The Ghost Zone knew no such thing as temperature.
Maddie had never noticed it before, although she and Jack had undertaken several brief expeditions into the ghosts' domain. Some small part of her mind supplied the thought that they had been insulated within the speeder during those trips, and she supposed that it would have been enough to protect them from this phenomenon. Now, her body was tingling, uncertain whether to feel hot or cold – the only source of temperature was coming from the unusual teenager that carried her.
She asked Phantom about it and he shrugged. "I'm not a scientist," the creature said, before refocusing on the task of carrying the wounded woman through the void. Initially, Maddie had protested at such treatment – she was far too close to the ghost/human/thing for her liking – but Phantom had given her a look that brooked no argument and hoisted her onto his back.
A curious sensation was tugging at Maddie's chest, rooting itself deep within her. The initial physical shock of having ectoplasm grafted to her body was wearing off, and only now did she realise that it was spreading, the spectral energy seeping through her veins and slowly tainting the rest of her body.
The pain was also returning.
To take her mind off the sharp ache that throbbed with every breath, Maddie tightened her hold around Phantom's shoulders and voiced the question that this new sensation brought. "You said that you would tell me how you became a human-ghost. Was it similar to what you've done to me?"
Phantom shook his head, one hand moving to his neck in an effort to loosen the huntress' grasp. "No, nobody turned me into a halfa," he responded. "Like I said, it was an accident."
"You never said that," Maddie retorted. "All you said was that you nearly died, but you didn't."
"The particulars of my near-death aren't important," Phantom snapped, both hands now trying to ease the pressure on his throat.
Finally, she was on familiar ground. The tension radiating from Phantom was comforting in its normalcy, and Maddie realised belatedly that she should probably adjust her grip so she wasn't choking a creature that obviously needed to breathe.
The fact that he actually needed to breathe still didn't sit quite right with Maddie. His breaths were shallow and infrequent, occurring once every thirty seconds to a minute, but they were definitely required for him to function. Beneath her fingers, the woman had also felt a sluggish pulse in Phantom's neck.
She adjusted her grip, the sheer wrongness of the entire situation making Maddie shudder.
"Are you okay?" Phantom queried, obviously feeling the involuntary movement.
Maddie shook her head numbly, wondering at the unveiled concern in his voice. He almost seemed to care, as though his relationship with the woman went deeper than her pointing an ectogun and him making some lame joke about it. The throb of pain in her torso was becoming overwhelming as her nerves finally registered that something was unnaturally wrong, and Maddie struggled to keep herself from sobbing. This was wrong. Phantom shouldn't exist, and neither should she.
A new thought sent terror washing through her.
"Are there more human-ghosts?" the huntress rasped.
"Yeah," Phantom responded instantly, the question catching him off-guard, "and we call ourselves halfas. It's easier to say than human-ghost."
There were more.
Maddie felt like screaming. Phantom's unusual power levels, his uncharacteristic emotional displays, that obviously living physiology – they made him unpredictable. Unpredictability was dangerous, especially in an enemy.
Phantom seemed to sense her distress. "There are only two others," he clarified. "One of us is a bit of a loner, and she hangs out in the Ghost Zone a lot because her form's unstable. The other one isn't that much of an issue to humanity because all he cares about is grinding me into the dust and attacking my family, but I can handle him. Don't worry, you're not suddenly gunna have to deal with an invasion of halfas or anything like that."
Relief flooded through her, and Maddie let out a whispered "thank goodness."
If he heard the comment, Phantom didn't respond.
They paused in front of a purple door not unlike the hundreds of others that littered the place. On the front, a sloppy replica of Phantom's symbol had been painted in ectoplasm, the substance branding the wood beneath it.
"What's this?" Maddie breathed, trying to keep her mind off the searing pain and seeping cold on her front.
"A safe place," Phantom responded, opening the door and floating into what appeared to be a living room. "It's an abandoned lair. I cleaned it out about a year ago and adopted it in case I ever needed a safe house."
He floated down the hallway, entering a sparse bedroom with whitewashed walls and starched blankets. Maddie was laid on the bed gently, but the tug beneath her ribs forced an involuntary cry through her lips.
"Sorry!" Phantom exclaimed, hands fluttering across her shoulders and arms. Butterfly touches again, as though he wanted to scoop her into an embrace and never let go.
For the first time, Maddie noticed that the halfa was streaked with blood.
His boots and gloves were barely recognisable for the white that they had once been, and dark splotches on the black suit glistened wetly. Phantom saw her looking, and sighed as he produced a first aid kit from the dresser. "All of it's yours," he confirmed. "Danny wasn't hurt."
Frowning at the ceiling, Maddie wondered how this kid knew what she was fretting over. It almost seemed like he had some sort of unfair advantage, as though he knew her but she didn't know him. This thought unsettled the woman further, and she wrestled with the concept that she was such a fundamental part of Phantom's life.
Gentle fingers tugged apart her shirt, lightly pressing a pad of gauze over the glowing green that plugged her bullet hole. "Hold this here," he ordered, guiding Maddie's fingers up to press against the pad. "Your body's trying to reject the ectoplasm, but that should settle soon enough. That gauze should hold it in until it sets properly."
"Is that why it hurts so much?" the question was out before she could stop it. For a moment, Maddie berated herself for showing such weakness – such longing for life – in front of her foe. She met Phantom's gaze, and the glow in his eyes had dimmed.
He was… crying?
Another tear slipped from his lashes and down a pale cheek, leaving behind a trail that glowed faintly. Maddie could only watch in silence, her capacity for strange things completely used up by this point. On top of everything else, Phantom's tears over her predicament were enough to shut down the woman's mental capabilities completely. No theories sprang to mind, and no words magically rolled off her tongue.
The scientist in her was overloaded, and plain old Maddie Fenton was all that remained.
"I'm sorry," the teen whispered, sitting on the mattress beside her and removing his gloves to lace cool fingers within her own. Maddie didn't move away, watching in fascination as he continued to cry. Yes, his eyes had been red-rimmed and his face tear-streaked when she had woken, but the cause for those tears could still be debated. That the halfa was crying here, while she was awake and in pain, gave one concept a jarring amount of evidence.
For whatever reason, Phantom cared what happened to her.
Eager to learn more about the creature that she had been saved by – after all, Phantom had saved her, regardless of what his motive was – Maddie watched as the tears streamed down his cheeks, and sobs began to shake the wiry frame. He made no move to wipe away the tears, and they fell from his chin and nose and lashes to drip onto the sheets, leaving behind little glowing spots.
Another horrible thought, this one even worse than the last, made itself known.
"Am I going to be a halfa forever?"
Phantom's expression was one of absolute misery. "I don't know," he sobbed, fingers tightening around her own. "I honestly don't know."