Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danny Phantom, I'm a big fan and was feeling nostalgic.

~Chapter 12~

Haunted

"And here I thought no rest for the wicked was just an expression..." Vlad grumbled and the two of them took their first steps back home through his portal, looking at his watch again only to find that their trip back had taken yet another hour to complete after taking that little detour.

Now it was eight in the morning, not enough time to take care of the arrangements he needed to to ensure that Owen was sufficiently guarded while he took care of his annoying but necessary human work. Owen on the other hand looked almost as sleep deprived as he had before Nocturne's abduction ironically and nodded in agreement, taking a seat on the floor, his arms resting on his knees and his head leaning against the wall. "You could always call the meeting off, save yourself the trouble. I'm sure even the richest man on earth takes a day off every so often like the rest of us mortals..."

"I suppose you're right," Vlad mused thoughtfully, transforming back into his human form and deftly pulling his cell phone out to cancel the meeting. "Hello Clarissa, this is Vlad Masters speaking. Tell the board that I have an urgent personal matter to attend to and will postponing the meeting until tomorrow. I expect you to take care of the rest. Have a good day." Without giving his flustered secretary time to respond to his sudden declaration, he promptly hung up and sighed.

Whatever chaos ensued at work because of this sudden change of plans was just something his employees would have to deal with. It was good to keep them on their toes since things usually ran very smoothly thanks to Vlad's careful planning and work ethic to the point where they hardly ever ran into problems whether he was there or not. They could handle it. And if they couldn't, well, then Vlad was just going to have to find some more capable employees to replace them.

Glancing tiredly over at Vlad, Owen asked in a half-serious half-joking tone, "So what now? What torture awaits me oh Vlad the Impaler, great master of cruel and unusual punishments?"

Vlad scoffed as he put away his phone before sitting down beside Owen on the floor, replying with, "Been saving that one have you? Too bad most of my fellow collage students already beat you to it."

Resting the back of his head harder against the wall where they were sitting next to the closed portal, Owen frowned, "Geez, it's just as bad as I remember it..."

"What?" Vlad wondered, looking at Owen seriously. "Aren't you glad to be home again Owen? I thought you-"

Exhaling deeply, Owen reached over and while holding onto Vlad's shoulder firmly he muttered the same spell Azrael used to share his sight with those ravens he had watching Owen before. Seconds later, to Vlad's shock, an oily reddish-black fog appeared before his eyes that was slowly snaking over everything in the lab and hung over it like a thick haze. Now that he could actually see the miasma Owen told him about, Vlad understood why being constantly surrounded by this would eventually make it too difficult for Owen to ignore it after being exposed to it over a long period of time.

"THIS is what you've been seeing down here, this whole time?" Vlad asked, sounding disgusted with himself and deeply troubled. "How...how long has it been this...thick?"

Shaking his head, Owen replied with a shaky sigh, "It's always been like this, I just couldn't see it this vividly before my awakening as a full necromancer. I told you about this before, remember? When we had that fight about Azrael. Your whole castle is like this, it's at it's worse down here though. But I have an idea about how to fix it."

"You do do you? Well, let it be said now if it's something dangerous again I won't allow it, understand Owen? Now tell me, what exactly is it you intend to do to lift this miasma from the castle?" Vlad asked suspiciously.

"Nothing much," Owen smiled in amusement, withdrawing his hand from Vlad's shoulder with a shrug and the laboratory returned to normal at least in Vlad's eyes. "I'm just going to perform a good old fashion cleansing. Courtesy of your own personal necromancer slash exorcist."

Vlad wasn't happy with the idea of performing an exorcism -or cleansing rather- in his home mainly because he did not know the effects of a real one on ghosts since to his knowledge, they were rarely performed and even more rarely the genuine article, but if this would help put Owen's mind at ease then he was willing to try it. After that display at Venom's base, Vlad fervently hoped it meant that the furthest thing from Owen's mind was to try running away again. So perhaps this last kidnapping taught Owen a valuable lesson about not taking Vlad's love and offer of protection for granted. If this was going to work, they had to start trusting each other, wholly and completely...

Before doing ANYTHING else though, Vlad made sure to make it perfectly clear to Owen that there were still consequences for his actions and his relief to find Owen safe and sound was not going to discourage punishing him. For one thing, Owen was banned from using the internet for the next few weeks unless it was homework related. Although since they were still in transition of becoming a real family and not officially one just yet, Owen would be home-schooled for the time being and would be receiving his education through a personal tutor. And Vlad could easily monitor his online activity with or without Owen's consent to ensure he didn't go off task. Owen expected as much, but thankfully there were still a few things he could do recreationally without using the internet.

When Vlad said no movies though Owen's mask of compliance slipped and groaned but then again, considering exactly who he was dealing with this was getting off extremely lightly. Vlad even tried to pull the whole 'more then anything I'm just really disappointed in you' act, but Vlad's own feelings betrayed him and Owen saw right through it. His feelings of relief that Owen didn't hate him or was actually scared of him overshadowed everything else, even his previous feelings of helplessness and anger.

