A/N: Ha! Fixed it! The plot hole I mean. Don't worry if you didn't see it, pretend I never said anything. I was looking for problems where there weren't any and I was probably the only one who didn't see the solution.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

Answers

Maddie sat at the kitchen table in the dark, a glass of warm milk in front of her. There were no lights on in the house, in fact the only light in the kitchen was coming from the huge neon sign outside reading ´Fenton Works´. But she didn´t need light to think.

They had managed to convince Jack, Jazz, Sam and Tucker that Danny was who he said he was. They had discussed it endlessly while Danny was sleeping in his room, trying to find some clue as to what had caused the general amnesia. They had bombarded her with questions about Danny, questions she found difficult to answer.

She wondered if that was part of the problem that they couldn´t seem to remember him. He was so very different from who he had been before, the goofy, clumsy, carefree boy he had been. He was so serious now, he looked so... old. And he wasn´t talking. The past few days he had been quietly moving around the house, watching TV, hovering in the lab as she was working there.

He seemed to be trying to avoid his father for some reason. Jack would pester him, asking him questions about the things they used to do that he didn´t remember, or why he had been at Vlad´s at the time. But Maddie was sure the constant questioning wasn´t the reason Danny was avoiding Jack. He had pointed an ecto gun at his father in the lab and had looked as if he had been fully prepared to shoot him. Never mind that the gun was empty.

"How did he shoot an empty gun," she whispered to herself.

What did Vlad do to him? The billionaire had mysteriously disappeared and his castle in Wisconsin had been completely destroyed. "I took care of him," her son had said. What had he done? Suddenly the walls of the house seemed to close in on her. She glanced at the clock on the wall. One AM. She made a mental note to herself to check on Danny later and grabbed her coat.

It was very cold outside and she pulled her coat close to her. She walked aimlessly, letting the slight cool breeze clear her head. Danny had gone missing in September, just after a few weeks of school. Five months later he turned up again, running, starving, sick, acting strangely. She mulled over that last thought. He had been acting strangely before, ever since he started high school one and a half years ago. She had blamed the bullying at school, but was it that? Would bullying cause all those scars? She shuddered.

She thought about Sam. Was that girl falling for her son all over again? She smiled to herself. Sam had quickly taken charge over him and he had let her. Maddie had entered Danny´s room just when Sam had been asking about the wristbands.

"What´s with those?" she had said, "If you´re trying to go goth you´ll need more than that. It doesn´t really fit with the rest of your clothes."

He had looked at her, Tucker and his mother and then he did the bravest thing ever. He took them off. The three had stared at his scarred wrists while he sat there, a blank expression on his face.

"OK," Sam had said, "Well, we´ll have to change the rest of your outfit to match then."

Maddie frowned. Of course there had been no reason for Danny to get his ear pierced.

Suddenly she found herself in the park.

"How did I get here?" she wondered.

She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn´t taken any notice of her surroundings. It was dark in the park, there were no street lights there. She looked up at the stars, remembering how Danny used to come here at night to go star gazing. He used to have this impossible dream to become an astronaut. Did he still have that dream? One of the stars seemed to be moving and she realized it wasn´t a star at all. The moonlight was reflecting on his white hair as he drifted very high up in the sky.

"Phantom," she hissed, regretting that she didn´t bring any weapons.

She refused to call him Danny, as he claimed was his name. What was he doing anyway? She watched him drop from the sky and plummet to the ground, only to pull up at the last instant. Well, if she couldn´t shoot him, she might as well watch him, maybe learn something. He was hovering a few feet above the ground, scanning the trees intently with his green eyes. Maddie pulled back a little, but he looked right past her.

"Come on out there," she heard him say softly, "I know you´re there, I can feel you..."

Did he mean her? Her question was answered as Phantom was suddenly surrounded by brown demon like figures with claws and glowing red eyes.

"Oh crap," Phantom said.

There were seven of them, snarling, saliva dripping out of their mouths. Before he could move one of them lashed out and grazed his leg. He yelped in pain and quickly shot upwards, giving himself some space to manoeuvre. He formed a green ball in his hands and threw it at the one that was closest to him but he missed and then they were on top of him.

He tore himself free and formed a green arc of ectoplasm and wielded it like a sword, hacking and slashing away, pushing them back. They came at him again and he slashed the first one, nearly severing it´s head from it´s torso. The demon plummeted to the ground and laid there, smoldering, a small streak of smoke coming from it's remains. Phantom darted out of the way, simultaneously kicking the second demon and running his sword like ecto beam through the third.

Maddie watched in awe. The ghost kid had improved his fighting skills in his absence. Jack had said he had gone missing around the same time Danny did and she wondered at the meaning of that. What did the ghost kid have to do with Danny´s disappearance?

Two demons were on the ground now, but Phantom seemed to be getting tired as he swerved and dove at top speed, blasting the demons. It slowed them down but it didn't stop them and one of the demons hit him full speed, slashing his chest with it's claws.

The ghost boy cried out and plummeted to the ground, right in front of Maddie. He looked at her in surprise and then jumped to his feet and pushed her aside as two of the demons rushed up. He turned and shot at them with both hands, neatly hitting each of them.

Phantom grabbed her arm and pushed something in her hands. To her surprise, she recognized a Fenton thermos.

"Please use it on them, not on me," he said hurriedly and shot back into the air.

Again he formed a green arc of light and started hacking the demons that came too close. He kept swirling, trying to prevent them from attacking him in the back.

