Day 24 : Music

Characters: Danny and Maddie

Summary: When Danny came down with a flu, Maddie and her son had a bonding moment. Set after PP or whatever head canon you have as long as Maddie knows Danny's secret. Warning, extreme fluff and a bit of pointless plot.

But I guarantee you'll have a small smile on your face afterwards... :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, and Whatever Happens is an underrated music credited to Michael Jackson.

Story was also inspired by this image (link: efraellkhmara. devianart. /art/Like-mother-like-son-533889052) from a devianart user, EfraellKhmara. Just eliminate the spaces after the dots, and add dot com before the first slash. It's a really beautiful and heart-warming pic.


Whatever happens…don't let go of my hands

Michael Jackson – Whatever Happens

...

The sound of the TV blared across the living room of the Fenton household, although it was currently ignored by the room's occupants.

"Of course, Mrs. Fenton," a man wearing a white coat, indicating his profession as a physician, assured as he lifted up his suitcase. "You can always contact my number if something else happens, although in this case, this is unlikely. Young Danny here has only exhibited the symptoms of a common flu. A perfectly human common flu," he said as he peered over his black-rimmed glasses. "There is nothing to be worried about."

"I know, Dr. Smithson, and that's why I called you up as soon as Danny's ghostly allies," a shadow of a smile was playing on her lips as she said this, "confirmed the nature of the illness." Madeline "Maddie" Fenton, mother to a currently very sick boy who was lying on the couch, knew that the subject of Danny's ghostliness was somewhat of an uncomfortable topic for the old doctor.

He had been the family's trusted physician since she had her first pregnancy. She called him to check on Danny's vitals a month after the incident now known as the Disasteroid, after convincing Danny – who had refused vehemently – that they needed to get a professional opinion on his new health status seeing that the last check-up was when Danny was twelve. Her husband and she might be all-around scientific experts, but she knew that their expertise were more in the field of ecto-based energies rather than medical science.

The doctor had left their house, muttering words like "impossible", "not in the medical books", "he should be dead already", after the check-up. Maddie knew her son's half-ghost status alone had defied uncountable laws of science in her field of study. She could imagine what the good doctor was thinking after discovering that Danny's heart rate was much lower than the average human, as well as his running temperature which should have put him in an indeterminate period of hospital stay.

.

Danny was a living (ok, half-living), breathing medical miracle.

.

"Alright, then I'd like to excuse myself then," the doctor said, getting up and heading toward the door. "And remind Danny to take the tablets daily."

Maddie trailed behind him, "I'm sure you can send the bill to my husband's account, as per usual?"

"Certainly, ma'am," he said as he shook hand with her. "Have a nice day then, and I wish your son a swift recovery."

.

Maddie closed the front door. She walked to the cabinet to retrieve some more blankets and pillows, after seeing that despite the thin blanket he had brought out of his room, her son was slightly shivering in his slumber. With her arms full, she went nearer to the couch and deposited the pillows and blankets on the space beside Danny's head.

She kneeled beside the couch, bringing up a hand to her son's forehead. He was warm to the touch. His temperature was nearing 100 degrees, according to Dr. Smithson – a fact that she herself silently worried, given that for Danny, it was very feverish indeed. Danny shivered again. His face was flushed red due to the fever. Maddie frowned. She had first theorized that Danny could not get infected by a human sickness, at least to the extent he was now in. However, when her son had climbed down the stairs yesterday's morning, face haggard, shivering and coughing every few minutes, she had made him lie down on the couch. Lucky for them, it was Saturday – Danny did not have to go to school. It was also convenient that her husband Jack was away with Jazz for the weekend after a call from her university administration. Maddie was alone in handling this.

Brushing the dark locks away from Danny's face, she moved her hands to his shoulders and shook him gently. "Danny..."

Her son, for his part, only gave a slight twitch.

"Let's get you up to your room, sweetie," she murmured. "Doctor Smithson's already left a while ago."

