It wasn't a whole year!
Okay, explanations for why I dropped off the face of the planet: I fell into Good Omens hell back in June. Like, I was obsessed. It was bad. I was reading fanfic every spare second. Even when I wanted to do something else! And it lasted FOR MONTHS
Kris, the writer I'm writing Lost at Sea with, is so patient, holy crap. She also helped me finalize this chapter and threatened me regularly with a knife emoji, so, like, partial thanks go to her.
Also this chapter...I rewrote this one chapter about...five? Yes, five times. Oh man the struggles...Enjoy!
Chapter 17
Working Things Out
"About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all." -Rita Mae Brown
The speed and surprise of the attack knocked the air from Fenton's lungs even before he hit the ground. The bruise he had felt developing ever since his and Phantom's collision in the cafeteria shrieked its displeasure, the mat beneath him not quite sufficient to cushion the impact. He lay there and gasped for breath, staring up at the cloudless orange sky as his father cheered Maddie's grace and Fenton's…less than graceful tumble.
Maddie leaned over Fenton, her head blocking part of the sky. She raised an eyebrow and her lips curled into a smile. "You were supposed to land on your side, Danny."
Fenton groaned. That had been two lessons and several hundred falls ago. How was he supposed to remember that? Still, he rolled onto his front and pushed himself to his feet. He faced his mother and dropped into the ready stance she had recently taught him, his breath coming in quick, sharp gasps.
Maddie sent him a look of skeptical concern, and Fenton found himself grinning.
"Do that again," he said between breaths. "I'll get it right this time."
He didn't.
Maddie grabbed his fist as he swung, pulled him off balance, and threw him down onto his front. Fenton fought his instincts and landed on his knees and forearms instead of stretching his hands out to catch his fall, protecting his wrists as his mom had taught him earlier.
As soon as he landed he spun, sweeping his leg out. He managed to catch his shin against the back of Maddie's knees, forcing them to collapse. His mom gasped, but she executed the fall she had taught Fenton earlier, twisting as she fell so she landed on her side. Quickly, Fenton pounced. Positioned on her side as she was, Maddie easily rolled beneath his desperate lunge, and before Fenton could react, she was on his back and pinning him to the mats. Her elbow dug into his bruise, causing Fenton to hiss his pain into the polyester.
"Whew, Danny!" his dad cheered. "You almost had her!"
That was being generous in Fenton's opinion, but even his mom laughed, delighted.
"You're a natural born fighter!" she said.
That was more often Fenton's curse than something worth praising, but he blew a puff of air into the mat and smiled weakly, the tension leaving his muscles. Feeling the surrender, Maddie released him and stood. She offered her hand and Fenton gratefully accepted it, allowing her to help him to his feet. He needed it. After hours of training, his muscles were sore, his heartbeat and breathing fast. Thankfully, his mom had chosen to teach him outside in the backyard instead of the basement, and a steady, cool breeze gusted over his sweat-soaked skin now that the sun had begun to set.
Maddie must have noticed how tired he was because she threw a glance over her shoulder at her husband. Jack had excused himself from the day's training, insisting he didn't enjoy the martial side of ghost hunting as much. Instead, he had contributed to the training by cheering the two of them on and by providing drinks and towels as needed. He had even begun cooking a barbecue, explaining how Maddie and Fenton were working up an appetite.
Jazz had joined Jack on the sidelines a little over an hour ago too. She hadn't been as vocal as their dad, but she had occasionally shouted encouragement at Fenton. He hadn't heard anything from her in a while, however. Fenton took the opportunity to meet her eyes while their mom judged how close supper was to being done, hoping he wouldn't see suspicion there.
He did.
Shit.
Jazz smiled at him, but there was an absent feel to it, as though she wasn't really paying attention to him. If she didn't suspect the truth in its full detail, she was certainly thinking really hard about something.
"That's enough for tonight, I think," Maddie said, regaining Fenton's attention. She was looking at the sky, darker now that the sun had sunk farther beneath the horizon. "Perhaps we should have stopped sooner, but…well, you were doing so well, Danny!"
She beamed at him, and Fenton hesitantly smiled back, unsure if he should be pleased or guilty. It felt good to hear he had done something right for once, that he was actually good at something, but he was only good at fighting because he had separated from the half of himself that hated fighting. That didn't feel like something he ought to take pride in.
No matter how good it felt.
He mumbled, "I guess," and shrugged, trying to dismiss the whole situation.
It seemed to do the trick. Maddie's smile and gaze lingered on Fenton a while longer before she redirected them to the mats. "I better get this cleaned up before your father finishes. You know how clumsy he can be."
Fenton hurriedly scrambled off the mat and bent down to help his mom grab one, only for Maddie to wave him off. "But I—"
"I can handle it, sweetie, don't worry. You should sit down with Jazz. Rest."
Fenton sighed. His legs were shaking, though. Whatever skills he had unlocked within himself after losing Phantom's passive personality hadn't magically granted him stronger muscles. He and Phantom had neglected their physical body in favor of training with Phantom's cooler and easier ghost powers for too long, and the result left Fenton feeling weak and useless. He wanted to push himself. He wanted to be able to hold his own in a fight.
But one night of training past his limits wasn't going to fix that, so Fenton nodded glumly and watched his mom fold up the two mats and tuck them under her arms. It looked more awkward than difficult, but Fenton knew Maddie could just slide them down the staircase once she reached the top of the lab. She just had to get past the door—
Fenton ran ahead of his mom and pulled the back door open for her.
Maddie laughed lightly as she walked in, calling over her shoulder, "Thank you, Danny!"
Fenton forced a smile before allowing the door to swing shut. With his mom gone and his dad finishing their dinner…Fenton reluctantly allowed his gaze to fall on his sister again. She was staring at the ground instead of watching him, which was one small relief, or it would be if he wasn't so afraid of whatever it was she had noticed. Ideally he would follow his mom into the house and avoid Jazz altogether, but he needed something from her.
His feet, however, didn't seem to catch the memo. He tripped over them, torn between moving toward her and staying away. He managed to stumble forward until he caught his balance, but it earned him a strange look from Jazz.
Fenton cleared his throat and ignored it as best he could. He walked over to the bench, forcing himself to act casual as he sat down beside her.
Jazz's strange look remained unchanged.
Fenton's shoulders sagged. Yeah, he wouldn't have been fooled either. "Can I see your phone?" he asked. "I need to text…um, Sam."
"Why not use your own?" Jazz asked.
"Um, T-Tucker? Has my phone? I left my phone with him. Yeah. He said he could, uh, fix it? Or something." He clamped his mouth shut on the other words trying to complicate the lie. Wow. Smooth, Fenton.
Jazz raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Fenton forced his lips into a shaky grin. She rolled her eyes but reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. "Whatever, Danny. You know, if you broke your phone again, you'll just have to tell Mom and Dad eventually."
Fenton nodded quickly as he took the phone from his sister. That was a better cover story than anything he could have said. He would have to remember that excuse.
"Thanks," he said. He unlocked the phone—Jazz huffed as he typed in the password without hesitation—and pulled up Jazz's contacts. Sam's number was there, more as an emergency contact than for conversation, he thought, so fortunately he didn't have to try remembering her number.
Because…he definitely didn't remember her number.
Quickly, he typed: "Did you tell Phantom about Valerie's suspicions?"
He deleted the message after sending it, not wanting Jazz to find out what he and Phantom had done. Sam and Tucker might not like him and Phantom separating, but they were used to rolling with whatever happened around their half-ghost friend. They could accept the separation so long as it was temporary.
Jazz, on the other hand, would nag and scold and urge them to merge back as soon as possible. Fenton didn't need that kind of pressure. He already knew what they were doing was stupid and reckless and would probably make things ten times worse once they merged, he knew that. It was just…complicated. Jazz wouldn't understand.
"So…" Jazz started slowly. Fenton smothered a groan behind his teeth. "That was…interesting."
"What was?"
"Your training with Mom." Jazz bumped her shoulder against Fenton's. "I thought you said martial training was a waste of time because you had…" she glanced at their dad—happily humming over his barbecue—before whispering, "ghost powers."
No, Phantom had said that. Or, well, they had as one Danny, but it had been Phantom's half of the personality that believed it. Fenton shook his head. "It's just harder to learn," he said, which was half true. Physical prowess didn't come naturally to them.
…Or it hadn't, anyway.
"You looked like you were enjoying yourself," Jazz pointed out.
