A/N: *coughs* Canon-typical torture ahead, but nothing graphic.

Clockwork watched as the Observants finished their trial. They'd release Desiree back into his custody. The Observants never did any of the dirty work; all they did was observe—and judge. Personally, Clockwork didn't think they were particularly fit to judge. As much as they observed, they never truly knew. Not like he did. While he enjoyed the distinction of the Master of Time, he was not above it. Not entirely. And, as such, he could become part of it and influence events, as he had before with young Danny.

Clockwork wasn't supposed to do that sort of thing, but he could.

He had been the one to fetch Desiree from Amity Park, calling a time out so he could whisk her away from the Red Huntress. Now, he would be the one to receive the weeping, repentant ghost, and he would be the one to explain what the Observants had failed to: the reasons behind the consequences, not just the consequences themselves.

Clockwork turned away until the Observants had released the wishing ghost into his tower. He could hear her sobbing. Undoubtedly, she had been threatened with confinement again, akin to the one she had endured with Madam Babazita. She was lucky the punishment had not already been carried out.

As his form shifted from adult to child, Clockwork turned to face Desiree. He didn't say anything; he didn't have to. He just watched her until her sobs subsided. Then he asked, "What have you learned?"

She recited what the Observants had told her. It was long and tedious, but it was still the right lesson. By drawing on the wild magic, the very form that had enabled her existence, she had tampered with a delicate balance of which she'd been unaware. It had tipped, just briefly, just slightly, and it had shifted a few moments of time and captured them in the short-lived existence of a temporary realm. It was small enough to be fixable, but the existence of the world was a volatile one. It was unstable, and it would break down.

Before it did, Clockwork knew, Danny Phantom needed to get himself and his family out of it. That work had already begun; the father and the sister were free. As Danny's friends and Phantom's enemies were working on building a bridge, however temporary, that could be crossed, there was a chance that the rest of the family would make it out, too.

"Why did you allow the wish to develop the way it did?" Clockwork asked as Desiree finished her story.

The wishing ghost avoided his gaze. "I was angry," she confessed softly. "I wanted revenge. Danny Phantom—"

"Has saved your life," Clockwork finished. "He has saved all of us, more than once, from evils spawned in both his world and ours. Have you never visited the people of the Far Frozen? They honour the young halfa, naming him the Saviour of the Ghost Zone."

"I didn't mean for things to turn out quite like this," Desiree admitted, fiddling with her hands like a child who was well aware that she was being scolded. "I merely wanted to be rid of him, as I had when I'd granted his friend's wish that she'd never met him."

"Be glad that you did not succeed then, and hope that you have not succeeded now. Danny Phantom has much ahead of him that he must do."

Desiree looked up sharply. "It's not over?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

Clockwork shook his head. "Not yet. Not quite." Desiree drifted closer to him, and he allowed her to see the portal he had spent so much of his time examining. "But the final pieces are falling into place. It will not be long."

Mr. Fenton's story, Valerie figured, didn't seem too much different from Jazz's. She wasn't really sure why Jazz, Sam, and Tucker looked so distressed at the thought that the Fentons had finally caught Phantom. He might not be the ghost behind this, but he probably knew something. Like Mr. Fenton had said, ghosts lie all the time. She knew that. How many times had Phantom claimed he didn't want to hurt her and followed it up with a few ectoblasts in her general direction?

"All right," Jazz said, taking charge, "if we think that I came over on a bridge of some sort, and Vlad has figured out that there's a way to build a bridge, then we need to figure out how to do that and do it. It's probably best if we split into pairs. Sam—"

"I'll work with Tucker," Sam said quickly.

"And you and I can work together, Vladdy!" Jack exclaimed.

Valerie didn't miss Vlad's flinch. "Actually," he said, "I thought it might be better if I took Valerie under my wing for this little project. We have the same knowledge, Jack, and it's far better if we allow a new set of eyes to look it over and see things we might have missed."

Jack looked disappointed for a moment before grinning broadly and wrapping his arm around Jazz. "Then I'll just work with my favourite daughter!" he proclaimed. "We make a good team, don't we, Jazzy-pants?"