Owen made it a point to show Vlad that he had learned from his mistake though. The only downside was that despite trying to endure it better from now on, the miasma still made him feel tense and potentially unsafe as his first gut reaction to being back in the thick of it again. To remedy this, Vlad stayed with Owen until he fell asleep before allowing himself to rest for while because their little adventure into the Ghost Zone had taken a lot out of both of them, especially emotionally.

After a few hours of much needed sleep they had to message Danny to find out where he had hidden The Grimoire, but, being the predictable teenager he was Vlad was against calling him since he was fully capable of deducing where he hid it but eventually Vlad gave into Owen's demands and they called him anyway. Since there hadn't been much time to hid it anywhere too clever, or maybe just to be silly on his part as petty vengeance against Vlad for dragging him all the way here in the middle of the night, Danny hid it in the library right next to Vlad's copy of Edgar Allan Poe's poems and short stories and The Man in the Iron Mask. And in response to Danny's little joke, Owen had said 'talk about poetic irony' to which Vlad just rolled his eyes...

This was something else Vlad was going to keep under lock and key until Owen proved himself trustworthy enough again not to go creating any more portals! They had enough to worry about now with the new threat of vagrant ghosts invading the castle if the shields ever went down or someone found a way to bypass it through Vlad's portal, and the last thing Vlad needed to worry about was Owen taking himself straight to the enemy again himself by creating his own portal. Or worse, creating one that led to Lilith's world of darkness.

Just to make sure they did this whole cleansing right Owen convinced Vlad that he needed it to show him the proper methods and not use guess work based on some bad horror film. Vlad agreed, but told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to be right there making sure Owen's eyes didn't wander to any other pages in the meantime.

He seemed sincere enough but Vlad was on high alert, especially since Owen was acting a bit strange again now that they were back here and he was exposed to this miasma again after having already being exposed to a full blast of the negativity in the Ghost Zone itself for the past few hours. That's when Vlad decided that before all of this cleansing business Owen needed a breather so he made arrangements for them to go out for dinner tonight in town. After that they would be performing the cleansing to purify the lingering miasma from Vlad's home which should solve Owen's only real problem with staying there.

With any luck, the ceremony would also knock Owen out enough so he wouldn't have any nightmares about Nocturne or anything else haunting his subconscious, such as Azrael's fate. Vlad was counting on it since this whole experience -for lack of a better word- had been a total nightmare...

"I still don't see why we can't go to some family restaurant," Owen scoffed, or tried to at least past the silk tie he just couldn't seem to get loose enough to breath past.

"As charming as that sounds, for the sake of my imagine you're just going to have to settle for something a bit more eloquent," Vlad smiled, taking mercy on Owen and helping him loosen the tie if only a little bit without letting him take it off. "You're going to have to get used to such things anyway once you become my sole heir to the Masters' fortune. Think of it as the beginning on your training for becoming part of high society. Up until now we've had other things to concern ourselves with such as analyzing your powers and appeasing the social workers. Don't worry, I won't subject you to any prying eyes this time since I arranged this dinner to be brought to us in a private room so that for one thing, you'll get to eat a proper meal without troubling yourself with the more tedious acts of observing proper table manners, and for another lately we've been working ourselves much too hard and taking ourselves a tad too seriously. I'd like for us to share at least one uneventful evening sharing a meal together with my son. Is that so wrong?"

Owen shook his head, looking behind them at the castle as the limo sat waiting for them, a dark halo surrounded it and not even the moonlight could touch it. Since when had it gotten THIS bad? He always felt uneasy here, from day one, but this darkness...it couldn't be ALL Vlad. Even twenty years worth of scheming could never have tainted this place so much. There had to be something more too it. And after hearing about the previous owner, the Dairy King, Owen knew for a fact it had nothing to do with that old softy of a ghost...

"Owen? Is something wrong?" Vlad asked, unnerved by the intensity of his stare back at the mansion behind them.

"I'm not sure," Owen replied honestly, not bothering to hide behind a lie that it was 'nothing.' Because it was something alright, something they were going to have to deal with once they got back. "But there's no point in worrying about it now. Whatever is making your castle look like that...it can't all be from your old feelings of hate and resentment, there's just no way. It doesn't really feel like you either, not entirely. I'm surprised even you never noticed anything strange."

Vlad was troubled by his observation but as he said himself there was no point in worrying about it now. So after placing a hand on his shoulder Vlad steered him towards the limo and stated, "As long as it's not doing any lasting harm I'm sure it can wait until after dinner. We're going to be late if we don't hurry off now. Take a seat Owen."