Fenton didn't know how to respond without handing Jazz a blatant giveaway, so he shrugged his shoulders and hoped the noncommittal answer would convince Jazz to drop it.
Of course it didn't.
"It's almost like you're a whole other person," she continued airily.
Fenton winced. Fortunately, Jazz's phone vibrated in his hands, and Fenton happily ignored the comment in favor of reading Sam's reply.
"I told him as soon as we met up at the park. He wasn't happy about it but he's still refusing to merge back. Tuck and I are working on him though."
Fenton frowned and shifted his weight on the bench.
He didn't like Phantom ignoring the problem, but he didn't think he liked Sam and Tucker pressuring Phantom either. It didn't feel right somehow. They couldn't know or even begin to understand what Phantom and Fenton were going through. To them, merging was just the natural order of things, not the end of...them. Everything Fenton and Phantom were and everything they had gone through would end. Maybe not immediately, if the past Monday was anything to go by, but in some ways that was even worse.
Jazz leaned against Fenton's side and hissed into his ear, "You split yourself again, didn't you?"
Fenton jolted, jerking his head up to stare wide-eyed at his sister. A second later, he narrowed his eyes. "No," he said, putting as much force behind the whisper as he could, "I did not."
It didn't even sound convincing to his own ears, but Jazz took things a bit farther by pointing a finger at him. "Ha! Dropping contractions is the sign of a liar!"
Fenton had only the vaguest idea of what she meant by 'contractions' but that didn't stop him from hissing back, "You made that up!"
"No, I didn't!"
"Yes, you did, you said there was no such thing."
Jazz's face puckered as if she had just tasted something sour. "Okay fine, but you're still lying."
Fenton rolled his eyes, knowing how much it would irritate Jazz. "Oh yeah? Prove it."
Instead of blowing up, however, Jazz crossed her arms over her chest and said, "The Ghost Catcher is in your room."
Fenton sucked in a breath and held it. Phantom had fled their room instead of hiding the Ghost Catcher in their closest like they had planned, so Fenton had hidden it under his bed instead. The base stuck out a bit, but Fenton thought he had hidden it well enough by draping his blanket over the prongs. He had even shut his door every time he left his room as an extra precaution.
If Jazz had seen it…
Fenton jerked away from Jazz and glared at her. "What were you doing in my room?"
"What are you doing splitting yourself in half again?" she countered.
"None of your business!" Fenton snapped. "What were you doing in my room?"
Jazz made an exasperated sound. "Getting my laptop back! You borrowed it last week and never gave it back! I wasn't trying to invade your privacy or anything."
"Your laptop wasn't under my bed!" Fenton objected, waving the hand not holding her phone. "It was on my desk."
"Yes," she whispered slowly, "and your blanket had fallen away from one of the Ghost Catcher's prongs when I went to go get it."
"So you decided to look under my bed? How is that not invading my privacy?"
"I already recognized it!" she objected. "I only looked to confirm my suspicions."
Fenton slapped his hand over his face and groaned. "What the fuck, Jazz."
"Hey, we're talking about your problems, not mine."
"We aren't talking about anything." Fenton lowered his hand back to Jazz's phone and woke it. "I'm just hiding the Ghost Catcher from Mom and Dad so they can't mess with it." His lips curled into a small, satisfied smile as he pulled up Sam's conversation again. He was getting better at half-truths.
Jazz made a sound like she was beginning to form an objection, but the word never fully formed, and half a second later, she huffed. "Fine, whatever, but why are you protecting the Ghost Catcher? From what Tucker and Sam told me, I thought you wanted Mom and Dad to fix it so that it would stop giving you weird personalities."
"Oh, uh, well…" Fenton squirmed on the bench, mentally cursing himself for celebrating too soon.
"You better not be planning on splitting yourself in half later," Jazz warned, narrowing her eyes. She muttered more quietly, "Assuming you haven't already…"
"Nnnn—" Fenton started, drawing out the sound, "—no?" He shook his head and tried to shove away the anxiety he felt whenever what he and Phantom were doing was brought up. He could do this. "I—it's none of your business, Jazz. If I want to or not, that's none of your business. I make my own choices."
Jazz pursed her lips, displeased.
She might have argued the point further, but the back door opened, and they both looked up. Maddie's face brightened upon seeing Fenton. Startled, he sat up a little straighter. He knew she had enjoyed teaching him, but training was over.
Maddie walked toward them, her gaze shifting to Jazz. "Jazz, sweetie, would you make us a side to go with the barbecue and set the table?"
Jazz's eyes darted between Fenton and their mom a few times. "Um…" She stood from the bench. "Yeah, sure."
After glancing one last time at Fenton, brow furrowed in confusion, Jazz went inside, leaving Fenton alone with their mom. Maddie took Jazz's place on the bench, and Fenton, unsure about where this was going, looked down at Jazz's phone. It had gone to sleep so its blackened screen reflected Fenton's features back at him.
"I just wanted to say," Maddie began, trying for a light-hearted tone, "that if I had known how good a fighter you were, I might have tried harder to convince you to give ghost hunting a chance. You're very good, Danny!"
Fenton shrugged, his face heating once more. He focused on his reflection and didn't meet his mother's eyes. "A lot of good a punch would do against a ghost…"
"You might be surprised…" Maddie didn't pursue the topic, though, allowing the subject to drop. "It's only…I'm very proud of you, Danny."
Fenton looked at his mom from the corner of his eyes. "Because I'm a good fighter?"
"No, sweetie." Maddie reached up and fiddled one-handed with Fenton's hair, trying to straighten it as she once had when he was younger. "For persevering. For not giving up. I've known grown men who became frustrated with the exercise and either gave up or lashed out. You kept at it for three hours and never lost track of your goal. I think that was very mature of you. I think it's a sign you'd make a great hunter."
The smile Fenton had allowed to grow froze in place. She wasn't wrong. Fenton was already a great hunter, or he was when he had Phantom's powers. But given certain context, the knowledge of knowing just who Maddie most wanted to hunt, how could he accept her praise?
"I like fighting," he admitted slowly. "I don't think I'd mind hunting ghosts." He took a deep breath and met Maddie's eyes. It was time to lay his cards out, merge or no merge. "But I won't hunt Phantom."
Maddie's hand stilled in his hair. So much warmer than Phantom's hand had been, it lingered in Fenton's hair for several long seconds before Maddie brushed her fingers through the strands one last time.
"Well," she said as she lowered her hand into her lap, "you're still training. You're not ready for a ghost of his caliber yet anyway."
Fenton narrowed his eyes, sensing the deliberate way she dodged his meaning. After stewing in his frustration for a moment, Fenton gritted his teeth and looked back down at Jazz's phone. "Was there anything else, or did you just want to belittle my choices?"
Maddie sighed. "Danny…he's a ghost."
"Duh. The glow kind of gave it away, Mom."
"Ghosts attack our town every day," Maddie continued, her voice more firm. "They have proven they can't be trusted. Even if Phantom is an outlier—which I doubt, given that he has attacked us in the past—keeping a wolf to guard your back is inviting harm on yourself and your family. It's a wild animal. You can't trust him."
"I do, though," Fenton said, almost too quietly for Maddie to hear over the sound of Jack's burgers sizzling on the grill. He stared into his reflection, amazed as his own words sank in.
He did. He was. Actively. Not just to adhere to the restrictions they had placed on each other, either. He was trusting his loving, too-smooth-for-his-own-good self to protect everyone in the town this very moment. It didn't seem so long ago he was too afraid to even take his eyes off his ghost half while Phantom wandered around his room. When had things changed?
Maddie sighed again, shaking her head. She laughed a moment later.
"Well, if he does ever turn on the town, at least strong fighters like you and Valerie will be there to stop him."
"Strong fighters?" Fenton shook his head. "Valerie maybe. I'm not sure what help I'd be."
"Don't sell yourself short, sweetie." Maddie placed a hand on Fenton's shoulder and pressed a kiss to his temple. "You're more capable than you realize."
The words made that tentative pride return again, and Fenton turned his head to smile shyly at his mom. She returned the smile before standing from the bench and walking over to help Jack finish the barbecue. Fenton watched them a moment as he chewed on his bottom lip.
He liked not being afraid of his parents. He liked looking forward to training with them instead of dreading whatever invention they had dreamed up. More than anything, he had enjoyed not having to hold anything back. He could go all out, be only himself—whoever that happened to be—and earn the praise he desperately craved, even if the source of that validation came from his parents.