Valerie was a bit surprised when Jazz actually smiled and agreed. "Yeah, we do. So, I'll work with Dad here in the lab, and—"

"Valerie and I will work at my mansion," Vlad interrupted. "That way, we'll have access to all the resources at my disposal."

Jazz nodded, and Valerie wondered if she actually knew anything about Vlad's 'resources'. Did she know he had a secret lab, too? He had to, given the ghost hunting equipment he had supplied her with, but considering his position in the community, it probably wasn't something he advertised.

"Sam and I can work upstairs," Tucker suggested.

Jazz shook her head. "I think you two might as well go back to the school."

"The school?" Sam repeated.

"That's where we disappeared from," Jazz explained. "That's where the magic from the wish or whatever it was took hold. If that's where it started, there might be some residual traces that you can use to build a bridge."

Build a bridge. They had no idea how to build a bridge. Even the Ghost Portal, from what Valerie understood, wasn't exactly a bridge. It was just a hole in reality—or something like that. Because the real world and the Ghost Zone were right next to each other, a hole was all that was needed to connect them.

Or maybe she was wrong. Vlad ought to know; if he'd worked with Danny's parents in college, this wouldn't be the first he'd heard of the Ghost Portal. For all she knew, he might even have Mr. Fenton's plans to it. If he'd wanted to, he could probably build one himself.

Valerie sighed. She'd never meant for the Fentons to be drawn into this. She'd just wanted to see Phantom put in a situation where everyone else saw him like she did. But the Fentons—well, Jack and Maddie, at least—already took her side. They recognized Phantom for what he was. Jazz seemed to take Phantom's side of things more often than not, and Danny and Sam and Tucker were usually pretty quick to defend him, too. And most of the rest of the town, well…. Last she'd heard, popular vote had Phantom as a good guy.

Okay, she'd admit he'd done a few good things, but half the time it was probably just to save his own skin or defend what he thought was his territory, and the rest of the time, it was a tactic to fool everyone. Unfortunately, that seemed to be working. She couldn't be the only kid who'd had a bad experience with the ghost, the only one who'd ever seen his evil side. Heck, he'd kidnapped the mayor. Robbed a bunch of places. Sure, he denied it, came up with excuses, claimed that he was framed even though they had tons of evidence otherwise, but as much good as he did to try to make people forget about it, it didn't make up for past mistakes. And Valerie had a long memory.

"Valerie?"

"Huh?" Valerie blinked and focused on the situation again.

"Do you have any last suggestions before we split up?" Jazz asked, clearly repeating her question.

She shook her head. "No. Sorry."

"Well, we've all got each other's numbers," Jazz said, "so if anyone finds anything, even if it's not exactly what we want, they have to tell everyone else. We don't know what will help us figure this out, so we need to take anything we can get."

And with those final words, they split into three groups and went their separate ways.

"Please let this be a dream," Danny whispered. "Please let this be a dream." As much as he'd told his mom that Desiree might be behind this, he wasn't entirely disregarding the notion of Nocturne. But he hadn't exactly felt like explaining about Nocturne right now, either. His mother at least knew of Desiree, but he wasn't so sure his parents were aware of Nocturne.

His mother wasn't experimenting on him. He should be thankful for that. She'd made a few comments that had made him think she might, but there hadn't been any scalpels or needles or anything like that. She hadn't cut into him and taken chunks out.

But there had still been the shocks. First that prod, and then the laser thing…. He wasn't even sure what it was called. He just knew it had hurt. He'd lost some ectoplasm, and he had some pretty bad burns, and….

He'd briefly wondered, if he'd been put in this situation when he could've changed back to Danny Fenton, whether he would have, or whether he'd have resisted it for as long as he could. He wasn't exactly sure how his mother would react. Sure, if they found out under different circumstances, he knew his parents might accept him. But to find out like this? It'd have to cause psychological scarring of some sort if his mom realized she'd been electrocuting her own son. He didn't want to do that to her. He didn't want to keep getting shocked, either, but still. She might think he'd been overshadowed or that it was some trick on Phantom's part or something like that—anything to keep from admitting the truth—and that could just make things worse for him.

