Chapter Twenty
That no content warnings thing from the last chapter? Definitely does not apply here.
CW: Death, blood, gore, injuries, medical procedures (and very likely medical inaccuracies), suicide reference, depression
Maddie forced herself to wear her most polite, neutral expression as Vlad endlessly carried on throughout dinner. The man had done some incredible things, no doubt, but he was an absolute bore and exhausting to listen to at times. She knew he still had feelings for her, even more than twenty years later, and Maddie generally found herself willing to overlook it as long as he continued not to act on it. Still, if not for Jack's fondness for him, Maddie doubted she would have tried to rekindle their old friendship.
Despite Sam's promise that Danny would be home in time for dinner, his plate remained untouched, a painfully empty spot at the table. She didn't know why she was so surprised or hurt. Knowing that Danny wasn't possessed and was inclined to seek out the ghosts against their better judgment, Maddie couldn't be too shocked as he reverted to his old habits once more, but it still stung since he had been doing a little better with it until now and usually at least sent a quick text to let her know he might be out late after getting sidetracked.
"Shame about young Daniel," said Vlad as she took a bite. "How has he been these last few weeks? I understood you were quite concerned about his academic performance when we last spoke and mentioned he was being considered for an Individualized Education Program."
"We're still going through the process. It's taking longer than we thought because of the ghost attacks," said Maddie. "Especially the most recent one. But we're hopeful that he'll be approved."
"Oh, Vladdie, I wanted to ask," said Jack as ate a forkful of mashed potatoes, "did you ever have any weird side effects after the accident in college? Aside from the ecto-acne?"
Maddie felt her stomach flip, knowing that Vlad hated discussing his proto-portal accident. The symptoms that Danny exhibited weren't evident in Vlad - he had no abnormally cold temperature, no obvious other health concerns, and she never heard him speak about anything odd or ghostly occurring around him–but still, it might be worth asking regardless. Vlad was a very private person, even with them, so he might be better at hiding it, or maybe his symptoms weren't as severe as Danny's own.
Vlad's hands clenched his knife tightly, his knuckles white. "Why do you ask?" Not surprisingly, his voice was strained but polite, clearly wanting to change the subject. She knew he held onto his resentment over the accident for a long time, only finding it in himself to begin to forgive Jack at their reunion last year, and she worried now that Jack might have pushed him a little too far by asking about it at all.
"Dad," hissed Jazz. "Are you sure Danny would be okay with this?"
"Of course, it's Vladdie," he said, but Maddie worried Jazz might be right. Danny strongly disliked Vlad, although he was never overly forthcoming about the reasons and usually just muttered about the man being a creep when asked. "Our son, Danny, had some side effects from his own accident with our portal. We were wondering if you might have anything in common."
She saw Vlad's hands freeze for a moment, his eyes widening a fraction before he resumed cutting his steak. "Oh? I would love to be able to help Daniel. What sort of side effects?"
"Well, we've always known about some. He's got a reduced body temperature, low heart rate, and a few other things that impact his health because he suffered from a fair bit of ectoplasmic contamination," said Jack. "But we've recently learned that he's a liminal, too. He can sense when ghosts are nearby, and he's been able to connect with some of the ones that haunt Amity Park."
"Well, I can't sense ghosts, Jack," chuckled Vlad as Maddie watched his reaction closely, but the man's face was a careful mask as always. "Perhaps the ghosts have an affinity for me as well, though. The spirit of the Dairy King haunts my mansion and we manage to get along quite nicely. Are there any other side effects?"
"Not sure. We reached out to an old colleague who was doing research on them for a bit. We were hoping she could tell us more since we read that a few can do other things like sense portals or even speak the language of the dead," said Jack, "but she wasn't willing to discuss it with us."
Maddie resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. She hadn't expected Jack to lie to Vlad about anything given how much he trusted the man, but then again, she knew her husband took Alyce's safety concerns seriously and he might have wanted to avoid having Vlad potentially reach out to her, too. She wished he would have talked to her about how to discuss Danny's situation with Vlad with her first, though. Jazz wasn't wrong - Danny would be upset to learn the man knew, and Maddie felt uneasy discussing it with Vlad, though she couldn't put her finger on exactly why. But they were supposed to be keeping it a secret given the risks, and they had promised Danny they would keep quiet about it, too.