Maybe…given enough time, enough good will through training, he could convince his parents Phantom was worth taking a chance on. That would be a worthwhile effort, wouldn't it?
Fenton looked down at Jazz's phone. He bit his lip and stared into his reflection's eyes. He woke the phone and deleted Sam's reply before exiting her conversation. Fenton hesitated, briefly closing his eyes and breathing slowly through the nerves fluttering inside his stomach.
He pulled up the conversation for his own phone number instead.
An icon of his face—their human face—stared back at him beside a message he and Phantom had sent Jazz when they were one. Something about a homework assignment Fenton couldn't remember anymore. The icon's blue eyes stared back at him, but unlike his reflection earlier, it was like staring at a ghost. Fenton didn't think he could ever look as cocksure and confident as that Danny did. An apprehensive shiver ran up his spine.
The nerves returned, but Fenton fought them as best he could and quickly typed, "Let's stick to the plan. I want to see this through. -Fenton"
He sent it before he could second-guess himself. He ran a hand through his hair and breathed in a shaky breath. It was so much harder to talk to Phantom now.
Which was stupid. Fenton's feelings might be changing, but the situation remained the same. Phantom was still his other half. He was still the same as Fenton, albeit with ghost powers, charm, confidence, grace…everything Fenton lacked…
But other than that—
Jazz's phone vibrated in his hand, and Fenton looked down to see Phantom had sent an old school ":D" face.
Fenton snorted, hiccuping a small laugh. He was about to reply when a second message appeared.
"Thank you"
Fenton's mind leaped, fitting the words to the voice that had whispered those same words into his ear hours ago. The one that had breathed cold air across the shell of his ear and managed to convey more meaning in his tone than through the words alone.
Fenton flushed. He dropped Jazz's phone into his lap and slapped both hands over his reddening face.
"Fuck," he choked.
Phantom cradled their phone in his hands a while longer, staring at the message Fenton had sent. Phantom wasn't sure if he should add anything else besides thank you, but that was largely how he felt, wasn't it? Relieved and grateful Fenton was willing to stick to the plan?
Certainly the excitement, hope, and curiosity he felt were emotions he should keep to himself. Despite Valerie's suspicions, their friends' disapproval, and their classmate's growing interest, Fenton was still willing to take a chance and hold out until Friday. Phantom wanted to know why. He wanted to understand because it felt as though something had changed.
It was…frustrating to be so in the dark.
"I reached the park again," Tucker's voice spoke from the Fenton Earphone. "I can't believe there are still so many people here. It's a school night, right? Doesn't look like there's any ghost activity, though."
Phantom breathed out a quiet sigh and looked at the stars above him, allowing his and Fenton's phone to sleep. Right. Duties first, emotional dilemmas later.
"It's not as though the park has office hours, Tuck," he said as he slid the phone into a belt pocket. "From what I have seen, the park doesn't usually start to clear out until after ten."
"I'll give it a cursory look and head out before then, if it's all the same to you. I don't much care for walking around here at night."
Phantom grinned. "Scared?"
"Don't even go there, ghost dude."
"What about your location, Danny?" Sam cut in.
"Ah…" Phantom had rolled onto his back and allowed his powers to float him wherever they chose the moment he realized Fenton was the one texting him. He had been above the school, but as he rolled over again and looked down, he saw Vlad's rich neighborhood stretched below him. "Above Vlad's. Figured I would include his house in case he tries something while Fenton and I are divided."
"Good idea."
It was a good idea, even if Phantom had mostly landed on it by accident. Sighing, Phantom headed toward their nemesis' house. He would only peek inside. He didn't feel confident in confronting Vlad, even by accident. Even combined and at their best, he and Fenton struggled to match the man. Mentally and physically.
"How are you holding up, Sam?" Tucker asked.
"About as well as can be expected. Bored out of my mind, but my ankle is feeling better. Are you almost to the hill?"
"Just gotta finish the circuit. I should be there in about a half hour, tops."
Phantom winced. That meant his friends would be heading home soon. Of course, it had been several hours already. They couldn't stay out all night, especially with Sam's ankle hurt the way it was, but it felt like barely any time at all, not when Phantom had a full night and a school day ahead of him. It had been nice to patrol the city together, bantering over the Fenton Earphones as though nothing had changed. It would have been nicer to just hang out, but Fenton was counting on Phantom, and their patrols had scored them two captures.
For a moment, Phantom was tempted to pull out their phone again and text Fenton exactly that, but Fenton had probably already given the phone back to Jazz. Phantom shook his head, dismissing the idea. It was just a weak excuse to try talking to Fenton again.
Still...maybe he could hang out with Tucker for a while? Play some video games in his room for an hour?
A red blur in his peripheral vision halted the suggestion before he could voice it. Curious, he turned his head and saw Valerie speeding above the houses on her hover board. Phantom raised an eyebrow, his lips thinning. He was too high up for her to have seen him, backlit by the clouds where his glow was almost indistinguishable from moonlight, but he still activated his invisibility. No need to tempt fate.
"Sam," he began slowly, "what exactly did Valerie say earlier?"
"She didn't really say anything," Sam replied, her voice crackling over the speaker, "she just looked pointedly at your human half's face and implied there was some connection between you two. Why?"
Valerie's board slowed before she hovered in front of Vlad's large house, drifting slowly toward the windows.
Phantom frowned. "Because it looks like she is paying Vlad a visit."
"Further proof she works for him?" Sam suggested, an edge to her voice.
"We already sort of knew that," Tucker pointed out. "Not really a surprise after she sold out Danielle to our 'benevolent' mayor."
"She helped me free her in the end," Phantom said.
Tucker made a noncommittal noise.
"Just watch yourself, Danny," Sam said. "Are you planning to eavesdrop?"
"Thinking about it, yes."
Only, Valerie wasn't entering the house. She peered in through a window before gliding over to the next, repeating the process as though she was looking for something. Perhaps looking for Vlad? Surely she could have walked through the front door if Vlad had been expecting her.
Whatever she was looking for, Valerie appeared to have found it by the fifth window. She backed her board a few feet away and then summoned three pink cubes to float around her head.
Phantom's eyes widened. "No—" he gasped, but the explosion came anyway, shattering Vlad's window and a fair portion of his brick wall.
"Danny?" Sam asked, sounding alarmed. "What's wrong?"
Phantom, fear rising in his chest, swallowed his own surprise. He needed to do something. "'Visiting' may have been the wrong word," he said, his voice a little shaky as he watched Valerie fly into Vlad's mansion. "She just broke into his mansion. Literally."
Sam hissed—loudly, if the Fenton Earphone was able to pick it up.
"Oh shit," Tucker breathed.
"Why would she do that?" Sam demanded.
"Maybe she's looking for information on Danielle?" Tucker suggested, uncertain. "You said she found out about half ghosts through her. Maybe she's even closer to your secret than we thought."
Phantom grimaced. Fenton wasn't going to like that.
"This may not be the best time," Tucker started slowly, "but I totally win the bet if she figures it out tonight, right?"
"Only if it doesn't lead to her breaking up with Danny."
Phantom clenched his hands into fists. The bet. He had learned of it through Fenton's memories, hazy as the finer details were, and where Fenton had accepted it as harmless bantering between friends, Phantom suspected it went deeper than that. Perhaps as a way to comfort Sam by making light of Phantom and Fenton's relationship with Valerie.
Whatever it was, he didn't like it being discussed like this in front of him.
Now wasn't the time to worry about it, though, so he pushed it aside. "I had best follow her inside to keep that from happening then, shouldn't I?" he said, a mocking edge to his own voice.
"Nice try," Sam said, "but we all know you only want to follow her so you can protect her from Vlad."
"Well...yes, partly."
"Go for it, dude!" Tucker cheered.
"No, don't," Sam hissed. "You're not yourself anymore, Danny. You're only half! If Vlad catches you now, you won't stand a chance against him. Remember Technus?"
"Oh," Tucker said, deflating, "right. Yeah, dude, better not."
Phantom gritted his teeth. "I may be 'only half', but I won't be alone. Valerie is there. I need to remove the Fenton Phone so she won't have another clue, right? I'll let you guys know how it went."
"No, we can help-"
"Danny!"
Phantom plucked the Fenton Phone from his ear and switched it off. The silence of the night pressed in on him, sudden in its enormity. There were distant sounds of traffic in the more popular parts of the city, but the rich district was as quiet as a graveyard. Probably more so. Phantom rubbed his ear while his other hand put the Earphone in an empty pocket of the utility belt.