She saw his hand grabbing the blanket, trying to bury himself further. Gently coercing him against the action, she said, "C'mon. I'll get you more blankets once you're upstairs, alright? The couch's not a good place for you to sleep in."

"'ere's fine," Danny suddenly mumbled, albeit a bit incomprehensively. "….room's too chilly."

"…I see, did you forget to close the windows again last night?"

Her son only replied with a slight nod, closing his half-opened eyes again.

She sighed. So Danny was handling the town's ghost problem even while being sick, late at night - a time when he should have got the rest he desperately needed instead. She should have expected this, but her motherly instincts were sometimes unable to reconcile the image of her sweet, relatively docile son to the feisty fighter Phantom was portrayed as. No wonder then that his condition today was not any better than yesterday.

Maddie could not find it in her heart to scold her baby boy for his actions. Not after everything that happened. How could she, when she had little to no knowledge to what had been going on in his life? How could see, being so blind and so caught up on her own profession that she had forgotten being his mother, not noticing what was happening with her son? No, her son knew what he was doing. She, on the other hand, would now be by his side. She would make it up to him.

.

Standing up, she resorted to let her son sleep in the couch. Their living room was relatively warmer after all without the exposure to the winter wind Danny's room in the second floor had.

She finally decided to re-arrange her son's position so that he would be more comfortable. Taking some of the pillows and laying them down on her lap, she gently positioned Danny's head so that he was lying on her lap. With her right hand, she took the fluffy blankets from the couch and tucked her son in it – taking away his thin blanket with some difficulty. She should probably get rid of that soon.

Despite her efforts to be gentle, Danny stirred awake.

"…..Mom? What ya doin'?" he slurred, eyes opening half-lidded with obvious exhaustion. Even though so, Maddie felt a sense of accomplishment seeing his body recognized the sudden warmth from the blanket, and him promptly snuggling into it.

"Sssssh," she said soothingly, "Go back to sleep, honey." She turned her eyes to the TV that was still playing some advertisement that Maddie did not bother to discern, while her hands absently played with his hair.

She felt rather that saw Danny's head moving to the side. "'m not a baby," he grumbled. If his eyes were open fully, Maddie was sure that her son would be rolling his eyes. His action, however, belied his words, as he proceeded to curl up on his side into a semi-fetal position. She had to hold back her giggles seeing that.

"I know. Humor your old mother before she gets too old to hold you like this, okay?" said Maddie.

He snorted into his blanket. "…you're not old, mom," replied Danny, the sound muffled by the blanket he had buried half of his face in.

Smiling down at him, she stated fondly, "—and you're always be my sweet baby boy, Danny," she paused, "…whatever happens."

He responded by gripping her hand and giving it a tight squeeze, a gesture that made Maddie's heart soared.

Then she saw it.

.

From the corner of her eye, she spied a news report describing Phantom's – her son! Her mind corrected – latest exploit, which was done last night at around 2 a.m. Maddie's attention was suddenly focused on the television.

It was displaying an aerial battle, obviously taken by somebody's phone camera judging from the quality of the video, between her son and a shadowy ghost. The shadowy ghoul was apparently not one to banter with, for its mouth was in the form of a dark hole which emitted loud hissy sounds in an unrecognizable manner, heard even from where the video taker was recording. Danny, in his ghost form with a thermos on his belt, was shown dodging the horrid claws of the creature, and shooting concentrated balls of ectoplasm from his hands, hitting the black mass with every shot.

But a mother's eyes could pick out clear signs of exhaustion and the illness that her son was harboring. Then she almost shouted in distress when her son got clawed in the shoulder. It was just a flesh wound, but even at the video's considerable distance, she could see ectoplasm coming out of the clawed wound.

The video ended with Danny leading the ghost away from the city's center, the fate of the ghost unknown – Maddie had a good guess that it was under his bed, inside his thermos. The camera was recording the trail left by the two spirits in the form of a rather spectacular display of green lights illuminating the night sky.