"What a shame," said Vlad, and then he frowned and pulled his phone from his pocket. "Ah, I'm sorry to cut this short, but I've received a message that the mayor would like to meet with me this evening instead. It seems something came up in the morning and he won't have time to meet later this week. Perhaps we can chat about this more at another time? I would love to help Daniel however I can."
"Of course, Vlad. Feel free to reach out when you have time," offered Maddie, and he gave her his usual smile, a look that always felt too full of teeth for her liking.
"Of course," he said. "Have a wonderful evening, Jack. Jasmine."
"Bye, Uncle Vlad," said Jazz, and the moment he was gone Maddie felt as if she could breathe again as Jazz glared at her father. "I really don't think Danny will be happy you talked to Uncle Vlad. I know you like him and he's your friend, but Danny seems like he's struggling with even telling us, let alone having other people know the truth, too. And both of you agreed it was too dangerous to let too many people know the truth since we still don't know why that ghost is targeting liminals."
"I know Jazz, but I trust Vlad," said Jack. "And I want to do whatever I can to help Danny. If Vlad is a liminal like Danny, then that would mean he's lived longer than most and maybe he could help us figure out a way to make sure that Danny does, too."
Maddie pursed her lips. She hadn't considered that, of course, but Jack had a point. Vlad was in his mid-40s currently, which was well beyond the typical lifespan of most of the liminals from Alyce's research. He definitely reacted to the news about Danny, too. She wouldn't be surprised if Vlad could be one, but kept it a close secret. Most of the world was skeptical of the existence of the paranormal, despite the clear evidence that existed in Amity Park, and it could reflect poorly on him if discovered. He certainly had more at stake than most people did, given his social and economic status. Still, they didn't know for sure, and there may have been a way to find out without potentially risking Danny first.
"We still should've talked to Danny first," sighed Jazz as she pushed around her potatoes, a close mirror of her own thoughts.
"I'll let him know when he gets home," said Jack, and he frowned as he glanced at the clock on the wall. "Shouldn't he be back by now?"
"Sam promised they would get him home in time for dinner tonight," Maddie confirmed. "Especially since he's technically grounded right now. I already sent him a text, but he hasn't responded yet."
"We'll have to have another talk with him tonight," said Jack, and they finished the rest of the meal in relative silence. Danny still wasn't back by the time she finished up the dishes, either, and little by little Maddie felt her uneasiness growing as she sat down beside Jazz to watch TV.
"Anything?" asked Jazz and Maddie shook her head. "Tucker said they split up after the Nasty Burger and Danny should have been on his way home hours ago. He offered to try to call him, too."
"Thanks, hon," she said. "Do you know where your father is?"
"He's in the Ops Center," said Jazz. "I guess he's running some system checks."
"Okay. Let me know if you hear anything?"
"Of course, Mom."
Maddie shouldn't be so worried. Danny used to do this constantly, and he always returned home eventually. But knowing the truth now about what he was doing and knowing how hopelessly naive he could be, she found herself twisting her fingers, her foot bouncing restlessly as she kept half an eye on the door. After all, despite his insistence that he knew the ghosts better than her and Jack, he still let Nocturn go, a move that even Phantom believed to be too risky. Amity Park hadn't even finished rebuilding from the damage caused by the sleepwalker attack yet, but when pushed to explain himself, Danny simply said that Nocturn agreed not to return.
It was a level of blind trust she would expect from a child, not a nearly sixteen-year-old boy, and it made her incredibly concerned about his judgment.
She made it about fifteen minutes before she went back into the kitchen in search of something, anything that could distract her. She tried to call Danny, but his phone rang for a few minutes before going to voicemail. "Danny, it's Mom. It's just after eight. Please give us a call and at least let us know if you're okay."
Maddie hung up the phone and ran downstairs into the lab. She grabbed her laptop and a few notebooks from a project she was working on for a bit before going back upstairs to sit at the kitchen table in case Danny returned.
Recently, she started work on some modifications to the Specter Speeder after she and Jack gave up trying to fix the problems with the severe power drain when using the Ecto Skeleton. She and Jack built the vehicle to explore the Ghost Zone. So far they hadn't used it yet since the probes they sent into the Ghost Zone to try to map it failed to do so, and the data they retrieved was filled with garbled nonsense. The environment seemed to fluctuate constantly. She hoped that they could potentially modify the probes somehow to use their portal or something else as a fixed point, but as she stared at what little data they managed to collect over the last year it seemed like a futile task.
