Ch. 6

First off, I would like to rectify something that I only recently realized was missing: The Disclaimer! :D

I do not, Do Not own in any way shape or form Danny Phantom or any other Nickelodeon cartoon/ butch hartman production.

Secondly,

I. . I am. I realize just how late I am with this bloody update, and have shed many a tear over how this story has turned me into a lier. Unfortunately, much has happened between this chapter and the last irl, and I apologize in advance for the crap chapter that kept you, dear readers waiting...due to some rather selfish people and selfish actions, I am now without a ready computer to type my tale.

Updates will be more frequent then of late, (I'm not about to let this story go, dammit!) but not as speedily as before.

Thank you all, and enjoy, dear readers!

Maddie liked this place. She really did.

True, the slightly rotten-egg-and-ammonia smell of the ecto-friendly disinfectants wasn't all that desirable, (they had to use it though, some of their resident's skin would literally burn off from the earthly chemicals if not) nor was the near-constant cacophony of sounds from the holding cells and in-clinic habitats, (just because a good deal of specters could understand some human language and could thus understand the necessity of their temporary containment did not mean that they all did) but for Maddie, it was like a farmer walking into his barn day after day to do his work. The scents and sounds of her workplace were familiar, normal. Soothing even. The Amity Park Spectral Entities Protection Shelter (or, APSEPS to those who worked there,) was a second home to the Fenton lady.

...A second home that was now in an uproar about their new uh...guest. (Or ghiest, if she wanted to attempt a pun. But that's a completely different species of ghost, Maddie, she couldn't help but remind herself.)

The Spectral Behavior specialist trotted down the mostly empty hallway. She passed only a few of the older interns who were running their last rounds for the evening, nodding and sometimes smiling at the awed looks or calls of "evening, Dr. Fenton." Admittedly, the first time they'd started doing that yesterday afternoon it was slightly jarring. She and Jack had never been so heavily involved with a case before-they were simple field agents, really; something like animal control. If she was being completely honest with herself, Maddie and her husband only came to the shelter when their advice and expertise on spectral behavior and psychology were needed (though that was often enough she was well-known in the area). It was still strange though to receive the exuberant compliments and be stopped every few minutes for a discussion revolving around she and Jack's discovery, most of the time with people she herself didn't even know! (Was it just her, or were there suddenly more people around the Shelter all of a sudden?)

Picking up the pace when she noticed the look on a group of people's faces that preceded a lengthy question that would need an even longer explanation on her part, Maddie scooted past with a placating half-smile, and quickly escaped through a side door into the Clinic.

Separated from the rest of the shelter, the Amity Park ASEP veterinary clinic was not one of Maddie's favorite places to be.

Smelling even worse than the shelter disinfectants what with the scent of sickness one usually finds in hospital-like places mixed with it, the Clinic had the added joys of restless wounded specters (not a pretty sight) disgruntled worried owners and caretakers (or just people off the street who may have stumbled across the hurt beings) and overworked doctors who would much rather be at home then listening to the screeches and moans of their patients ( and in some cases, said patients' keepers) for hours on end. Unfortunately, Maddie had now been forced to step into those shoes, so to speak. After all, having no previous 'owner', the white haired boy was now in custody of the ASEP, with Maddie as his legal guardian/keeper. Walking out from the back storage rooms she had entered through, the huntress skirted her way about some unopened boxes of sterile gauze and unused holding crates towards the front desk.

At first glance, the Amity Park Spectral 'veterinary' clinic was pretty unassuming. Off-white walls, slate grey ceramic tiles-much like those found covering the floors of school hallways- a small skylight to "allow of a more open feel" and some uppity, far-too-happy pop song trickling in through the P.A. system (when one could catch it through the disastrous background noise that was.) Scattered about here and there on side tables in the waiting area were the usual pamphlets about 'Five signs your Whisp is depressed', or 'The dangers of ectoplasmic contamination and how to prevent it.' and more like them. Really, the vet's office had every reason to be unassuming. Why shouldn't it? There truly was nothing to hide from the public (at least...it hadn't until last night anyway.)

Ah well...back to the present.

There was only one other person working today. Good. Means she wouldn't have to engage in any real small talk; just pick up some read-out files and get to where she was needed. The man at the computer didn't even look up as she came around to the front, just keeping on talking with the lady standing on the other side of the counter. Casting a polite smile to him, Maddie leaned down out of sight to get to the large three-ring binders kept below on a shelf. Let's see...ah! After flipping through a particularly full one, the red-haired behaviorist tugged free what she had been searching for.

Glancing once more over to her co-worker, and waving goodbye to the man, Maddie stepped out from behind the desk, and continued down the hall.

"...Shit…"

Maddie never liked to swear. She found that curses and such were merely excuses for not using the extent of one's vocabulary and lack of creativity, but even so, sometimes...there really was no other words that seemed adequate for certain situations.

"Uh...do you, uh...do you need me to-"

Maddie nodded and waved a hand in 'please continue' gesture. "Yes, please. Just...Go over it again, if you would."