That done, Phantom took a deep breath, composed a witty greeting in his head, and then dived for his arch nemesis' house.
Notes on tourism revenue, notes on advertisement...
Valerie shuffled through the papers on Vlad's desk for several more seconds before she grimaced in disgust and dropped the stack back onto the desk. If she had any doubts about Vlad Masters favoring profit over Amity Park's safety, all the proof she ever wanted was right there, but she already knew (suspected) her one-time idol was a jerk. His plans to turn Amity Park into a tourist attraction was just one more nail in the coffin.
It was not, however, what she had broken into his mansion for.
She doubted the drawers would hold anything else of value, but there was one locked drawer at the center of the desk that held some promise. She knelt on one knee and eyed the lock. She charged energy into her fist and was about to punch her way through (mostly because she could and because she really, really wanted to) when she felt a cold chill creep up her back. Her eyes widened. She surged to her feet, grabbed the specter by their suit and slammed them onto the desk, already pulling back a charged fist.
She was expecting the terrifying features of Masters'...ghost or whatever the Wisconsin Ghost had been. But the ghost's invisibility fell away as they grunted, and instead Valerie found herself pinning a young man's body to the desk, his white hair, green eyes, and all too familiar features striking her like a blow.
"You," she gasped, leaning back. Phantom smiled at her, a winsome expression that was also all too familiar. Valerie pulled her lips back from her teeth and drove the heel of her palm harder into his collarbone. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing, Val," he said, his stupid grin not abating. "Breaking and entering is not usually your style."
A surge of energy caused electricity to spark around her raised fist, and Phantom's grin finally faltered as he flinched. Valerie growled through her teeth, "What I do or don't do is none of your business, ghost."
Phantom looked for a moment like he wanted to object, but another flash of sparks made him raise his hands, palms up in surrender. "Yes, yes, of course, you're a wonderfully skilled ghost hunter and I am a ghost—no business crossing here. But you must admit, breaking into the mayor's mansion is pretty suspicious. The last time we were here, you insisted that Vlad Masters was a good man."
Valerie gritted her teeth together and sucked in a ragged breath through her nose. She didn't make a noise and she didn't think Phantom could see through her tinted faceplate, but his expression softened. One of his hands abandoned the universal surrender sign to lightly wrap around her wrist instead.
"Is everything alright, Val?" he asked, his voice achingly gentle beneath the echo.
Valerie released his jumpsuit and snatched her hand back. "Peachy," she snarled. "Or it was before you showed up. Don't you have adoring fans to bait?"
"Oh, a hundred screaming fans could never compare to a moment spent in your company, Val." Phantom smiled again, more slyly than before. Valerie jerked back a step. Without her hand holding him in place, Phantom shifted in the limited space between them until he was able to sit on the desk.
Valerie shifted another step backward, and her thigh bumped against the computer chair she had pulled from Vlad's desk earlier. She didn't need this. Phantom was way off script, flirting where he should be bantering, soft where he should be demanding answers... It was giving her a headache. If not for his confident delivery, Valerie could almost believe Danny and Phantom had swapped personalities.
Valerie bared her teeth at the thought and stomped forward, regaining the ground she had surrendered. "What do you want, Phantom? Why are you here?"
"I just happened to see your...dramatic entrance earlier." He shrugged, feigning an ease that didn't match how tightly he sat on the desk. "I figured there must be a reason and I came to offer my help."
"Your help," Valerie echoed, her tone tainting the words with all the skepticism she could manage. "Your help?"
"We have helped each other in the past," Phantom pointed out.
"With ghosts, not with this."
"And what is 'this'?"
Valerie stared at him, her fists clenched at her side. "Why would I tell you that?"
"Come on, Val. Aren't we friends?"
"No."
The curt, quick answer made the ghost wince, but Valerie felt no satisfaction from it. Where had he even gotten the idea? They were sometimes allies at most. Just the other day she had wanted to shoot him through a brick wall. There was nothing friendly between them, no matter how many truces they made during the heat of battle.
"Allies, then," Phantom amended.
"Sometimes."
"More than—"
"And not right now."
Phantom drew in a deep breath—did he need to breathe?—and tipped his head back. "Look, I can help you. If you had only asked, I could have gotten you through the wall without destroying it and putting yourself on a time limit. Or do you think Vlad doesn't have a security system that alerted him and the police the moment the blast went off? Don't let the lack of an alarm fool you. He uses a silent one."
Of course she knew he had a security system—all the rich bastards had one. Vlad was working overnight at his office, however, so the risk was worth it. The police could never catch her, but even if they did, she had enough clout with them to blame it on a ghost attack.
Valerie crossed her arms and didn't offer Phantom a response.
"Okay, look." Phantom slid off the desk, turning his unguarded back on Valerie. He pulled the locked drawer and its contents free from the desk in one fluid, intangible motion. He turned back to her and held the drawer out like an offering. "See? I can help you find what you need faster than you can alone. Whatever it is."
Valerie stared hard at the ghost before allowing her gaze to drop to the drawer. She had been expecting printed paper like the ones on Vlad's desk, but inside the drawer nestled only a small notebook. She took in a long breath and frowned at it for a moment before grabbing the notebook and stuffing it into a side pocket.
The notebook might hold the answer she was looking for, but she couldn't be sure and she didn't have time to look through it. The police wouldn't arrest her, but they would put an end to her search. She needed a quicker process, a more surefire target while she was here. Phantom could help with that.
...Of course, he could also sabotage her in the process, but she was already prepared to keep a close eye on him, waiting and watching for confirmation to a theory she had barely begun to form.
"Fine," Valerie said, glaring at Phantom even as the ghost's face brightened at her acceptance. "But I'm not telling you anything. If we're doing this, you need to keep your questions. To. Your. Self."
Phantom raised an eyebrow, his expression falling slightly at her tone. He still nodded, however, accepting her terms without arguing. It was a little surprising. Frustrating, because she didn't understand the change. She and Phantom often butted heads over matters such as this, but if he was going to follow her lead this one time without complaint, all the better. She didn't have time for anything less.
"I need to get into his lab," she said. "Can you get us in there without using the Fenton Portal?"
Phantom smirked. "Easily."
He set the drawer back in the desk and then held out his hand. Valerie stared at it, her lips pressed into a tight line. Of course Phantom needed to have some sort of contact with her in order to spread his abilities over her, he had explained as much the last time they had broken into Vlad's mansion together, and, of course, she had shaken his hand many times before. They did it frequently to setup a truce. But now felt...different.
Valerie raised her eyes to stare at Phantom's face. It was harder to see at night, in a dark room, when Phantom's glow was so much brighter, his ghostly appearance so much stronger, but Valerie could still pick out the features she had seen when Phantom had crouched beside Danny in the cafeteria, invisible until the moment she saw the two of them side-by-side. The same jaw, the same nose, the same shape of their eyes...
She had seen Danny and Phantom acting independently, they couldn't be like Danielle, it couldn't be true.
…But she had also seen Vlad and the Wisconsin Ghost in the same room together, and if Vlad and Danny had shared the same kind of accident…were they like Danielle? Or was something else going on?
Valerie grabbed Phantom's hand. His smile widened, and Valerie squeezed his fingers in warning. She might have given him a more verbal warning as well—something along the lines of reminding him she had a boyfriend—but Phantom lifted them into the air, and Valerie filed it away for later.
Flying with a ghost wasn't pleasant. There was no buffeting wind, no physical resistance, no gravity that could impede them. Vertigo was almost a guarantee. Still, it was effective. Phantom had turned the two of them intangible in seconds, and with solid things like walls and hidden doors no longer an obstacle, Phantom shot them through the halls of Vlad's mansion faster than Valerie ever could have on her own, even flying on her hoverboard.
Valerie gritted her teeth as her stomach roiled. It was effective, but unpleasant.
Fortunately, it didn't take long before Phantom was setting them down on the ground again. Valerie's boots clicked against the metal tiles, but Phantom's own landed with barely a sound. Absently, she shook free of Phantom's grasp and looked around, reacquainting herself with her once benefactor's secret lab. She wasn't sure if it had always looked so sinister and she had just been distracted or if her eyes were truly seeing it for the first time.
With nowhere better to start, Valerie approached the giant monitors. There was bound to be information somewhere in Vlad's database.