But he didn't have that option. He was Danny Phantom, and that wasn't going to change. He just really wished he knew why. Probably the same reason he was currently strapped to a table being tortured by his mother for answers he couldn't give. Some ghost's sick idea of revenge.

Really, he hadn't thought Desiree would sink this low. Sure, she had things against him—all the local ghosts did, it seemed, with the exceptions being very few and far between—but this was really pushing it. He could see Vlad getting him into a situation like this. But Desiree? Not her. Not any more than Ember or Johnny 13 or Kitty or Spectra or Technus or even Skulker. Skulker might want his pelt, but Danny was pretty sure he wanted it intact.

Maddie had, mercifully, decided to take a brief break from the interrogation. Danny appreciated the chance to catch his breath. Ghost or not, some part of him still needed to breathe. He knew he couldn't survive in outer space without a supply of oxygen, unlike Technus had. The little bit of human that was tucked away inside him in his ghost form demanded oxygen and food and everything else he needed to survive, even if he could go without it for longer than others.

Danny had one goal in mind: escape. He wasn't sure how. He'd gone so far as to try freezing the stupid table, hoping it would make the straps brittle enough that he could break through with his ectoblasts, and all he'd gotten for that was another series of shocks.

At least he hadn't been given something that suppressed his powers—in this state, he wasn't sure how he'd react to that—but he'd figured it was because his mother wasn't about to give him anything that might make him at all incoherent, especially when she felt she could keep him from trying anything with all those shocks. He had a feeling it would've been a whole lot easier to give his dad the slip, but his mom…. It wasn't going to be easy.

Still, he had to get away from her somehow, because he couldn't get them back home if she kept him strapped to this table, asking him questions he couldn't answer.

Of course, that was assuming he could even get them back home in the first place. If he couldn't get into the Ghost Zone, he couldn't even talk to Clockwork to find out what was going on. And if anyone knew what was going on, it would be Clockwork.

"Shall we try again, Phantom?" Maddie asked him, her words breaking through his thoughts.

Danny couldn't suppress a shudder when she picked up the weapons of torture again. "You have to let me go," he said quietly, surprised his voice wasn't raspier than it was with all the screaming he'd been doing. "You've got to believe me. I'm not the one doing this."

Maddie wore her hood now, with her goggles, so he couldn't see her eyes. He couldn't tell what she was really thinking. He couldn't see if she believed him, but he doubted she did. In her eyes, he had more things stacked against him. When he couldn't even offer up a definite villain, the person who actually was behind it all, he doubted she'd really believe him.

"I'll take you to your family," Danny promised as his mother came closer, wielding the laser thing again. "Just let me go, and we'll go find them!"

Maddie shook her head, just once. "Tell me where they are," she countered, "and I'll find them myself."

Danny sagged. "I don't know where they are." He'd lost count of the number of times he'd repeated that.

"Then you couldn't take me to them if I let you go," Maddie pointed out, "or you do know where they are and you're lying to me."

The laser was switched on, and Danny started to panic. "No, please, don't, you don't understand. You don't want to do this. No!"

"I have to do this. I need to protect my family. So just tell me the truth. That's all I want."

Danny wanted to argue. She wasn't protecting her family. She was torturing him; that wasn't protecting him. But she didn't know, and she thought she was doing the right thing. She thought he was evil, she thought he was lying, she thought…. "No," Danny moaned again. Then, as the laser started to bite into his flesh again, sending pain racing through every nerve in his body, something inside him snapped, and he yelled at his mother to stop.

It emerged from his mouth as his Ghostly Wail.

Glassware shattered. Papers, tools, weapons, the forgotten plates of dinner, even cupboard doors—ripped from their hinges by the sheer force of the Wail—were sent flying. Maddie herself lost her footing and was thrown against the wall. She did not get up.

The table beneath him creaked and collapsed, and the bonds finally came free. Danny lay still for a moment, horrified. The table had been set at an angle, making it easier for his mom to poke and prod at him. He'd seen what had happened when he'd unwittingly unleashed his power.

