His eyes scanned the length of the room, taking in every tiny detail that never really set in his mind. Everyone so rigid, so unmoving, he couldn't take it. A tiny spasm seized his hand despite his own attempts to sit perfectly still, mirroring them. It was a nervous twitch that he couldn't fight off, especially when the suited man drew steadily closer. He wanted to run, but he kept himself seated, hands twitching, as the man approached. His fingers ached with the strain his anxiety put on them, flexing and unflexing, for days it seemed. Instead he balled them into the satiny edges of the tie that chafed his neck. So wrong, that tie, it just felt so wrong.
"Mr…Phantom," the approaching man seemed to tense at the formality of the name, and Phantom merely twisted his tie, "in your affidavit, you admit to being at the corner of Lakeside and Main at approximately 2:30 on March 17th. Is this correct?"
"Yes," Phantom whispered into the microphone. His eyes scanned the open room again, nervous tears pricking behind his lids. He couldn't wipe them away, not with his hand buried in his navy blue tie.
"Was this during or after the murders?"
"During…a-and after. Both. I never left." His head fell to his chest, eyes burning into the wooden podium. "I never left."
"You said you witnessed the crime. Can you please explain that statement?"
"There's…not much to explain about that. I was there, and then this ghost attacked, then he was gone, and I didn't follow him." His eyes shot up to the silent audience, but they couldn't linger long. "I never left."
"What did the assailant look like?"
"I don't know." Phantom shook his head. "I didn't see him coming…And after, I didn't bother trying to chase him."
"What did he sound like?"
"I don't know."
"Can you offer any description at all?"
"…No sir."
The attorney stared back with his mouth pursed. It seemed to be a tic, Phantom noticed. The man asked each question with his lips never parting far enough. After each question, they closed too tightly. The wrinkles around his face scrunched together each time he did that, his thin, gray goatee puckering right along with them. He hardly seemed to breathe, and with the way he tugged at his too-tight tie, Phantom almost believed it. Maybe that was why he couldn't let go of his own tie, Phantom thought, watching the lawyer toy with his chafing collar. The man's beady eyes settled on Phantom, and the boy immediately snapped out of his thoughts.
"Now then," the lawyer drew the words out, enunciating them with his too-tight lips. Phantom could feel the dread sink into his heart as the lawyer turned back to him, building the moment. "if you were not there to fight the ghost, as your superhero persona would suggest, why were you with the four victims on the day—no, at the moment—they died?"
"I've told you already!" Phantom leaned forward in his seat, his eyes wide and terrified as he surveyed the room. "Please…I've told you so many times."
"But you haven't told our fair jury yet." The man swept his hand to the jury box, presenting them like a salesman would. Twelve sets of eyes pinned Phantom to the spot as he opened and closed his mouth.
"I am Danny!"
"Danny…who?" The lawyer cocked his head, more and more theatrical as the case dragged on. Phantom couldn't stand it.
"Danny Fenton!" He seemed to choke on the last word, his eyes trained on the far corner of the court room. He would pretend afterward he hadn't heard it, but his ears caught the tiny cry—rage and sorrow and murder all in one little noise—that escaped from the grieving woman and her bulky husband in the far end of the room. Phantom couldn't watch them, so again, he turned away.
"Danny Fenton is dead, Mr. Phantom."
"I know…" Phantom muttered, the strength ripped from his voice. "But so am I."
"Mr. Phantom, you were around for almost a year before Daniel Fenton and his friends died, is that correct?" The lawyer pinched the edges of his glasses, not looking at Phantom, not responding to the answer.
"Yes…but I told you before I—"
"Plase, tell the jury."
Phantom took a deep breath, turning to face the jury. "I…I told him before, I am Danny Fenton. I always have been—just never told anybody." His eyes darted back and forth, more frantic by the second. "Really! You don't believe me, but honestly I am! I could change…change back and forth whenever I wanted."
The lawyer finally let go of his glasses, his hands fiddling with the tie again. It was a dull green, almost gray in the harsh light. Somehow it sickened Phantom. "Mr. Phantom, we have testimony from Daniel's own parents that both you and Daniel have been sighted in different places at the same time. On occasion right next to each oth—"
"Excuse me, is there a question here, Mr. Stratford?" The judge carried her voice over the lawyer's, and for that split second Phantom was grateful for her presence.
"I will rephrase, your Honor. Mr. Phantom, how would you then explain being sighted in a separate location from your supposed self?"