Phantom watched Valerie wake Vlad's multiple monitors and released a soft breath. His attempt to earn Valerie's acceptance for his and Fenton's benefit didn't seem to be going well, to put it lightly. If she did know of his and Fenton's shared past, her current antagonism toward him didn't bode well for their relationship. Hopefully Fenton would be able to salvage something, because at the moment it seemed something about Phantom was irritating her.
More so than usual, at any rate.
Phantom floated to her side and didn't miss the way her shoulders tensed at his approach. "If you tell me what it is you're searching for," he said slowly, "I can help you look."
Valerie scowled at him, and Phantom tactfully let the matter drop. That she was accepting even a portion of his help was a good sign. Probably.
He looked down at the keyboard. It was ridiculously big and curved along the table, but that was Vlad, ostentatious as ever. Valerie's fingers flew over the keys as she tried password after password, trying to log into the server.
"Try 'Madeline Masters,'" Phantom suggested, forcing his voice to sound casual.
Valerie gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged without offering an explanation. Mostly because he didn't want to think about it.
It became harder to not think about when Valerie entered the name and it worked.
Then Maddie appeared beside Phantom. Phantom jerked back, gasping. A second later he realized he could see through her. Phantom cringed and regretfully acknowledge he wouldn't be escaping Vlad's obsession for a while. Gross. Vlad had a hologram of Maddie...Phantom had almost forgotten, or perhaps scrubbed the knowledge from his mind. He grimaced
"Welcome home, Sweetums," the hologram said, beaming, her gaze directed at Valerie but aimed above her head.
"Maddie Fenton?" Valerie choked. "He has a life-size hologram of Maddie Fenton?"
"Is there anything you need, my sweet?" the hologram asked, still using Maddie's stolen voice and pitching it into an unnaturally sweet tone that made Phantom's teeth grind.
"Uh..." Valerie forcefully shook her head. "Okay, you know what? Fine. This is just too freaky, but whatever. So Vlad's a total basket case and I'm the last to know about it. Fine. But if he had stuff on Maddie, then he probably has stuff on the other Fentons, right?"
Phantom glanced at her, his eyes narrowing. "What—"
"Give me all the information you have on Daniel Fenton," Valerie commanded, speaking over him.
Phantom drew in a breath. That was not good. "Valerie—"
"Voice pattern not recognized," the hologram said cheerfully.
"Voice—he uses voice recognition?" Valerie snarled, frustration turning her voice into a growl.
Phantom breathed out a (very quiet) sigh of relief. That was too close. He glanced at Valerie, wishing he could see her expression through the tinted faceplate. "You broke into Vlad's mansion to dig up information on your boyfriend?" he asked, trying to sound incredulous and not bloody terrified.
Fenton and Sam must have been right. She was close to their secret.
Well...the official one.
Valerie turned her head towards him, allowing him to see into her mask and witness her eyes narrowing, her lips pulling into an angry, thin line. He waited for her to say something, but after glaring at him for several seconds, she turned to the computers and began typing furiously on the keyboard.
Phantom floated a little closer. "Because I am fairly sure asking him would have been safer."
Valerie ground her teeth together but didn't remove her attention from the computer. It seemed as though she was having difficulty finding a relevant file. Most of what popped onto the screen were blueprints, project citations, and one or two files on other ghosts such as Skulker.
"He's lying to me," Valerie finally bit out. "What's the point of asking a liar anything?"
Phantom licked his lips and darted his gaze away from her. "What makes you think he is lying to you?"
"None of your business, Phantom."
Ah...of course not.
Phantom crossed his arms over his chest and allowed his gaze to roam more freely around the lab. His eyes landed on the Maddie hologram. Her own gaze had left the space above Valerie's head and had settled on his face instead. Phantom stiffened. He circled around to Valerie's other side, and the hologram's eyes followed.
"Um," he started.
"Well that's something," Valerie snapped.
Phantom turned back to the computers. Valerie had managed to pull up a video that read Fenton Works along the taskbar. The video itself showed a high definition picture of Jack and Maddie fiddling with blueprints and several metal scraps on the lab counter. Phantom widened his eyes and drifted closer to the monitors.
"Mom?"
Phantom sucked in a sharp breath as Fenton entered the picture from the direction of the stairs. Beside Phantom, Valerie stilled, as rigid as a statue.
"Is there any non-contaminated ice cream?" Fenton continued, unaware of his audience.
"Not in the kitchen, dear," Maddie answered, looking up from the blueprints so that the overhead lights briefly reflected off her red goggles. "Check the freezer in the OP Center."
"Right..." Maddie returned to her work and Fenton turned around, but after taking a couple steps, he hesitated. He turned around again. The uneasy caution on his face was visible even viewed through the lens of whatever spy camera Vlad was using. "What, uh, what are you guys making?"
Jack perked up immediately. "It's something for Valerie's—"
"Jack, you wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
"Oh right. Sorry, Dan-O! You'll just have to wait and see!"
Fenton nodded slowly, his uncertainty still visible, but he left the lab without further comment, and Jack and Maddie returned to their work.
"Cameras," Phantom finally managed to gasp out. "He's—Vlad—he is spying on..."
How much did Vlad know? How much had he seen?
He could know about Phantom's and Fenton's separation, he could know about the kiss, the practices, he could have seen—
Phantom felt his skin crawl, the sensation rushing up his spine, toward his mouth where he promptly gagged on his revulsion.
"He's after the Fentons' inventions," Valerie whispered, her voice strained. "He's a liar and a thief!"
Phantom nodded but he had to take several deep breaths before he could trust himself to ask, "Does he only have the one camera in the lab?" Several breaths or not, his voice still shook as he spoke the words. Vlad had shown no qualms about filming them through Valerie's suit or about cloning them, how much farther would he go? Could he have put a camera in their room?
Phantom hadn't eaten anything since his and Fenton's separation, but he still felt his stomach heave a warning, and he quickly covered his mouth.
"Why would he have cameras anywhere else?" Valerie asked, impatiently already scanning the other files on the monitor.
Phantom cautiously lowered his hand and took a few more breaths. "Because he has a hologram of Maddie Fenton and a password where his last name replaces Jack's."
Valerie looked at him, her eyes narrowed. "You think he's so obsessed he'd spy on her?"
Her and her son.
Phantom swallowed his disgust and managed a nonchalant shrug. "I've learned not to put anything past him."
Valerie's lips pressed into a thin line. She was silent a moment, but only for a moment. "You know him better than I do," she finally said, her tone devoid of emotion. She turned back to the computers.
As it happened, Vlad had one more camera hiding inside the kitchen light fixture, but by opening the file, Valerie gained access to its controls. Namely, it's ability to crawl from the light and fly into the living room.
It was mobile. It could have gone anywhere in the house, seen anything, been anywhere.
At that point, Phantom had to brace himself against the counter and place a hand over his face. It was all too much. Nothing had been confirmed about what Vlad had recorded, but the possibility that Vlad had seen into their private lives was more than enough to make Phantom's skin itch.
"Creep," Valerie muttered.
Phantom nodded, speechless.
"I should warn the Fentons."
Phantom sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "If you mention Vlad's involvement, Jack won't believe you. Maddie might not either."
"What about Danny?"
"Fenton would, yes, so would Jazz, but if they destroy the cameras, Vlad could just send more. You must tell Jack and Maddie that a ghost is bugging their house. Once they find the cameras, their paranoia will keep them alert and safe until they invent something that will do it for them."
Valerie frowned at him. "You sound like you have experience working around them."
Phantom smiled wryly. "You could say that."
"For how long?"
Phantom's wry amusement faded. That question sounded too casual. He frowned. "How long what?"
Valerie maneuvered the mouse with far more care than necessary, careful not to look at him. "How long have you been protecting the Fentons?"
Ah...
Phantom tilted his head to the side and studied Valerie's posture from a different angle. She was tense, which wasn't surprising, given their location and what they just discovered, but she had also begun to lean toward Phantom, the computers and the answers they held ignored for the moment.
"Do you mean to ask," Phantom began slowly, "how long have I been protecting Danny Fenton?"
Valerie scowled.
Bingo.
Phantom grinned. "I think I have endangered him more often than I have protected him, to be honest."
Valerie rolled her eyes. "How long have you been 'endangering' him, then?"
"Since the portal accident." Valerie sucked in a breath, and Phantom huffed a short laugh. "That is what you were getting at?"
"You were there?" she asked, breathless. "What happened?"
