Danny Phantom in: Spectre rejecters

Part 18

A month had passed. Jack opened his eyes and found himself in a bed, in a hospital. He looked beside him to find a few 'get well soon' cards along with a glass of water, flowers and a clock. 5pm. Moments later, a nurse walked in.

"Nice to see you're awake, Mr. Fenton." She began. Jack didn't answer; he just pulled a confused expression. "Forgive me for not introducing myself. I'm Dr. Sally; I've been treating you for the past month. Sir, you've been in a coma. You're extremely lucky, however you got your wounds, and they have all healed well. We'll have to keep you in for at least another couple of weeks before we can be sure your better though."

Jack nodded and the nurse left. Time passed slowly, an hour… two hours… three hours; caught in some form of pathetic sleep which was broken each time there was the faintest noise. A familiar voice was heard, there in the doorway stood Dr. Sally.

"You have a visitor." She said, before leaving. In walked his wife.

"How are you?" She asked with no real emotion in her voice. Jack looked away; he couldn't face making eye contact. She placed an envelope on the side table.

"Divorce forms. Sign them. I have nothing more to say to you, Jack Fenton, except good bye. I hope you suffer for what you have done to me, Sam and most importantly Danny." With that, she stood up and walked silently out of the room. The man's eyes filled with tears,

"Wait! Please don't leave me, please! Stop, Maddie!" He wailed, praying that his wife would answer him.

"One more thing, if I don't receive conformation that you have signed those papers within the next month; then I will tell the cops that you have been hurting my son, and with someone like Vlad on the case… I sure wouldn't want to be in your shoes."

"Can't we talk about this…?"

"No Jack. I've made up my mind."

"But honey…"

"I see the headlines now… 'Insane man tortures his son after believing that he was a ghost'… The clock is ticking Jack." Maddie bribed, before leaving the hospital.

Truthfully, that was one of the hardest things she had ever done. She had spent the best years of her life with this man, and even though he was a little dim-witted, and couldn't take his eyes off other attractive woman, and seemed to only care about ghosts; she had loved him. Part of her still did. Fenton Works was lonely with only herself and her daughter living there, and ghost research just wasn't the same alone. But somehow she knew that their lives could never be the same again; not after what happened with their son. Life goes on…

Two weeks passed and finally the divorce papers came through the post. Maddie and Jazz were still lodging with Vlad, but Danny wasn't happy. Not one bit. Vlad had noticed this, but was tragically torn between the two things he wanted most in life; a half-ghost son or the woman of his dreams? Danny knew how much Vlad cared about Maddie, and didn't want to anger him. So he resorted to scribbling his emotions down in a journal. It was the first time he'd ever don't something like this, except when he was like five, but most pages consisted of "Today I ate a worm" or "Today I saw a dead pigeon" or other such things.

Staying in the house was becoming really boring, so Danny decided to visit Sam again. "Going out, I'll be back later." He yelled, heading for the door.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"Does that concern you?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to visit Sam."

"Be careful, if anything comes up, as usual, call me."

"Sure thing Vlad… Bye." Danny said, before beginning his long flight to Amity Park. He's so over-protective.

Night took over the sky and the clock struck eleven. Danny still wasn't home. Vlad was getting worried; he should be home by now. Maddie and Jazz had both gone to bed, he began searching the house. He wasn't back yet… If he was he would have told Vlad… right? After about an hour of searching the house, he decided there was only one more place the boy could be – in his bedroom. He knocked on the door and, after receiving no reply, walked straight in, praying to find Daniel asleep. The bed was empty. The man flicked on the light and looked around, noticing something brown sticking out of the wall. Making his hand intangible, he reached in and pulled it out. "Journal" He read out aloud, it must be Danny's. The wall was a good place to hide a journal… if he bothered to phase it all the way into the brick and not leave half of it sticking out. He knew he shouldn't read the boys journal, so he put it back. Then he took it out again. Then he put it back again. He had to read it… It might tell him where Danny was. Phasing it out for the last time, he opened the journal and found the last entry.

'Dear pointless book,

Jazz and Mom are driving me crazy. Every time my mom sees me, she shoots me a sympathetic look, it's real irritating. And then there's Jazz. Oh annoying little Jazzy-pants, WHY WONT SHE LEAVE ME ALONE? I preferred it when I was here alone with Vlad. I used to think he'd be a crap father figure who'd be obsessed with taking over the world and torturing me… He isn't. He cares… Or at least I think he does… I hope he does… It's not like anyone else does.'

Vlad sighed and returned the journal to the wall; he had sweet Maddie in his own home, and liked having her around. Jazz annoyed him a little, she was the only one who he didn't really know, and when she wasn't bugging Danny, always seemed to have her face in a book or be nagging about 'parental responsibilities' and such… The man also hadn't noticed how down the boy was. Yes – he looked slightly unhappy and miserable but not this bad. If this boy was unloved, birds would fall and fish would sink, air would be heavy and stone light… everything in this world wrong. Maddie cared about him, Samantha and Tucker cared about him, Jazz sort-of cared about him… He went back to his old thought, Danny or Maddie? It was clear. How stupid had he been? Of course Daniel was more important… He couldn't just drop everything and run away with Maddie, start a happy family… He had to be there. He had to be there for Daniel… He had to be there for his son.

Blood isn't thicker than water.