"As you can see from the clip, there has been an overnight battle between Phantom and a recurring ghost identified as 'Shadow', an accomplice of another prominent ghost named Johnny the Thirteen, according to the Ghost Filing Report from the Amity Police Department. The result of the battle remained unknown, but our contact from the Department stated that there were no incidents of sudden and unexplained bad luck befalling the citizens of Amity Park since this morning."

"We can all assume, Tiffany—" narrated her male co-anchor, "—that our ghost-hero Phantom has already taken care of the problem. Of course, just to be on the safe side, we advise you viewers to avoid breaking any mirror or crossing path with a black cat today!" he joked cheerfully.

"We will come back to this with an exclusive report from Officer Lane who is deputy-in-charge for ghost-related activities. Related to this news, we also received a report of another ghost known as 'the Box Ghost' terrorizing the city's docks at approximately ten-hundred hours today. Curiously, Phantom was nowhere to be seen. The dock authority fortunately called up a team of security to deal with the ghost."

"This certainly raises a question, doesn't it? Danny Phantom has made himself scarce for the past few days. One ought to wonder what he is doing, especially after the ghost attacks this morning were left unattended."

.

Click.

.

Maddie's shaking hand had unconsciously reached for the remote on the table and turned off the TV swiftly. She was fuming inside. How dare they? Oh how she was going to march up to the studio and kicked all of their butts – she would ensure a special treatment for those two anchors. They had no right to be that ungrateful after what Danny had done for them, after what Danny had sacrificed for them. Hadn't he already made it obvious that he was also human, a school boy nonetheless, who had other responsibilities aside from ghost hunting?

Her son was sick for heaven's sake! He had already chosen to get out of his well-needed rest to help them last night, therefore making himself sicker by the day. And what ghost attacks!? It was just the Box Ghost…

One moment Danny faltered and not became the perfect hero the town wanted, they were already intent on casting him out.

.

...and she realized how stupid her and the rest of the town were during the Masters' Blasters incident;

as well as when Danny became the public enemy number one;

as well as when they were more inclined to believe the worst in him stealing the bank rather than the glaring evidence of Freakshow being the one apprehended.

.

Again, all her insecurities of her own actions against her son, which had been plaguing her ever since he revealed himself, overwhelmed her. She could not help but let out a sob, tears blurring her eyes as she slowly put down the TV remote she had been gripping tightly.

Danny shifted in his sleep. "Mom?" he asked, turning his head to better look at his distressed mother.

"I'm sorry, baby," Maddie sobbed, "I'm so very sorry."

Alarmed by the sudden distress, Danny was immediately wide awake, all soreness forgotten. "What's wrong? Did something happen?" His too warm hands found his mother's.

"….no," coughed Maddie, gradually getting her emotions back under control. She forced a smile, "…nothing's wrong. I'm just having a bout of my melodramatic moments," she said with a feeble laugh.

Danny did not look convinced. He was eyeing her questioningly for a moment. "…okay, if you say so, mom." Then he yawned. "I don't know why I'm so tired," he paused, "…and sore," he shivered, "…and cold. Being sick sucks," he finished despondently.

"Maybe it has something to do with your late-night activity last night?"

She held back a smile at the deer-in-headlights look her son had in his face. "Oh," he breathed. "You know that?"

Maddie gestured at the now blank TV. "It's just in the news." She muttered with a scowl, "Stupid press not giving you a break. Box Ghost was by the dock this morning, and they blamed you for not being there. The situation's been handled by the dock authority, don't worry," she continued hastily seeing her son's expression.

Danny would have by now gotten up if Maddie's hands were not holding him down by his shoulders. "Mom," he addressed with a small smile, "You know the press's always going to be like that," he said with a shrug. "Plenty of experience here, and it's always been the same every single time."

"I know," Maddie said sadly.

He seemed to realize that his words might be interpreted as a guilt trip for his mother. "Umm, you know I've said it times and times again, right mom? I never blame you for anything. You're not…," he paused as he started to realize the cause of his mother's earlier distress, "…still beating yourself because of that, right? Jeez, now I know Tucker's totally wrong saying my guilt complex comes from Dad."