"Once! Just once!" Phantom stuck up his index finger for the jury to see. "And that was because my parents had a device that could split me apa—"
He cut off midsentence as the strangled cry broke again, louder and more painful than before, from the two Fentons seated in the far end of the room. "Make him stop! Please Jack, make the lying bastard stop!" Phantom froze in place as the woman turned to him, misery and madness and anger all seething on her face. "Don't talk about my son like that you bas—"
Her husband grabbed her just as the judge banged her gavel.
"YOU KILLED MY SON!"
"Mrs. Fenton you are not to behave like that in my courtroom, or I'll have you thrown out for contempt." The judge set her gavel down. "The jury is to disregard Mrs. Fenton's outburst."
Too late. Phantom thought, watching the shaking in his hands. The damage is done.
The lawyer, Mr. Stratford, merely went back to playing with his tie. "Mr. Phantom, you claim to have shared a body with the deceased, correct?"
Phantom answered, quieter and weaker than before. "Not 'shared' a body. I wa—"
"And are you aware Daniel Fenton's physical body was recovered for autopsy?"
"Well yeah they told m—"
"And yet you were held for questioning as the body was taken away?"
"Yes I—"
"Did you know Daniel Fenton's physical body was buried two days ago? Yet you are here?"
"Of course I spli—"
"No further questions."
"What do you mean no more questions?" Phantom huffed, nerves and hatred bringing him to his feet. "You didn't let me answer a single goddamn one!"
"Counselor, let the defendant answer your questions," the judge hissed, venom tainting her voice. Yet, she refused to come to Phantom's aid at any point before.
"Oh, yes your Honor," Mr. Stratford answered, his voice suddenly friendly. It set the hairs of Phantom's neck on end.
"Of course you recovered Danny Fenton's body." Despite the anger pulsing through Phantom's veins, he risked a short glance to the Fentons in the far end, and quickly backed off in his voice. "Ghosts split from the human when they die. That's like…third grade stuff when you learn what a ghost is. I can't change back anymore because I am a ghost now." He lowered his voice, his eyes falling to the floor again. "And Fenton is dead…"
Stratford paused for a second, contemplating what the boy said, before he went back to pinching his glasses. "No further questions," he told the jury.
"Defense, would you care to re-examine your witness?"
Phantom's lawyer looked up from his table, his magnified eyes startled under his thick glasses. "N-no your Honor." The lawyer pushed the stack of papers together on his desk, fidgeting with the loose notes surrounding him. The jury's attention lingered on him for only a second, Phantom's for a second more, as he hoped with all his heart for some support from the fidgeting, thickly-glassed man. For all the hope Phantom placed in the bulgy-eyed man, no help came. His lawyer, his court appointed lawyer, was leaving him dead in the water, and Phantom knew it. They'd assured him the man representing him would be reliable, yet fresh out of college, Phantom figured he was much better on paper than in practice.
"Mr. Phantom, you may step down," the judge ordered, her tone almost as icy as it was with Mr. Stratford. "Your next witness?"
Mr. Stratford loosened and unloosened his tie. Phantom hardly caught it as he slunk back to the seat beside his lawyer. "Well, if she's feeling up to it, I would like to call Mrs. Fenton to the stand." He turned around, revealing the balding, wispy back of his head to the jury. "Mrs. Fenton?"
Phantom didn't look as she passed him by. He doubted she did either. In fact, he doubted she'd ever look at him again.
"Now, Mrs. Fenton, you're acquainted with all four of the deceased, is that correct?"
Mrs. Fenton nodded slowly, unsure whether to look at Stratford or the jury. "Yes. Sam and Tucker were my son's best friends; I saw them nearly every day…A-and of course…Danny and Jazz were my son and daughter."
"Did you see them on the 17th?"
Again, she nodded slowly. Like Phantom, she answered into the podium. "I saw all four that morning, when Sam and Tucker came over. Danny and his friends told me they were just going out for lunch. It was raining, and Jazz told me she'd drive them. They didn't say anything more to me."
"Did any of them seem to be acting strangely that day?"
"No…not at all."
"Did any of them act like one member of their group happened to be a closet superhero by chance?"
"Objection!" Phantom's lawyer stood up, his squeaky little voice breaking over the courtroom. "Leading."
"Sustained," the judge grumbled, and Stratford when back to his tie.
"Disregard the question then. Mrs. Fenton, do you think it's possible for a human to be 'half ghost'?"
"No…" she answered.
"Do you think it's possible your own son was a half-ghost?"
"No," she answered again, more passion in her voice.
"Do you think it's possible," Stratford turned to the defendant's table, "that this ghost is your son?"
"No." It wasn't passion in her voice now, but anger.
"Why do you say that?"
Phantom leaned in close to his lawyer, panic and fear in his eyes. "Can't you do anything?" he whispered into the man's ears.