Danny climbed onto his hands and knees and crawled over to his mother. He didn't have the energy to get to his feet, but he had to know…. He couldn't have…. No, please, oh, man, please, no, don't let….

She was still breathing.

Unconscious, but breathing. Danny eased off her hood and, while he could see swelling—she'd definitely have a goose egg after this—he didn't see any bleeding. He hoped that was a good thing, and he tried to ignore the little voice in his mind that reminded him precisely what swelling and bruising was. Sure, he couldn't see anything wrong on the surface, but he had no clue how to check her for internal injuries.

He'd dealt with a fair number of his own injuries, yes, and some of them had been quite severe. But that had always been with him. He'd always borne the brunt of any ghost attack. He made sure that Sam and Tuck, and Jazz if she was with them, were as safe as they could possibly be. He could heal faster than they could. Things were never as bad for him as they were for everyone else. So while he could check himself over and know how bad it was, he couldn't do the same for anyone else.

He didn't know how much damage he'd done.

Danny formed a bit of ice in one hand and held it gently to the swelling on his mother's head. He didn't know what else to do. He was lucky the damage to the lab wasn't worse than it was. If he hadn't been so exhausted to begin with, he could've brought the whole house down. Maybe even the whole block.

The lab was well-built, at least. It was probably the most stable room in the house. But from the groaning sounds the house was starting to make, the creaking as it shifted and settled, Danny didn't really want to take any chances. Shifting his mother into his arms, he picked her up, turned them intangible, and flew outside.

He regained tangibility the moment they cleared the walls of the house and collapsed to the ground, still weak. He wondered what he should do. He couldn't really take Maddie to the hospital, and he didn't want to leave her here, either. He'd been planning to go back to Casper High to see if he could find anything there. It was a sort of fruitless hope, but it was better than nothing. Wasn't it?

Danny sighed. At this rate, he'd be lucky to fly himself anywhere, let alone his mother. The GAV was gone, true, but Jazz's car was still here…. Okay, so he didn't really know how to drive. How hard could it be? It wasn't like he was going to hit anyone.

Except, if he remembered correctly, Jazz had the keys. They were on the same key ring as her house ones, and she carried those with her everywhere, which meant even if he tore the entire house apart looking for them, he wouldn't find them.

Crud. At this rate, he was going to have to throw his mother on his scooter and go slow and hope that the ride wasn't too bumpy. And if she woke up before they got to the school, he was definitely going to be in for it. He could check her pockets for weapons, but some were directly attached to the hazmat suit and couldn't be removed, and he didn't really want to disable them and leave her vulnerable in her next ghost fight. Well, unless the next ghost fight was against him, but he didn't want to leave her vulnerable against any other ghost.

Danny hesitated for a moment, hoping a better option would present itself. When one didn't, he found himself heading slowly towards Casper High, torn between hoping his mother wouldn't wake up and hoping she would. When he got there and had carried her inside, back into the school auditorium, she was still unconscious.

Suddenly, Danny would have much preferred his mother waking up before they'd made it to the school.

What had he done?

"I'm sorry," Danny whispered, applying more ice to the swelling on his mother's head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I just…. I didn't mean to. Please be okay. Please, please, please be okay." A bit of searching had turned up a box of old costumes in the wings of the stage that hadn't yet made it back to the storage room, so Danny had pulled those out. Now, Maddie was laying against one of the walls, cushioned by all the costumes.

Danny swallowed. Right now, he would much rather his mother was shooting at him, telling him what a filthy piece of ectoplasm he was. He'd even…he'd even rather be strapped to that table again. Anything but just seeing her lie there…. How long had it been?

When the small piece of ice melted, Danny finally got to his feet. He'd come to look for clues. He had to start sometime. Stealing one last glance at his mother, Danny started searching for anything that might help him figure out how to get out of there.

He'd already established that, if Nocturne was behind this, a mere shock wasn't going to wake him up this time. But better to think that he was still caught in Nocturne's trap—or Desiree's, or someone's—than to think…. "Please let this be a dream."

A/N: So, Danny's not strapped to a table anymore. That's good, right? Thanks to everyone who has been taking the time to read and review.