"Suck them in," he yelled at her, "I can't hold off much longer!"

She opened the cap of the thermos and pointed it at the demons who were surrounding Phantom. He managed to blast one of them with an ecto beam and the demon was thrown back from him. She pointed it at the demon and activated the thermos, sucking it in.

Phantom was noticeably slowing down now and again one of the demons managed to get his claws on Phantom's body. Maddie winced when she saw the long gash on his arm, leaking green ectoplasm. But Phantom managed to kick it away from him and again a demon was sucked into the thermos.

The three remaining demons attacked simultaneously and Phantom barely managed to avoid them, darting out of the way. They crashed into each other and the ghost boy hit them with a powerful ecto beam and sped away from them.

"Now," he yelled to Maddie and for the last time she activated the Fenton thermos and the last of the demons were gone.

He landed on the ground, covered in green ectoplasm, looking weary. She walked up to him and he eyed the thermos apprehensively. She held it up.

"Where did you get this," she demanded.

"I eh... borrowed it," he said, "I can't capture ghosts otherwise."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you capture other ghosts?"

He stared at her. "I can't let these things run loose now can I," he said, "Somebody needs to capture them and I'm best at it."

She had to agree to that. "I´m not afraid of you," she said to him.

He chuckled. "I know. I would feel it."

She looked at him accusingly. "You would, wouldn´t you. You feed of other people´s fears."

"I try not to," he answered to her surprise.

She studied him and he looked back at her, looking as if he would jump up and flee the moment she moved. She took a deep breath. She was unarmed anyway, and this might be a chance to try and get some information on this strange ghost. He seemed inclined to talk rather than fight.

"Can I talk to you for a while?" she said bravely.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Your are not gonna try and kill me?" he asked.

She shook her head. "But nothing funny, ghost, or I'll suck you in here".

She shook the thermos. He hesitated and then walked a little closer, making sure he stayed out of range of her hands and feet.

"What would you like to talk about?"

She decided she needed a more friendly posture if she wanted him to talk to her, so she sat down on the grass, crossing her legs and motioned him to do the same. As he did so she took a good look at him. He was covered in green ectoplasm, it was slowly oozing out of the various wounds on his chest and arm.

"Do you need to take care of that?" she asked, gesturing towards him.

He waved his hand. "Later. What do you want to know?"

"Do you... know my son?"

He looked startled at that.

"Yes."

"How come you remember him while everybody else seems to have forgotten about him?"

"I´m a ghost."

"Do you know why everybody has forgotten him, except me?"

He shook his head. "Believe me, if I knew I´d tell you. But I suppose it must have been a... ghost." His voice trailed away. "Ghost... and I'm a ghost... so that's why..."

Maddie stared at him, but he didn't expand on it. He was probably right, even though Jack had been telling everybody for the past week that it had been a ghost. To him, everything that went wrong was caused by a ghost. That didn´t mean he wasn´t right every once in a while.

He looked at her strangely. "Were you by any chance wearing the specter deflector the day he disappeared?"

She thought about that. "I don't remember," she said finally, "But I remember I was working on it that day. I might have put it on..."

He had a point there. If she was wearing the specter deflector and a ghost caused the general memory loss, that would explain everything. But then why did Danny still have his memory intact? She decided to try something else.

"Do you know why my son was with Vlad Masters while he was missing?"

She didn´t expect his answer.

"Yes."

Her heart started pounding. Now she would get some answers. She leaned forward.

"You were there too, weren´t you. That´s why you went missing also. What did you do to my son! Why did he try to shoot his father!"

She had jumped up, glaring at him. If she had an ecto gun with her she would have shot him right there. He remained surprisingly calm, having long figured out that she wasn´t armed, but he did shoot a worried glance at the thermos.

"We were both prisoners," he said.

She stared at him, his weary face, green eyes blinking tiredly at her. He looked defeated, scared even and somehow she believed him. Slowly she sat down again.

"Why?"

He sat silent for a while, looking down, tugging at the grass. He looked like a regular teenager, she thought. She suddenly felt the urge to ruffle his white hair and restrained herself. Why was he talking to her anyway? She had shot at him, hurt him and yet there he was, sitting in front of her, radiating coldness.

"Vlad is... crazy."

She started as he suddenly began to speak.

"He has a... thing for you."

She snorted at that.

"Anyway, he kidnapped your son to get to you. He wanted you to leave d.. Jack and marry him."

"Why did he kidnap you? How did he pull that of anyway?"

"He wanted me as his apprentice. Wanted me to be like him, his pawn, his... son."

"And Danny?"

"Him too."

Maddie was confused now. Something was missing.

"What aren't you telling me," she said accusingly, "This doesn't make any sense at all. What does Vlad want with a ghost for a son? Danny I can understand in some twisted way, but you?"

"Look, I know it doesn't make any sense. Like I said, Vlad is crazy."

She just stared at him. She had never really looked at him from this close before, let alone talked to him and he seemed oddly familiar. Green eyes, she thought, if you just looked at the eyes, where had she seen them before? She thought about Danny, how he had shot the ghost with the empty ecto gun.

"Did Vlad hurt you and Danny?" she asked, "His wrists..."

He looked at the ground. "Yes," he said softly, "he used some metal wristbands to control us." He looked up again. "I... I don't want to talk about it anymore." He vanished right in front of her.

She stared at the place he had been, his face still in her mind, the messy white hair, those eerie eyes... and a tiny silver stud in his left ear.