractive shape of his lips.
"You didn't do anything wrong." Maddie held his face in both hands, this face she knew so well but for some reason couldn't recognize before, this face that was far too often racked with guilt and worry. "You're always so quick to blame yourself. But not everything is your fault, you know."
Her fingers pressed into his illuminated skin and trailed over his visage, along his cheekbones and around his ears and under his chin and down his neck and then up the bridge of his nose and across his brow. She studied him, mapped each part of him to what Jack had given him, to what she had given him.
She slipped her hands into his hair and stared at his face in its entirety.
Danny.
Starlit hair and incandescent eyes. But still her Danny. The boy she always wanted when she used to dream about being a mother, the son she had been given though she didn't deserve him.
She pulled him to her and brushed his ear with her lips as she spoke.
"I'm the one who's sorry." She ran her fingers up and down the back of his head. "I did terrible things to you."
Forcing him into submission, nearly pulling that trigger.
"And I wanted to do worse to you. I planned on doing worse to you."
The devices and tools and procedures and drugs she had been preparing just for him. All the hopes of what he'd give her, all the fantasies of how he'd look in chains.
"And I know an apology can never be enough, but…" Maddie gasped, fought her tightening throat. "Can you ever forgive me?" she choked out in a nearly paralyzed whisper.
He never answered her.
The ethereal perfume of his hair. His spectral body feeling so cold against her. The extraordinarily human sound of his breathing.
Maddie at last broke the trance and directed him to sit beside her against a wall. Danny followed, obeyed her soundless parental command.
She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gazed at him, but he kept his head slightly turned from her. His eyes in profile were glassy with introspection.
"Danny?" she finally said to him.
With some timid reluctance, he met her gaze. She gave him her best motherly smile. "What's on your mind, sweetheart?"
A summery blush rose to his cheeks as he looked down at himself. "Um…how long does this stuff last?"
Maddie stuck out her bottom lip as she followed his line of sight to his glowing suited physique. She smiled again as his meaning became clear to her. "Oh, you mean the Fenton Ghost Solidifier."
"Is that what you've named it?"
"Mmm hmm. It should wear off in a few hours."
"A few hours?"
Maddie held back secret amusement at his bleating. She definitely recognized that endearing pout. "We could go home and get the cancelling agent." She hugged him tighter. "But I kind of want to just stay here."
She didn't want him to change back. Not yet. She had never been able to look at his ghost form so closely before. A selfish desire, but she knew he'd understand. He was always so obliging and self-sacrificing.
She needed to see him like this. For her own sanity. Find the familiar in the unfamiliar.
"I want to…reassign my thoughts of you in this form." She stroked his face with the back of her fingers. "My son. Only my son. Not Phantom."
His face filled with that stunning glow again as he smiled at her.
"I love how your face turns green when you blush," she cooed. "I think that's the most adorable thing ever."
His peridot color deepened as he rolled his eyes and looked away. She continued to admire him, the face that always made her so soft with love, warm with pride. Was this the magnetizing sorcery behind Phantom's allure all along?
"I could just stare at you forever," she murmured.
The strands of his hair were so vapory, almost numbing as her fingertips glided between them. Such mesmerizing texture. She had operated on so many ghosts, had felt up and groped so many. But the feel of him was nothing short of entrancing.
He broke away from her touch. Maddie shook her head and blinked her eyes back into focus.
"Anyway, Mom, um…" Danny cleared his throat. "I—I just—I know you said I have nothing to be sorry for, but I am sorry. If I had just been honest from the beginning and hadn't lied to you—"
"I understand why you did. It's okay."
"No, it's not," said Danny somewhat sharply.
Maddie frowned at the sudden desperation in his tone.
"I should've never let it go this far," he continued. "I hate that you ended up getting hurt when it could've been avoided."
His frequent coping mechanism, placing blame on himself so that all of his troubles and pain could feel justified. Because if he felt that it was his fault, then he didn't have to exhaust himself by trying to fight back. He could simply accept the consequences because he believed they were well-deserved anyway. He had been this way for as long as she could remember. No surprise to her at all. But still so heartbreaking that he would try to find guilt even now.
"You're stressing over how I was hurt?" she asked as she held him close to her again. "So like you. Always putting others before yourself. It's what makes you a great hero."
The word surprised her only momentarily. Hero. She had never thought of Phantom as a hero before, only as a self-serving ghost with an obsession to satisfy.
But she was well acquainted with her son, had raised him herself, had served him and known him intimately for nearly sixteen years. He was self-sacrificing to a fault and so often had to be reminded that his own feelings and well-being were also important.
She placed a tender kiss on his head. "But sweetheart, you're the one whose hurt matters here, okay? You're the one who's been suffering, not me."
"But you were hurt, right?" His voice edged with anxiety. "I've never seen you cry so hard."
Maddie let out a long sigh as she thought about how best to speak to him, how to help him understand in his delicate state of mind. She stroked his hair in thought, repetitive petting motions.
"Yes, I was hurt. I'm hurting now," she said carefully. "But I'm hurting because I realize just how much I've been hurting you. You had nothing to do with how I feel now."
She should've known. She should've been able to recognize him. He shouldn't have had to tell her at all. She was his mother and just should've seen it was him.
"It's not your fault. It's my fault. Only my fault."
Her hand moved lower to his cold neck, the rhythmic vibrations of his ghostly physiology against her fingertips.
Ghostly but also so human.
"I haven't been seeing you as a person," she said quietly. "I thought I was. But I wasn't. So yes, I'm hurting, but if it was the only way for me to finally see the truth, then it's worth it. I'd much rather endure this pain for you than allow you to continue suffering."
She pulled him into a full embrace and rested her chin on his head.
"I'm hurting this much because that's how much I care about you, Danny. You're the only one I care this much to hurt about. And you're worth it."
She breathed him in. Her tears fell into his hair.
Hours later. The solidifying solution had worn off at last. The larks were beginning their melodic twitters. She held him close to her, vowing to never lose him again. Along the curbs, across the streets, up to their front door. They paused and stared at it together.
Danny turned to look at her with coloring resembling his father. Maddie cupped his face with one hand. He leaned into her touch.
And then it was time to go home. The home she had created for him. The home she had raised him in.
Her son. Also her ghost. But most importantly her son.
(The End! I could maybe write a sequel fic about Maddie trying to earn Danny's forgiveness and Danny trying to feel safe around his mother again. I don't know if it'd be interesting enough, but if you'd like to read that, let me know.)
(But my other fics Objectified and The End of Danny are basically continuations of this fic detailing the progression of their relationship after Maddie realizes Danny is the object of her obsession. So check those out if you want a continuation immediately, particularly Objectified which I do imagine would happen in the universe of Disparaged albeit a little differently.)
(And finally, surprise! There's one more ending. The ending you've just read here is the "mega happy ending." The alternate ending will not be so happy.)
(If you are easily distressed or if this fic ever caused you any emotional distress, I recommend that you just leave it here at this relatively nice ending. In other words, don't read the alternate ending if you just want Danny's suffering to be over already. But to quell any worries, no, Danny won't die in the alternate ending either.)
(In other other words, it's not over just yet, so stay tuned! ^^)