"An accident." When Valerie scowled again, Phantom held up his hands. His grin didn't alleviate the aggression in her stance, but Phantom couldn't help it. It seemed he enjoyed getting a rise out of the people he was attracted to. "I wish I could tell you more, Val, but..." His grin slipped, replaced by a troubled expression. "But it was...very confusing."
His memories of the accident were disorienting at best. He and Fenton often relied on Sam's and Tucker's retelling of the events, both before and after, but...while Sam and Tucker had been inside the lab, they hadn't seen inside the portal, the tunnel. They had only seen the explosion and heard Fenton scream.
Not that there was likely more to it than that. An explosion of ectoplasm? A scream? A former full human steps out of the portal with ghost powers? The conclusion was an easy one to reach, even with only comic books to fall back on. Phantom's muddled memories were likely unreliable. If he had heard two screams, it was probably the result of Fenton's voice echoing off the tunnel walls.
"Did Danny change at all?" Valerie asked.
Phantom hummed thoughtfully, to buy himself time. If Valerie was asking him a question like that, she was probably still searching for the connection between him and Fenton. He would have to be careful, but maybe it wasn't as desperate as Fenton and Sam seemed to think. "Besides the ecto-signature he picked up?" he asked, playing along. "I didn't notice anything."
Valerie frowned, her expression pensive, but she didn't ask anything else. There was obviously more, something she was searching for in his face, but apparently it wasn't something she felt Phantom could (or would) answer because a moment later she turned back to the monitors.
Not good.
Phantom bit back a groan. "Val, we should leave."
"Then leave." She opened a different folder on the monitors, one that was also labeled under 'Cameras.' "I'm not going until I get my answers."
"Well what answers are you after?" he asked, trying not to sound impatient. He had hoped details on the portal accident was all she was after, that he could lure her away from the mansion with that, but if that wasn't enough...
"None of your—"
"Business, yes, I know, you said as much, but Vlad and the cops will be here any minute." Phantom braced his hands on the counter and looked at the monitors, Valerie, and then at the hologram of Maddie. "We need to hurry. Just tell me so I can help you."
Valerie scowled. "No, because you..."
She trailed off. Another video was playing, this time of Phantom—the true, half ghost Danny Phantom who looked too focused on the fight on-screen to be the Phantom watching it—throw an ectoblast at the one wielding the camera. Or the one who had been bugged with a camera, anyway. Phantom remembered seeing the same video sequence play on Vlad's screen when he had kidnapped Fenton and Phantom during his clone obsession. Phantom knew who was recording the footage of the video. The next sequenced video played, and he knew who had shot that one as well.
He glanced at Valerie and could see from her widening eyes and stiffened posture that she did too, but it was the moment the videos of Danny Phantom fighting the Red Huntress came together to form a 3D model of Valerie's enemy that she flinched away from the computer. Lines pointed to various parts of Phantom's body as notes scrawled across the screen, but Phantom didn't want to read any of it. He had seen it all before. He didn't want to see it again. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back on the screens.
"He used me to spy on you," Valerie whispered, sounding as though the breath had been punched from her lungs.
Phantom nodded, frowning. "I'm not sure how he got a camera on your old suit, but it looks that way. He likely noticed how inclined you were to fight me and took advantage of the situation." He glanced at Valerie from the corner of his eye, careful not to look at the monitors too. "I was never sure if you had agreed to it or not."
"Of course I didn't! I—" She broke off, torn and confused and perhaps a little horrified.
Not that Phantom could blame her. "That isn't surprising." Phantom sighed and glared down at his boots. "Vlad is not someone who asks for permission."
"But why was he spying on you? What is this?" She gestured at the monitors. "What was he after? Why is he spying on the Fentons? Why is he—why is he doing any of this?"
Phantom smiled wryly. "Do you want his answer or mine?" He looked up in time to catch Valerie's frown. "I did ask, once. He said, 'All I have ever wanted was love.'" Phantom shook his head. "Loneliness can drive a man to do bad things, I suppose."
Valerie's features were too hidden for Phantom to read any subtle emotions in her expression, but a moment later she asked, "And what do you think?"
"I think he only cares about what he wants. When that inevitably pushes people away, he blames them instead of himself." Phantom cracked a smile. "He is, as Fenton likes to call him, a 'Froot Loop.'" He spun one finger around his ear to demonstrate. "Crazy. Mad. Nuts. A complete jerk. And probably some unkind swear words thrown into the mix."
Valerie blew a puff of air through her lips. "Danny knows about Vlad too then?"
"Yes. He would have to. Vlad wants his mom." And he wanted her half ghost son to join him in villainy, but that would take too long to explain. "The only one who doesn't know in that family is Jack."
"At least I wasn't the only one," she muttered, but she didn't sound pleased about it. She sounded angry. She leaned onto the counter, hunching her shoulders forward. "I'm such an idiot."
Phantom twisted to face her, frowning in concern. "Val?"
"I'm such a fucking idiot," she repeated, her hands clenching into fists.
"You're not the only one he—"
"He used me!" she shouted, rounding on Phantom. "He was using me from the beginning and I let him! I believed him, I thought I was special, I thought he actually saw something in me worthwhile."
"You are—"
"I'm a gullible fool who almost got a little girl killed because I trusted this—this—" Valerie waved her hand at Vlad's monitors, trying to find a word.
"...Creep?" Phantom suggested.
"This asshole!" Valerie shouted instead.
Phantom hummed and inclined his head.
"Just because he said a few nice words and, and said he saw something in me no one else had, but all that time he was just—" She gestured violently at the monitors again, but this time her eyes followed and stayed locked on the screen, allowing the rest of her sentence to trail off.
Phantom looked at the screens to see what had captured her attention. Another video was playing, but this one was different from the others. For one, the Red Huntress was flying closer to the ground, and for another, she was chasing Danny Fenton, not Danny Phantom. Phantom frowned, confused. On screen, the Red Huntress fired her blaster, and Fenton—Danny—dodged the blasts more skillfully than the present Valerie expected he was capable, given the little sound she made beside Phantom. Finally the memory connected for Phantom.
It was the week they had started dating and hanging out with Valerie last year, back when Technus had taken control of Valerie's ghost hunting gear and used it to attack them. More than being forced to run away as a human to avoid Valerie finding out their secret, Phantom mostly remembered the frustration and disappointment he felt when he realized Technus really had been pushing him and Valerie together. It had pulled into question all that he had been feeling up to that point and left him with a sour taste in his mouth.
"What is he doing now?" Valerie demanded, exasperated.
Phantom returned his attention to the video and saw Danny's form and movements being dissected on the screen the same way their ghost form had been. He grimaced, reminded that Vlad had compiled the videos for the purpose of cloning him and Fenton. Of course he would record Fenton's half of their transformation if the opportunity ever presented itself. Their human body moved differently than their ghost. Their last merge had been a brutal reminder of that fact.
Notes began to scrawl across the screen again, words like "human form" and "ghost powers" catching Phantom's eyes. He drew in a breath and reached for the mouse, but Valerie was faster. She glared at Phantom, removing her gaze from the screen at the crucial moment Fenton's and Phantom's forms were presented side-by-side for comparison.
Phantom smiled as charmingly as he could. "I just thought we could hurry this along. Vlad and the cops—"
"I heard you the first time," Valerie interrupted impatiently.
Phantom floated backward, and Valerie twisted to keep him in her sights, just as he had hoped. For whatever reason, humans seemed to have a hard time looking away from him. "Then perhaps we could move this along? You have dug up quite a bit of dirt on Vlad, so perhaps we could—"
Valerie scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I didn't come here to find out if he was a bad person, I already knew that."
The screen behind her changed to show a 3D rendering of what Phantom imagined was supposed to be human DNA and ghost DNA side-by-side. There were words there too, something about differences between the two, but Phantom didn't dare read Vlad's notes in case his attention drew Valerie's back to the screen.
He blinked and brought his gaze back to Valerie. "You knew? Then why would you risk coming here? Valerie, he's dangerous."
"Duh! In more ways than one, obviously."
Phantom frowned. Valerie's expression was, as ever, hard to read behind her face mask, but her body language screamed her agitation. She hadn't turned back to the computers, thankfully, but it wouldn't take long if he didn't distract her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
She crossed her arms over her chest, fingers gripping her biceps. "I saw him," she said quietly.
"'Saw him?'"
"I came back to make sure Masters was alright and I saw him—them," she spat the word, "whatever they were. He was fake all along."