"Your father treats fudge and cookies as instant gratifiers."

"…true." Danny reached a hand for the remote – a bit of a challenge considering his current position. "How about if I'll just…put on some songs, mom?" he asked as he fiddled with the remote, trying to turn on the radio which was built up as a mode inside the TV system. He yawned for what seemed to be the hundredth time the past few days, "I'm gunna need my beauty sleep."

.

The sound of the radio blared across the living room – and this time, the occupants enjoyed it in a companionable silence. Maddie saw her son was slowly drifting off to sleep. Looking down at her hands which were still on his shoulders, she jumped as she realized something important.

"Your shoulder!"

Danny grunted, opening up one eye. Maddie paid no heed. She swiped aside the blanket, opened up the top buttons of her son's pajamas, and brushed her hand over the healing scar in the clawed shoulder.

.

Wait. Healing scar?

.

"It's okay," Danny's voice sounded reassuring to her, "Fast healing via ghost powers is really useful, especially since I spent the morning in my ghost form, mom. That's also partly why my room is really chilly," he added sheepishly.

"Sweetie," she said as a sudden inspiration struck her, "do you know if you can heal the flu faster while in your ghost form?"

"I dunno. I've never tried it before, but when I was ghost earlier, I didn't feel as sore, and the coughing stopped by the morning." Danny's face regained some of its healthy glow as he brightened, "Hey, what d'you know? Maybe it works. Although," he paused, "I feel a lot – I mean a lot – colder in my ghost form, mom."

"It actually doesn't really make sense, you know? You, a half-ghost, feel cold."

"Yeah, I know," Danny laughed lightly. "I even have ice powers! Talk about weapons hitting their masters. Brrrrrr!" he exclaimed, emphasizing his slight shivers with a sound.

"Well, can you please try… changing into your ghost form, Danny? It's worth trying. I will fetch up more blankets if you still feel too cold," she said, indicating the stack of blankets still left on the couch.

"…Okay." And without preamble, the white rings of transformation washed over Danny's form. Maddie felt slight goosebumps on her skin as the rings also washed over her due to her close proximity to her son.

"I call it 'going ghost' by the way," Danny said with a slight smile, before yawning and closing his glowing eyes, turning sideways to snuggle into his mom's stomach. His voice had a slight echoing quality that Maddie was getting more and more used of. Maddie ran her hands through his now snowy locks, smiling softly along the way.

.

The radio started playing a slow-rock song. Maddie found herself nodding off with the soothing beats of the song.

He gives another smile, tries to understand her side

To show that he cares

She can't stay in the room

She's consumed with everything that's been goin' on

She says whatever happens, don't let go of my hand

.

Danny was apparently still not fully asleep, because she saw his fingers were still tapping with along the beats of the music. But then, she saw something that made her completely unable to hold back her giggles.

Danny's legs had apparently disappear to be replaced by a long wispy tail, only partially obscured by the blanket – and the black wispy thing was wagging along the beats of the music as well.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Her eyes were following its progression with a high degree of amusement. Unable to hold her curiosity, she reached out a hand and tried to catch the peculiar appendage. Its end was surprisingly solid under her fingers, but at the same time emitting the black ethereal quality she had expected. Twirling the thin end between her fingers, she felt Danny gave a jerk. That solved the growing question in her mind whether it had some nerves end or not.

.

The song reached its final verse.

Whatever happens, just don't let go of, my hand.

.

.

"Mom, please let go of my tail...this is awkward."


Author's Note: Sorry, I don't know what came over me when I wrote this. I know the prompt is "music", and I swear I got it all focused on music in my head...but somewhere along the process, it got lost D:

And did ya get the metaphor around the words "let go"? Did ya? DID YA?

*eye twitches*

Soooo, hope you enjoy this installment, and thank YOU so much for the reviews NoSignalBlueScreen! Your kind encouragement and suggestion have really made my day! (Several days actually ;D)

Thank you as well for the faves and follows! :D :D :D

Cheers!