"Real smooth change of subject there," Owen smiled, grateful for the distraction as he stepped inside after Vlad himself opened the door for him then climbed in as well in an impossibly elegant fashion. And almost immediately, the heaviness in the air seemed to lift slightly and Owen exhaled sharply in relief, leaning further back into his seat. "Oh, and Vlad?"

After settling in himself, Vlad raise an eyebrow and said, "Hmm?"

"Thanks for believing in me. Whatever is going on, I promise to do my best to fix it. Even if it's only for twelve months I really want to finally start thinking of this place as my home, not just a place I happen to be staying and shouldn't get attached to. But then again, as long as you're there with me, anywhere is home. I hope you know that Vlad. That whole Nocturne thing made me realize for the first time that...I'm not alone. You came for me even after I ran away from you, not because I'm your property or anything but because you love me. It's been so long since anyone has truly and honestly loved me for who I am and not out of obligation or pity because my parents are gone. Danny helped me realize too that I have at least one friend that accepts me and will stand by me through all of this. I finally know where I belong." Owen chuckled and then continued, "You know, thinking back on when you first invited me over could you have ever imagined everything we had to go through together? Me blasting you through a wall with my first fire attack, getting kidnapped and left to wander the forest behind the hospital while setting it on fire, fighting one of the demons that killed my parents, going to visit my ancestral home only to be kidnapped by Azrael again on the way there and almost dying as a result, you and Danny fighting Azrael's demon to save me, going together and completing the ceremony to become a full fledged necromancer, coming home and then running off and being hidden by a clone of Danny that you made before we met, and then this whole thing when I got kidnapped by Nocturne while trying to summon Azrael and confront him so that I could finally feel like I've taken care of at least some of my unfinished business so it would stop nagging me. Now here we are, going to dinner as if nothing happened and I'll be trying to cleanse your castle so it doesn't feel as oppressive anymore. Tell me Vlad, if you knew you'd have to deal with all of this the moment you decided to bring me here to find out my secret, would you have still done it?"

"In a heartbeat," Vlad smiled confidently, "Although I'll admit I would have prepared myself much better if I'd known there was an actual ghost involved in your past too. Azrael wouldn't have gotten away with any of that if I'd known beforehand. If someone had told me that day that meeting you meant I would end up with the son I've always wanted who is not only a very capable young man, but someone that saw a potential for good and gave me the chance that Daniel never cared to even after I stopped seriously trying to end his father's life, I would gladly have welcomed you into my life sooner. I was truly blessed by that opportunity I got to meet you. And for once in my life I am able to make a lasting difference in someone's life that isn't about destroying them or taking control. From the bottom of my heart I wish you every bit of happiness I have to offer, and I sincerely hope that we'll never have a repeat of last night when you get the foolish notion into that head of yours that you're better off sacrificing what little you have left to offer for my sake. Well Owen, now I think I'll let you in on a little secret. None of this-" he gestured around them at the interior of the limousine, "-none of it matters to me as much as you do. You're my son, or will be before too long, and Daniel was right when he said that money cannot buy the happiness I've longed for for so long. It's right here, sitting right in front of me, the ONE thing in my life I am willing to put before myself. You have no idea how significant that is because as you know I am a horribly selfish person. When I discovered your powers I intended to take advantage of them and force you to accept me as either a master or a father. Knowing my original intentions, I never could have imagined myself fighting so hard to keep you when everything was out to snatch you out from under me just when my desire simply to possess you changed to the raw fear I know feel of losing you because finally, I had found someone who was willing to accept me. That's all either of us needed. Someone to love and accept us in our entirety. I've always accepted Daniel, but I know now that he'll never be mine. Even if I somehow got him to join my side, it would have been a forced relationship and more then likely his love for me would have been fabricated just as much as young 'Dani's' was. Once you've had a taste of real love, can you truly accept anything less?"

Frowning a bit when Vlad called Dani's love false, Owen sighed, "Is that it then? Because you have me now you're just going to ignore Dani? I was too focused on my own problems at the time but I felt it, she DID love you Vlad. Very much. You were her everything and fake or not, she tried to please you. Even now she's haunted by that compulsion-" looking out the window as the city lights flashed by, he rested his head against the cool glass and muttered, "It's like an instinct for ghosts to feel intimidated by the older more powerful spirits, they either stay out of their way or try to fight them and prove their dominance. You're her sire, the one who MADE her, so it's only natural that even distance couldn't weaken the hold you still have over Dani. I have the same hold over Azrael but...I don't want it. Just like you don't want it over Dani anymore either, that's the only way I can compare it in a way that you might understand. Acting on my own before was reckless, but, if we don't do anything about Azrael either this is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. We both have our demons to face, so starting tomorrow, I want to talk to you about everything. Where we're supposed to go from here and how we're going to stop Lilith since things have been way too quiet since her last attack. If you promise to take me seriously this time and at least meet me halfway, then I promise I won't do anything like what I did with Nocturne ever again unless I have to to escape or maybe even rescue you. Deal?"