"You're not making any sense, Val," Phantom said cautiously. "When was this?"
Valerie glared at him, appearing to debate with herself as she studied his face. Whatever conclusion she reached, it wasn't in Phantom's favor because the next moment she spun to face the computer again. Phantom cringed, but thankfully the video only had a few more seconds of notes on the DNA sequences before it ended. He bit his lip as he waited to see if Valerie would backtrack to what she had missed, but apparently she hadn't understood the significance of the DNA well enough to be curious. She exited the file, and Phantom blew out a quiet sigh of relief.
"Right after we saved Danielle," Valerie said as she began to search through the files. "I saw Vlad and the Wisconsin Ghost laughing together about how, how easy I was to fool." Phantom winced. "Then the ghost absorbed Masters as if that...kind old man I had looked up to was never anything more than an illusion."
"Val—"
"Yesterday, the Fentons mentioned Danny's oddities after an accident, an accident Vlad also had a long time ago, and now I'm thinking there was more to what I saw. A lot more." Valerie hovered her mouse over a new folder that read DANIELLE. Horror crashed over Phantom, and he gasped in a breath. "Something like what that girl—"
Phantom grabbed Valerie's hand and jerked the mouse away from the folder. She rounded on him, fury in her eyes, and Phantom had to fight not to flinch. Be like Fenton, he thought, clinging to his memories of Fenton's fierce expression. He wouldn't let her do this. You can't let her do this. He met her eyes and held her hand still when she tried jerking the mouse free.
"Val," he said, speaking slowly, "please. Leave her out of this."
Valerie tried jerking the mouse free again, but Phantom held firm, and she scowled. "You said you would help!"
"She's...she's my cousin," Phantom objected. "I won't let you go behind her back like this. If there is something you wish to know, you should ask her yourself."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Valerie said, sweet sarcasm tainting her tone, "I didn't realize you had a way to contact her. Silly me! Why don't you give me her phone number and I'll get right on that?" Phantom hesitated, and Valerie huffed a harsh laugh. "Thought so. What's the big deal anyway? I already know about her ghost powers."
Phantom clenched his jaw. Valerie wouldn't just learn about his and Fenton's secret, she would learn about Danielle's. Dani's real secret. Dani's life was hard enough as it was, she didn't need the one person who knew about her human and ghost halves to learn about how she had been created in a lab as well. Not like this. Not without her permission.
"Ask about something else, Val," he said. "Ask me about whatever it is you think Danielle's file might offer if you must, but ask something else."
Valerie glared at him, and Phantom matched her expression as best he could. He wasn't as good at it as Fenton, but for Dani, he would hold his ground. Valerie looking into Dani's file while Phantom just stood by, watching her, helping her...it would be wrong. He didn't need Fenton to shake sense into him, he knew where the line was this time.
Valerie must have realized he wouldn't budge because she folded on the next breath, dropping her gaze from Phantom's and glaring at the screen instead. "Fine. But if you're not going to let me see her file, at least answer me this: was Danielle unstable because she was a human and a ghost? The Fentons swear that shouldn't be possible, and clearly she wasn't in great shape, but she was still more than they thought possible."
Phantom carefully removed his hand from Valerie's and tilted his head to the side, considering. The easy answer was no, Dani was unstable because she was a clone, but could that be the reason? Vlad had been desperate for the midmorph DNA after all, saying it could be used to stabilize her. That implied it was some sort of binding agent, and if that was the case, it meant Dani was unstable because her human and ghost DNA couldn't bind themselves together without that final DNA sequence.
So had she been unstable because she was a clone or because human and ghost DNA were incompatible without that final strand?
Phantom sighed and shook his head. "It could be. But it might be something else too, something she wouldn't want me to talk about without clearing it with her first."
"Would Vlad know?"
Phantom gritted his teeth. "Yes."
"It would be in his database."
"...Yes."
"But you won't let me read it."
"No."
Valerie scowled at him, visible even through her faceplate, and Phantom pinched his eyes shut, blocking the sight.
"Some help you're turning out to be," she muttered.
Phantom's eyes flashed open. "I brought you down here, Val," he said, biting out the words, "but that does not mean I have to stand back and watch you violate Danielle's privacy. She's suffered enough at Vlad's hand. She deserves better than this from you."
Valerie stiffened.
The door to the lab slid open, allowing bright warm light to spill into the dim room, and a voice called out in a falsely cheerful tone, "So wonderful to have such talented youth protecting our city from pests and robbers. I suppose the intruder has been apprehended, hm?"
Torn between relief and apprehension, Phantom hesitantly allowed his gaze to slide from Valerie to Vlad as the man walked into the lab and the hidden passageway slid closed behind him. Vlad had forced a kind smile on his face, but Phantom wasn't fooled. From the way Valerie shifted at his side, she wasn't either.
"So who was it?" Vlad continued as he advanced toward them. "A rogue ghost, perhaps? Something strong enough to require both your efforts but not so strong the ensuing battle would damage my property? Why, if not for the gaping hole in my study, I could almost believe no one had broken in at all." He stopped a yard away from Valerie and Phantom and clasped his hands behind his back, still smiling cheerfully. "A bit excessive, don't you think? Ghosts don't usually need to break anything to enter a private home, but who else but a ghost could reach the second floor without equipment?"
Right. Vlad wasn't an idiot. He knew exactly what had happened. But if Phantom could just—
Valerie darted forward, and Phantom only barely managed to catch her shoulders before she could throw herself at Vlad. Pulling against Phantom's hold, Valerie spat vile insults at Vlad, referencing what they had seen in the lab between insults like "you fucking creep" and "jealous, lonely, asshole."
Phantom cringed, not only because Valerie was proving to have as vile a mouth as Fenton (maybe worse), but also because Vlad's false smile had fallen and his expression was darkening considerably.
"Valerie," Phantom hissed. She ignored him. "Valerie."
Would Vlad expose himself if they fought? Phantom wasn't sure he could hold the older hybrid off. He had never seen Vlad murder before, but given the violence he had seen from him over the years, he didn't doubt the man capable. If Valerie revealed how much she knew, incomplete as it was, Vlad might very well dispose of her to keep her quiet.
Phantom pushed Valerie back and slid himself into position between her and Vlad. Vlad's hard glare transferred to Phantom's face, and Valerie paused to gather breath, her own hidden face also turning to Phantom.
"I would suggest," Vlad said coldly, "that you reconsider your current course, Miss Gray. I hear your father is in a very vulnerable position right now."
Valerie gasped.
Phantom winced himself. Blackmail was Vlad's preferred method. He shouldn't be surprised, but all the same...he glanced at Valerie.
He couldn't see the tears in her eyes, but he heard the strain in her voice as she said, "If you hurt him, if you fire him without cause, I'm going straight to the press."
Vlad lifted an eyebrow, still staring at Phantom. A question. Phantom raised his chin and inched closer to Valerie.
Vlad sighed explosively. "Oh, very well. I won't press any charges on your little breaking and entering...this time. But if you tell anyone—and I do mean anyone—about what you saw here, I'll have no choice. Are we understood?"
Stiffly, Valerie nodded.
"Good." Vlad jerked his chin toward the hidden passage. "Then I suggest you leave. I have already dealt with the police. I myself will fix the hole you created, you needn't worry, I know how much you and your father are already struggling just to feed yourselves. I wouldn't want to make matters worse over a...little misunderstanding, hmm?"
Valerie breathed in a shaky breath. Through gritted teeth, she growled, "I can't believe I ever looked up to you."
"Yes, that's nice. Now, run along."
Valerie jerked her arm free from Phantom's grasp and ran for the exit, not looking back even as Phantom remained pinned beneath Vlad's gaze.
As soon as the lab door boomed shut behind Valerie, Vlad said in a neutral tone, "You are playing a dangerous game, Daniel."
Phantom shifted on his feet, uneasy. He was better equipped than Fenton to handle any word play Vlad attempted, but in the lab alone with him... He glanced behind Vlad, but Valerie was already gone. He blew out a quiet breath and faced his and Fenton's enemy, forcing his lips into a smile.
"I would have kept her from finding our secret if—"
"Not that!" Vlad snapped, startling Phantom. The man started pacing, and Phantom frowned, confused. "I mean that...that thing Jack invented. Ridiculous looking creation. He probably designed it himself. Maddie would never create something that looked so childish."
"They have invented a lot of things, Vlad," Phantom began slowly, "you will need to be more specific."
