"Jack! Wait!" Too late. Her husband's orange jumpsuit was down another alleyway several blocks down. It would take him a while to realize she wasn't following him, and there was no time for her to chase him down. Maddie stared down the dark alley. She had to make a choice.

They had almost cornered Phantom, almost had him in their grasp, when he escaped at the last moment. The ghost hunters had given chase immediately, of course, but Phantom was almost an expert at escaping them. Almost. Their chase of him through the darkened streets of Amity Park had almost ended with his escape again. Almost.

The damming evidence glittered bright-green on the pavement. Just a few drops of ectoplasm. But it was enough. He was waiting at the end, probably. Trying to split their forces, trying to weaken her. But she was a Fenton, and was more than capable in her own right!

She couldn't let an opportunity like this slip away. Tightening her grip on her ecto-blaster, she slipped quietly into the alley. She raised a hand and flipped her goggles into night-vision in an instant, making it easy to pick her way around all the empty soda cans, broken bottles, and other bits of accumulated trash. She followed the ectoplasm. Past the first few drops, it had turned into a small trail of splatters, weaving shakily back and forth across the alley like a drunk man.

It struck Maddie as very strange. Ghosts, especially one as powerful as Phantom, shouldn't loose ectoplasm like this. If it hadn't been green, Maddie would have sworn it looked like a trail of blood. But ghosts can't bleed.

Squashing down her scientific curiosity for now, Maddie continued forward cautiously. She could see the end of the alleyway up ahead now. She could make out a dumpster shoved against the far wall at an angle, and a soft white glow outlined the corner. She stalked closer, carefully avoiding the ectoplasm. If she couldn't capture Phantom, the samples she would collect from the ground would have to suffice for now. As she drew near the dumpster, the side wall shone brightly. A large smear of ectoplasm coated the wall with a hand print next to it. Maddie did a double take of it, unsure. Was that blood? A hand print in human blood? She stepped closer, but didn't dare touch.

Could Phantom have... hurt someone? They would have to be bleeding heavily for there to be so much on the hand print, for it to be so defined. Maddie's blood boiled at the thought of Phantom hurting some innocent bystander in her city. She whipped around and stalked furiously to the edge of the dumpster. What she saw however, stopped her in her tracks.

Phantom was there, sitting on the dirty ground. He was propped up with his back against the wall, head leaned back, eyes scrunched in pain. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, right hand pressed into his left shoulder. Ectoplasm coated his left arm, oozing from the wound in his shoulder; it was even pooling on the ground, there was so much of it.

Maddie stared. His defenses were down. He was injured, as impossible as she thought that to be. She could do away with him right then and there, but...

Ghosts were not supposed to get hurt like this. Ghosts weren't supposed to bleed. Ghosts weren't supposed to feel pain...

She had to know.

Raising her ecto-blaster, she flipped the safety off. The soft whine it emitted as it powered up seemed incredibly loud in the confines of the alleyway. She expected him to jump up, to fly away, to disappear without a trace, something... anything... Instead he slowly opened his eyes and stared up at her atop the barrel of the gun. She expected hatred in those electric-green eyes, or maybe even fear, but was surprised to find they were only filled with pain.

"You found me." A smirk tried to appear on his face, but it barely reached the corners of his mouth. "Figures." He sighed heavily.

"What happened to you?" She asked cautiously. A snowy eyebrow raised skeptically. "Ghosts shouldn't be able to be injured like this. I've never seen you, Phantom, like this."

"Skulker had a new toy to try out and I'm his favorite playmate. He got in a lucky shot." Maddie could hear the sarcasm dripping in his voice, but it was an interesting revelation, nonetheless.

"Skulker is...?"

"Big tin can with a flaming mohawk. The Zone's Self-Proclaimed Greatest Hunter and personally wants to skin me alive." She knew that ghost. She'd seen him and Phantom fighting on several occasions. Hadn't she seen him only a little while before Phantom had shown up? Phantom grimaced again, gripping his hand to his shoulder tighter. Maddie lowered the blaster a bit.

"Shouldn't you be able to heal yourself?"

"Yeah, but not instantly. Not something like this. I usually try to sleep off things like this."

"Ghosts can't sleep." Maddie countered immediately, almost instinctively. Phantom was looking away now.

"There's a lot of things ghosts can't do that I can." The words were mumbled, but Maddie was able to catch them. He glanced back up at her, almost like he was sizing her up for something. "Look, I'm not going to be able to stay awake for much longer. You deserve an explanation... from me." She stared at him in confusion. Phantom owed her an explanation? For what? She had hunted him mercilessly since he had appeared in Amity Park, shortly after the Portal first started functioning. She noticed his breathing pattern was changing. It was starting to become more shallow, more erratic.

"...What are you..."

"I shouldn't have tried to hide it from you in the first place. It was stupid of me, and things could have gone so so wrong." He shook his head, trying to clear it. "But! But I promise I was going to tell you guys! I was just... scared. I was so scared at first. After the accident... It was just so hard to control." He swallowed hard, pausing for just a moment. Had he become delusional? Could that even happen to a ghost?

"Then the Portal... and all the ghosts... Someone had to stop the ghosts! I couldn't just let them hurt people! Someone had to stop them! And I got better at controlling it. I fought them, to protect people. I got stronger. I could finally do something! Me! I could finally help people." He smiled a little, a true genuine smile. "I was a superhero. But I was still afraid... that you'd hate me... or worse... I tried to tell you, a couple of times... but you said it was okay. That I didn't have to..." Echos of conversations flashed in Maddie's head. He sounded so desperate at this point, trying to make her understand. But Maddie was just confused. "You have to believe me..."

This didn't make any sense!

A cold feeling of dread slowly overcame Maddie. An accident with the Ghost Portal? Danny and his friends never did tell them exactly what had happened that night the Portal first started working... Danny had tried several times in the last couple of months to talk to her about something that had been bothering him...

A small ring of white light appeared around Phantom's stomach and he gasped, a pained expression overtaking his face.

"Not yet..." He ground out and the ring disappeared slowly. "I won't let you find out like that." He was panting harder now, but his eyes locked onto hers in confidence. "I promised Jazz I would tell you myself." Maddie's stomach dropped like a rock and she found herself swallowing hard. She could leave right now. She could deny anything had happened tonight for the rest of her life if she left right now. She knew that everything would change after this, for better or worse. She had to find out the truth.

"Tell me what?" Maddie asked shakily, sinking down beside him. He gulped and took a deep, calming breath.

"I'll probably pass out right after. Sam and Tucker can tell you the whole story... I can't explain a lot of it... " He smiled at her softly as he slowly reached for her hand with his injured left hand. He grabbed onto it gently, but held on tight. She could feel his iciness even though the thick rubber gloves of her hazmat suit. The ring of light appeared again and this time he didn't fight them. It split, traveling up and down his body slowly. She watched the upper rings progress with fascination until he locked eyes with her.

"I'm half-ghost, Mom." Green eyes turned to an all-too-familiar blue. White haired turned jet black and bright green ectoplasm turned a horrid sticky red.

"Danny!" He smiled at her to hide a grimace as the pain hit him full force.

"Surprise?" He mumbled as he felt the world tip sideways. He was out before his head met his mother's shoulder.

AN: Tada! And we have our reveal! Thank you so much readers! Every time I see a notification in my email where someone favorited or followed I do a little happy dance. I'm glad people seem to like my story! Next week: what happens after. There's going to be a lot of head cannons in the next one about how ghosts and Danny work. See you next Monday!