The younger lady fumbled over her words for a moment at Maddie's abrupt interruption before finding her voice again, and nodded.

"Ok...So, what we have here, as I said before, is well..." she looked pained just to say it. Maddie didn't blame her.

"...severe bruising of the upper body, mostly concentrated around the neck, shoulders and upper back area, along with ah...well..."

"Samantha, please." The girl winced again, but continued on.

"A concussion, along with several minor jaw fractions. The fractures though, seemed to have been inflicted some time ago-maybe a full day, even, making it more likely he either received them while in transport, or even before you captured him. Though, I'd take the latter, in all honesty." the girl added quickly, noting the minor, darker change in the elder hunter's expression.

Sighing and leaning back against the edge of a nearby exam table, Maddie swiped a hand across weary eyes. They'd been here for nearly an hour and a half, pouring over information and readouts and this and that and another thing...she never knew taking stock of someone else's injuries could feel so painful. Removing her hand from her brow, Maddie glanced at Samantha, before diverting her attention back to the large light board littered with x-ray panels. Specifically, the Phantom's x-rays.

"What about this here?" Maddie drew up her hand to motion to a panel of the right hand, specifically around the knuckle and finger bones. "Multiple minor fractions, along with scarring and signs of resetting, the resetting showing the fingers had been broken multiple times in the past."

The girl nodded once more, wandering a little closer as well.

"Probably just old injuries from living out there, in the wild and such. They are a predator species, or so I've read, so things like that would happen more often then not I suppose."

Maddie could only nod along with the young vet. She'd hoped it hadn't stretched this far. Really hoped it hadn't but, truth be told, she wasn't all that surprised it had. All that banging and screaming, like the death throes of some great and fierce king of the forest brought to his knees by an even greater foe... or perhaps she was just being over dramatic, and needlessly romanticizing what was nothing more than a small confused boy throwing a fit out of fear and anger and hurting himself in the process. Shaking her head, as if the physical motion would actually clear the depressing thoughts in her head, Maddie sighed again, and began collecting the scattered papers from the tables around her, assisted by the dark haired girl. Looking over, Maddie felt a little smile creep onto her face.

Samantha Manson was only nineteen, but well on her way to becoming a brilliant scientist and spectral veterinarian. Maddie would know. She'd seen the girl work, and read some of her term papers. (With permission, of course.) Sure, others put their heart into what they did in this field of work (it was almost impossible not to. Like becoming a human doctor) Sam didn't just have a love of it, she had a talent for it. The ghosts and such that people brought in here to be looked at for check-ups or healing just seemed...Maddie didn't know...more at ease, around the gothic teen than any other person, even Maddie herself, and she'd spent nearly twenty years working with the beings. Some were just born with it, she supposed. Broken out of her musings:

"Dr. Fenton?"

"Hm? Ah, sorry Samantha...I just got lost in my thoughts for a moment."

The young vet smiled, and handed a none-to-small stack of papers back to the older woman, before nodding.

"Yeah, I understand. This has got to be pretty rough on you. I mean, spending a month away from home, out there, and then finding that Phantom, which means you gotta spend even more time here than actually at home now..."

Maddie just smiled. The thoughtfulness of the girl was a nice change from the usual bombardment of questions and the like.

"I'm just doing my job, Sam. Even if it means I don't get as much time off as I would like, it's still a job that has to be done, at least until someone more knowledgeable than I can step in."

The girl shook her head, and despite the smile that remained firmly in place s she helped her elder with her task of organizing herself, Maddie didn't fail to notice the spark of sadness at the mention of Maddie's eventual retirement.

"More knowledgeable then you, Dr. F? I don't think so…"

The elder enthusiast didn't respond, though she felt her face heat a bit at the praise. Slipping the last of the papers into the correct files, Sam followed Maddie out of the small room and into the long sunlit hallway. Actually, if one looked at it from this angle, the Clinic wasn't so bad- on a sunny day at least…

"So, are you going to check up on him?"

Maddie started at the sudden question before a look of mild confusion and a small amount of amusement grew on her face.

"Which one? My husband or the Phantom?"

Sam laughed, the bright sound banishing most of the melancholy emotions from her face, thankfully.

"Yeah, I heard about that when you guys got in. Why did you try to open that cage anyway? C'mon Dr. F. It's like, the first thing you learn in hands-on specter handling."

Maddie promptly refused her reddening face to burn any harder at the mention of her and Jack's rather large mistake from the day before, or to retort that the specters a student like Samantha would be used to "handling" were little more than tame pets, not creations of the Void itself that had the ability to suck the very life-force out of a human if it should so decide…. It had been rather stupid of them to think that the boy inside afore mentioned cage had calmed down enough to try open contact, let alone communication though, but at least now they knew the basics of his apparent mental capabilities.

Wild. Feral. No real language, save for those frankly disturbed sounding howls and wails, not that any of that had been any real surprise. Maddie would by lying to say she didn't expect it. In fact, she'd been expecting that more than the other surprise.