"The invention that looks like an oversized dreamcatcher, what else? The invention you used to merge your human and ghost forms together, the one you presumably used to split yourself apart in the first place."
Phantom widened his eyes and felt that uncomfortable twisting in his gut again. "How do you know about that?" he asked.
"Never mind that! You damn, foolish child, do you not realize how dangerous that was?"
Phantom raised an eyebrow. He had never heard Vlad swear before. The man was even still pacing, appearing more agitated by the second. "Dangerous?"
"Yes! Without the emotions of your human half, your ghost half could have become violent. He could have attacked you or anyone else in that house—in the city! Our human selves keep our ghost halves rational, controlled. You cannot simply rip yourself apart to fix some ridiculous teenage drama." Vlad scoffed at the very idea, rolling his eyes. "As you have no doubt noticed by how much you struggled to pull yourself together, it is clearly far more trouble than it is worth."
Phantom...found his lips beginning to stretch into a grin. Vlad? Was afraid of him? Phantom? Perhaps Phantom hadn't been too keen on heroing when he and Fenton separated on Saturday, but Fenton had set him straight. And anyway, he certainly hadn't wanted to hurt anyone. At worst, he had been apathetic to their plight because it hadn't felt real to him. But cause harm himself? He didn't even enjoy fighting.
More importantly, it seemed Vlad didn't know he and Fenton had separated again. It sounded as if he had only seen them merge the once—likely through the spycam in the basement. Which meant the private details of Fenton and Phantom's feelings were still their own.
"I think we're—I'm safe from my ghost half, Vlad," Phantom said. "He's more of a lover than a fighter, honestly."
Vlad scowled at him. "This is serious, Daniel. You ought to destroy that device."
Phantom's grin fell away as he grimaced. "What are you so afraid of? We were separate the whole weekend and I—he never showed any interest in hurting anyone."
"The whole week—Daniel!"
Phantom rolled his eyes.
"You cannot simply split yourself like that for an extended period of time!"
"It really isn't that big a deal," Phantom said, trying to cut off the lecture he knew was coming. Vlad wasn't any sort of relation, friend, or even a favorite enemy. Did Phantom really need to hear this from him too? "You never even met my ghost half, how can you be so sure he is—or was—unstable?"
Vlad looked at him pityingly. "Because all ghosts are the same. They all desire power. Surely you have noticed this by now. Even you are prey to it."
Phantom tilted his head and eyed Vlad thoughtfully. He could almost believe the man knew about the failed future he and Fenton had averted, the one where Phantom had become so evil the Ghost Zone's higher ups had gotten involved, all because Phantom had merged with Plasmius and—
Huh.
"Are you sure this has something to do with me?" Phantom asked. "Because it sounds like you have experience with this. Personal experience." Vlad finally paused in his pacing, his shoulders tense. "Vlad...did you split yourself?"
Vlad turned to face him, his eyebrows furrowed. "Do you honestly believe you were the only one who thought getting rid of these powers would get us what we wanted? Of course I tried splitting myself! I knew Maddie would struggle to accept a ghost for a husband, it seemed the only way I could move forward. But to destroy all that power would have been such a waste..."
He sighed and shook his head. "It was a mistake. Listen to me, for once, Daniel. Our only choices are to accept what we have become or to destroy what we created. Our ghost halves are not like us. They can't be trusted."
Phantom absorbed the information quietly, allowing it to reshape his view of Vlad. But only slightly. He was still a froot loop. It was just...oddly comforting to know the only other hybrid in existence had also once walked this path. He had reached a different outcome, sure, and one that apparently traumatized him, but at least Phantom's and Fenton's choices weren't as bizarre as they had believed.
Fenton might appreciate that.
"I understand better than you might expect," Phantom said, speaking quietly. "Believe me, I have seen how destructive an out of control ghost can be. But my situation is different."
Vlad rolled his eyes skyward and groaned. "Of course you would think that, you're only fifteen."
"Sixteen," Phantom corrected, "as of, like, eight months ago. You sent me a hundred dollar bill and I used to buy my dad a gift, remember?"
Vlad muttered under his breath.
"The situation is different for me because I, unlike you, am not a lonely old guy obsessed with another man's wife."
Vlad scowled.
Phantom smirked before continuing, "It is also different because the Ghost Catcher doesn't just split our human and ghost halves. It divides our personality between them. Perhaps it would be different if we used whatever invention you created, but our parents' invention isn't perfect. It can't make a perfect split, and the result is..." he trailed off, unsure himself what exactly was happening to them. "Well...not whatever you experienced. I mean, I don't think either of us is like the original Danny anymore, for one."
He smiled sheepishly, but Vlad had stiffened and didn't appear to find the expression as charming as Phantom had hoped.
"'Anymore?'" the older man asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Ah..."
Whoops.
"You split yourself again," Vlad stated. He began stalking toward Phantom.
Phantom lifted off the ground and floated backward, keeping his distance. "Well, yes," Phantom admitted. "But, like I said, I am not interested in hurting anyone. I don't even like fighting. Ask Fenton, he received the fighter's half of our personality. Or most of it."
"You expect me to trust you?"
Helplessly, Phantom shrugged. "It seems I am constantly forcing people into that position, so yes, I suppose you will have to. Fenton and I are not meant to merge until Friday."
"Three days from now?" Vlad demanded, incredulous.
"Yes? Look." Phantom held up his hands, palms forward. "You can think of it as a trial run. I am not your ghost half, I'm Fenton's. Or Danny's. Whatever. Point is, I haven't done anything wrong. You even thought I was Danny. I'm so...not-evil. I'm not like Plasmius or whatever you call your ghost half. I'm just...me. You have to give me a fair chance."
"Do I?" Vlad asked, raising an eyebrow. Thankfully, however, he had stopped walking toward Phantom. "Like you gave me a chance?"
"Well, no offense, but you used your first chance to threaten our dad's life at your reunion."
Vlad muttered something unkind, then louder, "A second chance."
"You used that one too when you kidnapped us alongside our mom and dragged us off to the Rockies."
"Third—"
"Put a million dollar bounty on my head." Phantom chuckled weakly. "Do you want to keep going? We have a long history. We haven't even gotten to the cloning."
Speaking the word, reminding Vlad of his ambitions, might have been a bad idea, because Vlad's expression darkened, became thoughtful as he stared hard at Phantom. Uneasy, Phantom floated farther away and began lifting toward the ceiling. He had never witnessed Vlad forming his plots before, but he thought that might have been what he was witnessing now.
"My friends are waiting for me outside," Phantom said, "so I'm going to..." He gestured at the ceiling. When Vlad didn't respond right away, only frowned harder, Phantom made good on his promise and fled the room, shivering.
As soon as Vlad was out of sight, however, Phantom berated himself for letting Vlad's obsession spook him into losing control. Only, he—he and Fenton—they had thought Vlad had given up on the son angle after he became mayor. He had never mentioned it again, anyway. Even when Vlad had kidnapped Danielle, his interest in watching her d-stabilize had seemed more scientific than as a desire to once more attempt cloning.
Phantom didn't want to be subject to the man's obsessions again. He didn't want Fenton to be either. If their experiences with Vlad had proven anything, it was that the man had no qualms about hurting them to get what he wanted. He had hoped he and Fenton would be free of him, but evidently not.
"Just great," he muttered to himself. "Way to put us back on the radar, Phantom." He flew through the mansion's roof and sighed, staring up at the moon. "Fenton isn't going to like this…"
I would let you guys stew in your thoughts, but then you might actually expect me to deliver, SOOOoooo, what is Vlad planning? Well! It's not important to this story. Or it shouldn't be, at least. If it comes up at all, it would be in the sequel (which isn't actually a thing atm, it's just my repository for After Story Ideas to marinate so they can torment me). Suffice to say, Vlad is intrigued by Phantom
...There was so much I wanted to say, but I can't think of anything right now. I just got off a 10 hour shift ^-^' I am soooo hecking exhausted. And sore. And tired. How physically demanding is my job? My chest, back, and shoulders ache with every breath I take! HA HA Sweet! *cries*
Anyway, I might come back later to ramble more, but tbh it's the next chapter I'm really excited about. This one needed to happen because it shows the characters growing-I would point all the little things out, but that's probably cheating-but I am ready for the next one. The Pitch Pearl will be more present, but it's a Phantom-centric chapter. The one after that though...eehhehehe can't wait
I love you guys, thanks for sticking with me for so long and for sharing your thoughts with me. It really helps