A/N: Ow. This story is getting more dramatic by the minute...
Question: I'm messing around with these separation line things. First I didn't have them, then I decided to put them around the flashbacks to make it clearer and then I also wanted to put them whenever there was a changing third-person point of view. Anyway, I left them out in this chapter. Flashbacks in italics. Changing point of view (not in this chapter): line. Does this work?
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
Memories
She was sitting by herself, humming. The rain was splashing against the window and she watched in fascination as the droplets made tiny traces on the glass. She extended her hand to touch the window but flinched as she felt the restraint on her wrist.
Tears welled up in her eyes but she pushed them back. Crying wouldn´t help her. Nothing could help her. She knew she was right, everybody else was wrong, why couldn´t she convince them that her son was missing. He wasn´t some figment of her imagination, her beautiful baby boy with his black hair and icy blue eyes that always smiled at her.
Smiled at her in every direction she looked, the white walls, the heavy door, even the rain soaked window. And then she was crying. The medication made her light headed and disoriented. She didn´t know how long she had been there, but it felt like a very long time. Jack and Jazz came to visit her sometimes and then they looked at her with those sad eyes. But she only saw her son´s eyes and she hardly acknowledged them anymore.
"Where is Danny?"Jack looked at her strangely. "Who?"
"Come on, Jack, you remember your own son?"
She had run up to his room, to find it full of boxes with stuff from the shed. Jack had beamed happily at her."See? I cleaned the shed," he had said.
She had franticly searched the house for their photo albums, but they were nowhere to be found. All the pictures were gone, even the one on the wall with the whole family in it had been replaced by one with only her, Jack and Jazz. She remembered that picture. Danny had taken it.
They were at the park, it was the fourth of July. They were waiting for the fireworks, but it was still too light out. Danny had been away with his friends, but he had joined them when Sam and Tucker had joined their parents. Jazz was standing beside her mother, looking somewhat embarrassed.
"Come on Jazz, smile," Danny yelled and just as she had looked up in surprise he took the shot.
She closed her eyes. It felt so... empty without her family, without her son. She had kept setting the table for four people, manically asking everybody where Danny was, driving around town to find him. She had gone to Tucker and Sam but they had looked at her in surprise and had denied ever knowing her son. She had stopped at every black haired boy she had seen, grabbing them by their arms and looking into their shocked eyes.
"Maddie?"
She opened her eyes, looking at Jack.
"Maddie, there are some nice people here who are going to take you to the hospital now."
He laid a gentle hand on her arm but she shook it away. She rose from the bed and stared at the men in the white coats.
"I´m not sick," she said hoarsely and lunged at them.
She managed to take out two before somebody stuck a needle in her and everything went black.
And now she sat there, staring out of the window. She couldn´t go out go look for her son now, they had locked her away. She had tried to leave at first but they had soon put a stop to that, saying she was ill, she was a danger to herself.
She was humming a lullaby, one she used to sing to Danny when he was little. How he had grown the last years. She sometimes felt she hardly knew him anymore. He was always coming and going at the strangest hours, sometimes popping up out of nowhere when she thought he was with his friends. And sometimes inexplicably gone from his room while she hadn´t seen him leave.
And then there were the bruises and the scars. He hid them pretty well, but she had gone into his room that night after working on the specter deflector, to check on him. He was lying on his bed, shirtless. She had gone to the window to close it because of the chill, but had stopped to take a closer look at him. The moonlight lit the room and shone on his bare chest, slowly rising and falling. He looked... strong. There was an angry red line straight across his chest.
She had approached him and had looked more closely. There were more marks, almost faded away. The red one was just the newest, but it looked more than a week old. Where did he get these injuries? Fear had gripped her. She was going to have to talk with him tomorrow. But of course the next day he was gone.
She remembered it all so vividly. And yet, it had all been in her imagination. So they said. How do you imagine a son for fifteen years? She felt sleepy. The medication must be beginning to work.
Somebody was in her room. She felt it more than she heard. She turned her head to see who it was and her mouth fell open.
"Danny," she gasped.
"Mom," the shabby boy said in a quavering voice and then he rushed to her and hugged her as if he never wanted to let go. She cried because couldn´t hug him back.
Finally he did let go and she saw tears in his eyes.
"Are you real?" she asked him.
He nodded, wiping his eyes furiously.
"You have to get yourself out of here," he said hoarsely and then he looked at here closely. "What´s the matter with you?"
She realized she must look awful. "Medication," she said slowly.
Danny started shaking his head. "You have to convince them you don´t need that anymore. Tell them I don´t exist. Tell them you were wrong."
She didn´t understand him. His eyes seemed to swarm before her.
"Mom?" He looked desperate. "Mom? Can you hear me?"
She smiled at him. Such a nice dream she was having. It was almost as if he was really there.
Review? Please?