It was, to say the least, a lengthy process, one that seemed never ending to the anguished Vlad Masters. A process that began with a solitary ride in a police car, and ended with a hearing in court, the second he'd been subjected to in the span of a single month, trials that were both so incredibly different but so similar at the same time.
Danny was sitting solemnly on the couch in the living room of his empty home. The TV remote sat at his left side but lay untouched, and the TV's screen displayed the harried teenager's reflection, a pale, sleep-deprived figure, who was unmoving and stared morbidly straight ahead of him, his lips pressed tightly together. At his right, a handgun sat waiting and ready—loaded, winking as the shifting lights of traffic outside the living room window shown upon it. Next to the hand gun, an open journal sat.
—what was he planning to do with my human half? When he separated us, where would I go? Was he going to kill me? Does it actually matter?
The more I think about it, I see that it must have been my human half, my goodness, sappy as that sounds, that kept all those evil emotions under control. It seems like destroying that half would do nothing but recreate what happened… Dan… But…
Doesn't it make sense, that, if I did destroy my human half, it would become ghost too? It happens with regular people all the time…my family… People die and they become ghosts. So maybe, I can blow Danny Fenton's brains out and become solely Danny Phantom but still be Danny Fenton at the same time?
As mind-numbingly confusing as this all is, doesn't that make sense? It would be so easy, and I'd get to see them again…
I guess it's not really coincidence Sam asked me to hang on to her handgun a week before the "accident"…
The page was covered in greasy, damaged black hairs, some with their follicles still attached. He'd pulled most of his hair out that afternoon as he waited for Vlad to return, and his scalp, reddened with irritation, peeked through the thinned forest of hair, glistening with oil. He had stopped some time ago when he'd pulled out one hundred and twenty hairs, twenty for each person he'd killed. He had counted, and he had chanted that person's name quietly and dutifully as he plucked their set of hair. He thought that if anyone could have seen him while he committed this act, they would have deemed him easily mentally ill. But frankly, he would not have cared the least bit.
When Vlad came in, he, too, was harried. His eyes were dull and tired and his body slumped, his arms hanging at his side like cooked noodles. He had chosen a rather nice suit for the occasion, morbid as it was, and hardly looked now like the type of person who should be wearing it, the kind of person who holds himself high and smiles confidently and looks everyone he encounters squarely in the eyes.
He set down his briefcase with a muted thud and turned to stare at Danny tiredly and sadly.
He did not notice the gun, at least, not at first, even though Danny had made no attempt to hide it. He did, however, notice Danny's raw scalp, the hairs that matted his t-shirt and jeans and the couch behind him.
"Oh, Danny," he moaned, his voice ringing out with uncompromised sadness. "Oh, Danny, what have you done to your beautiful hair?"
Danny seemed to ignore this inquiry, and said tonelessly, his face unchanging, taking on the appearance of a wooden puppet, "What did the judge say?"
Vlad paused for a moment, then said timidly, as if he almost shouldn't, "The judge…decided that he would allow me to keep custody of you, because there were no visible injuries, I suppose…"
"So, you're not in trouble."
"No, I don't believe so. And if something does come up, I have a good lawyer."
"Figures."
"What?"
Danny waved his hand. "Nothing."
"Danny. Why did you pull out your hair?"
When he did not answer, Vlad sighed sadly and went to take a closer look at his scalp to determine if he would be able to style Daniel's hair to cover the bald patches.
"I can—" he started, when the gun came into his line of vision.