"I don't…I don't think so…" His lawyer sifted through his notes again, the thick glasses falling down his nose. With each passing second, Phantom felt his hope dwindling.
Mrs. Fenton looked up at the jury now, grabbing the microphone in her hand. "Why? Because the police had me talk with Phantom after…after the incident." He eyes swung around to Phantom. "After he said he was my son."
"What makes you so sure he can't be, Mrs. Fenton?"
"He tried to convince me so desperately, right after I saw my son l-lying there…in the street. I saw what was left of him and now this ghost asked me to give him a chance. A-and you know what I did? I gave it to him. I gave him the chance." Tears poked at her eyes, but she hardly moved to wipe them away. "For just a moment there, I was so desperate to have my son back, I-I wanted to believe him. I was willing to believe he was my son," she moaned, hatred tainting her voice. Yet still she continued. "And so I asked him…asked him things only Danny would know."
"Can't you do anything?" Phantom hissed again to his lawyer, his gloveless hands wearing a tear in his tie. The lawyer just shook his head.
"How many of your questions could Phantom answer, Mrs. Fenton?" Stratford asked.
"None." Her voice was icy cold, cold enough to break something inside Phantom. "He just sat there wide eyed and blubbering." She shut her eyes, her head shaking. "…I can still see it."
"I just saw my friends murdered! I just revealed my biggest goddam secret! I…I couldn't think straight!" Phantom kept his voice low enough for only his lawyer to hear, still the desperation cut heavy as a knife. "Do something," Phantom pleaded through tear-filled eyes. "God dammit do something. You're my lawyer."
"I can't right now." The glasses finally slipped from the buggy man's face, clanging loudly enough against the ground for the whole court to hear. Two silent seconds passed as he reached down for his glasses, the whole courtroom at rapt attention. He wiped them on his tie, face falling as he placed them back on his nose with one cracked lens. The buzzing silence filled Phantom's ears, and he finally couldn't take it any more. Maybe they weren't looking at him right now, just the dopy lawyer beside him, but he finally had enough. His mind shut the whole courtroom out as he tried to lose himself in remembering the day.
March 17th. He'd gone to the Nasty Burger with Sam and Tucker…and Jazz of course. He didn't remember what they ate, what they said, none of that. They just walked outside, down the street, Sam said something, Tucker too, but he never responded—his ears exploded before he could. One sudden dizzying pop, an explosion really, that blew out his hearing. The whole world spun for just a second, long enough for the wetness dripping from his ears to seem peculiar, long enough for a stab of agony to register in his stomach. It hurt more than anything he could remember, yet it hurt far away, lasting just long enough for him to watch the shards of an ectoplasmic bomb fizzle and die away. It wasn't long enough to see where his friends had landed. It wasn't long enough to catch the glassy look on his sister's face as her legs landed 15 feet beside her. It wasn't long enough to understand just how much blood could get matted in Sam's raven hair, or to see how tiny and broken Tucker looked with his stomach slit and his blood drained away. No, that came later, that came with Danny finding himself crumpled up beside his own dead fragments—white gloved and glowing. More than all that, it wasn't until he pulled himself up that he saw what it was like to be truly separated. Not like a personality split, but existing here, while his body laid beside him. He just stared for the longest time, his eyes running over the pooling blood beneath the body's ears—his ears. He ran his eyes over the charred stump of his left leg, unable for the life of his to find where the rest of it had gone. A tiny shard of concrete pierced straight through his back, and for the longest time he patted his own stomach where the fragment impaled him, unable to find anything at all.
His friends came next, Sam's eyes staring at him, asking him something. He didn't know how to answer. For just a moment, he got angry at her eyes, that they wouldn't tell him what they wanted. But he simply patted his stomach and waited while the anger faded. He could blame them—the eyes—they looked so strange. Of course they wondered why they looked so strange. But he couldn't answer. He didn't know how. Tucker's eyes wouldn't ask him anything, because one was gone in a bloody mess, and the other was too busy wondering where its friend had gone to ask Danny, and Danny understood that. Jazz's didn't ask anything because Jazz doesn't ask him anything—she answers. So he tried to ask her, but those eyes didn't say anything—they just listened to the sirens in the background. That's right, the sirens came, and the men pulled him away from all the eyes. They asked him things, in the wake of an ectoplasmic explosion, with all those eyes, but he didn't answer much. A ghost. Right next to the ectoplasmic explosion. They caught on quickly.
But wait he did answer one thing for them. Just one. Do you know who these people are, Phantom?
Yes.
Who are they?