It had been a relief to all when they somehow (he'd been thrashing and no doubt attempting to eviscerate every one present) managed to slip a tranquilizer needle into his back while he'd been distracted.

Distracted trying to rip Jack to shreds that is.

So much had happened in those few seconds, it was still a bit difficult to fully process it all. The cage flipping open, the phantom fledgling attempting to bolt and the collective gasp as anyone outside of Jack and Maddie got a good look at his physical state for the first time, all covered in bruises and blood, said boy finding that there was no way out of the docking bay after seeing the crowd of people blocking the boor and promptly turning on the medical staff standing there in a raging fit despite his deteriorated state. Maddie supposed if she was Ghost-kind or if he was human, she'd be fair surprised by the show of pure disregard for personal safety in the determination to get free. The red-haired huntress snorted quietly to herself. Surprised, but not impressed, and even then the surprise was momentary due to shock at best. At least the medics standing by had acted accordingly when the phantom had charged them, taking him down quickly, though not quickly enough to avoid the wild child from sinking his sharp poisonous little teeth into Jack's forearm when the large man had tried to help restrain him from attacking further than just a few failed strike-lunges.

Jack was home now, but after witnessing the mess the phantom had made of him, Maddie had to spend the rest of the day at the hospital with him. It was sort of funny how, even with forearm and the majority of the upper arm in thick restraining bandages, Jack had been disappointed like a candy-deprived child by the doctor's orders to stay home for a few days, rather than return to the Shelter like he'd wanted. Maddie had played a role in convincing him to stay put, however, she didn't know if she could keep him away for long. This case was too good to leave alone, that was for sure. Hell, she'd had difficulty falling asleep the previous evening even with the assurance the news of the phantom's rediscovery wouldn't get out to the public and the specialists would be coming in shortly to assess the situation and provide help.

Having turned down a secondary hallway and into the Holding Bay, Maddie sucked in a small breath, her eyes locked onto the door furthest from where she and Samantha stood. It was plain white, and like everything else in the clinic, unassuming to the extreme. Like it was physically trying to hide the dark little secret that was housed behind it, and in doing such, making itself all the more noticeable.

Maddie cut her eyes to the right, to Sam. The girl didn't appear to be experiencing this. In fact, she looked rather exited to be allowed the chance to view something so rare not even the public were allowed in often. Phantoms, being so desperately endangered they were marked for extinction were protected entities, coveted by each Spectral Entities protection agency they belonged to "Well, here we are."

The sound of Sam's voice echoed in the small space.

Maddie nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the cell door. Without looking, she unclipped the electric keycard from the lanyard around her throat and with a flicking motion slipped it through the appropriate slot indicated on the door.

With a hydraulic release of air the moved the two scientists' lab coats wafting the sour smell of a freshly-cleaned space and the mildew-y scent that proved just how little this cell was used anymore, the door pulled back, revealing a long, near full body pane of glass, with a small section to stand for observers, and a tiny back room, for medical supplies. Maddie stood the side, an ushered Sam in with a hint of a smile. The girl looked like Christmas had come early, and stepped through, allowing the elder hunter to close and secure the door behind them.

The room held no lights. Well, not ones that were on at the moment. The cell's resident was semi-nocturnal, and if this morning's medical report was correctly filed, currently pumped full of a (pardon her French,) shit-ton of painkillers and tranquilizers. In English, this meant the phantom was either still asleep, or so out of it he didn't (couldn't) recognize what was going on around him. It was for the best, honestly. The Amity Park Shelter didn't use restraining methods like strait jackets or molecular containment devices, and a being such as a phantom wouldn't take kindly to those forms of care at all.

Maddie noticed Sam moving her head a bit, like a child trying to see the animals in a cage at the zoo, the unasked question of where in the shadowed room beyond the glass the phantom had hidden himself. Maddie smiled a bit at her.

"Sorry Sam. I don't think today's going to be very interesting in terms of observing. He's probably tucked himself in one of the nest boxes up there."

Maddie pointed up and to the left. The light from the crack under the door offered a small amount of sight into the cell, enough to see that the floor level was devoid of activity anyway. On either sides, about eight feet up were two boxes, built into the wall of the cell simulating crevasses in stone or hollows on trees to give the room's resident a bit of privacy and a more secluded sleeping area. It had been a bit rushed, and seeing as this was just a holding cell anyway, the nest box had been lined with blankets and a pillow, though, from the way a fine covering of a suspiciously feathery fluff shifted in a small draft of air across the floor of the cell, Maddie supposed the pillow had had its insides forcefully removed by angry savage little hands…

"Oh! Dr. F!"

Sam tapped with a bit more force than necessary on Maddie's shoulder, staring joyfully up in the opposite direction she had pointed to. The slightly loud shout made the scientist scowl in a reprimanding way. The glass was too thin for that, and the phantom fledgling really did need to rest, not be disturbed by a yelling scary human. What had caught Sam's-?

Ah…he was awake.