Him right there. See him? He pointed his gloved hand at the nearest victim, the one he was cradled near when they arrived. That's me. That's when his eyes shot open, sick understanding dawning on his face. A ghost attack, and he didn't stop it. He stops ghost attacks, but not now, and now they were dead. Those eyes were dead, and it was because of him. Oh no… He muttered, to the police, hanging onto their jackets. It's my fault. I killed them. Oh no.
Then they sat him down. All for the longest time. And he just sat there because they told him to. That is, until they brought in the woman, and she started asking questions all over.
They said you're Danny….my Danny. Her voice was so wrong. He didn't like it that way.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't be mad please.
Are you really?...You can't be. I just saw him. I just saw he's dead.
I'm Danny. He nodded vigorously. Please don't be mad.
She started crying, and he couldn't remember whether or not he'd begged her to stop.
Just prove it to me. Your bear's name, Danny, please tell me what your bear's name is…
I don't know…
Of course you do. You'd never forget Danny, just…just please tell me!
I don't know.
You do.
I don't.
And she asked him something else. What was it? He didn't answer; he'd remember if he answered. No. The woman just kept asking these questions over and over, her voice getting worse by the minute, until finally she wouldn't ask anymore. How long did it take? How long until she stopped asking him questions?
He just remembered her face changed; it finally changed into something else after so long. The desperation and sadness mixed into pure white rage. She stood up, furious, and he couldn't for the life of him understand why.
Of course not. What am I doing? You're—you're not Danny. You can't be. She lowered her eyes, letting the tears fall. A ghost. I'm not this dumb. She left, her feet stomping, but the rage hardly reaching her voice. Why would I believe something so stupid?
He felt like she would have slammed the door, but then Phantom realized he was outside. Still outside. Where the police told him to sit. Why was he sitting, again?
"The bear. She asked me about the bear," Phantom muttered into the courtroom desk. He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, elbows on the table. "I don't remember his name." What else did she ask him?
He knew he should have been listening to the rest of Mrs. Fenton's examination. Even more so, he should have listened to the cross examination, but the sleepless days awaiting trial collapsed on his brain, shutting him out from the world. He just kept his head down, hands supporting it, muttering just to himself, "My bear."
Of course he remembered his bear. Of course he remembered now. Away from the eyes and the blood and his own dead body. He had it for years—slept with it every night. But by the time he was six, he scrapped it. The bear was such an old memory, he hadn't thought of it in years. But it was there, in his head, buried. Buried somewhere.
Until the jury was adjourned—the trial over and he hadn't even realized. Those twelve were gone now, locked up somewhere to decide his fate. His lawyer led him out of the courtroom, but he hardly knew he was following, just pulling at the tie that chafed his neck.
They returned quickly, good or bad, he didn't know. He was simply too spent to think about it.
"Has the jury reached a verdict?"
"We have, your Honor." The bear had a name. Of course he should remember. "On the four charges of murder in the first degree, we find the defendant, Daniel Phantom,"
Jazz named the bear. I was too young.
"guilty."
The silence in the courtroom broke, but Phantom did not make a sound. Listlessly, his lawyer led him away, no family or friends around to support him. The sentencing would be determined later, but the shock hadn't even set in when he was led past the far end of the room where the Fentons sat. Just a moment, for just a moment Phantom walked by them, and Mrs. Fenton's eyes met his.
"Come on," his lawyer muttered to him, but Phantom kept his feet planted, his eyes boring into Mrs. Fenton's. The bitter hatred in her gaze didn't faze him, still he stood his ground, blocking her way out. Any second, she'd force him out of her way—he could feel it.
"Brinclehof."
Neither moved a muscle. Phantom kept his eyes trained on hers, no emotion in his. Hers faltered though, a strange kind of weakness leaking into their icy cold surface.
"I remember now. You were teaching Jazz about the diatomic atoms, that they all came together to spell Brinclhof. I got my bear that same day, and since I couldn't think of anything, Jazz named it for me. Dad wrote it on the tag, and he spelled it with an 'e'." Phantom stopped, and for the moment, his lawyer didn't bother pushing him onward. "Brinclehof the bear."
Heavy silence pressed the whole room down, until Phantom put one foot in front of the other. "Is he still missing an eye?" he muttered into the ground, still loud enough for Mrs. Fenton to hear.
He didn't wait for an answer though. Phantom kept moving, step by step, out to face his sentence. He didn't stop for the dumbfounded gazes of those who overheard. He didn't stop for the frantic cries that chased him down the hallway. Wait! No please, make him stop! It's doubtful he understood it anyway, just one foot in front of the other, barely hiding the tears in his eyes.