Idly, she wondered if Danny might be able to get Phantom to discuss the Ghost Zone with them or even lead them through it. She knew Phantom didn't have the best relationship with the other ghosts, but he clearly spent a fair bit of time within the Ghost Zone, and she suspected the ghosts had an intuitive knowledge of the dimension that allowed them to navigate it.
Biting her lip as she glanced at the clock, she pulled up a different set of data points. Phantom's energy levels recently started to fluctuate dangerously. Originally his power growth followed a fairly predictable curve, but they had seen both significant increases and drops in the last couple of months that they could not explain. Some of it might be caused by a lack of data from the few weeks he vanished, but the variations were too significant. The readings from the fight with Nocturn were particularly erratic, and both she and Jack worried that it might be an early sign of instability, which could explain why he made himself so scarce lately. It would be unusual in a ghost like Phantom, but then again, Phantom rarely followed typical patterns and single-handedly demolished at least a half-dozen of their theories.
She carefully went through the data, graphing each of the points and making notations where appropriate. It was tedious, busy work, but she didn't know what else to do as she watched the minutes tick by, her anxiety too much to do anything more than something simple. She welcomed the distraction from her worries about Danny. A little after ten, Jazz came into the kitchen.
"No word, huh?"
"Nothing yet. You should go to bed, sweetie. I'm sure he'll be home soon," said Maddie as she stood up and gave her a quick hug.
"I hope so. Don't stay up too late," said Jazz.
"I'll try not to." It wasn't up to her, not really. There was no way she could sleep until Danny was back.
Jazz headed upstairs, leaving her alone. "To make coffee or not?" she muttered to herself, staring at the empty pot. If Danny came home in the next couple of hours, she'd regret it, but if he didn't get home until three or four, she'd desperately wish she had a cup sooner.
"Not," said Jack as he walked into the kitchen and sat down across from her. "It'll just make you jittery, Mads."
She smiled at him. He was right, of course. "How'd it go with the Ops Center?"
"It should be good. I wondered if the scanners weren't calibrated properly after it picked up the odd energy readings from Phantom, but tests suggested that they're working fine," he said. Maddie sighed, rubbing her temples. That would have been a much better plan than immediately starting to analyze the data, but at least they were working and she hadn't completely wasted her time.
"I started graphing the data, but I haven't been able to figure out anything conclusive," said Maddie as she pushed the laptop over for him to review. "I'm hoping Danny might be able to convince Phantom to meet with us to discuss it. Phantom might be aware already, but if not, we should let him know about it."
"I'll ask Danny about it tomorrow," he said as he scanned through it, and then he frowned, his fingers drumming a quiet beat on the table. "Assuming he's home by then, anyway. Still no word?"
"Not even a text. I know this isn't unusual for him, but I'm worried. I don't know why he wouldn't talk to us about it," she said. "Unless he's uncomfortable coming to us again after we grounded him over releasing Nocturn."
"Maybe, but he has to know that was incredibly reckless," said Jack, and then he turned the computer back over to her and pointed at one of the coordinates mapped on the screen. "Are you sure this one's correct?"
"Let me check." Digging through the stack of papers, she found the relevant printout and then compared it to the data set, confirming it was accurate. They spent the next hour reviewing the information, trying to focus on something that wasn't the time ticking ever later as they waited for Danny.
"I could go out, try to find him," offered Jack after a while. "If he's doing something with the ghosts, we could use the scanner in the Ops Center, check out any spots where we're picking up ecto signatures."
"Let's give it a little longer." While there was merit to Jack's idea, there could be dozens of ecto signatures all over Amity Park at any given moment. They typically only worried about the rare ones that exceeded specific thresholds, but there was no guarantee Danny would approach ghosts with the same mentality. The ghost dog, Cujo, that she found him playing with on the roof typically registered as only about a level 2.7, which fell just under what they would investigate.
Closing her laptop, they headed to the living room and sat down next to each other on the couch. Jack pulled out a cross-stitch he'd been working on while she watched TV, keeping the volume down so it wouldn't bother Jazz while her daughter hopefully tried to get some sleep. Every few minutes she found herself glancing at the door and checking her phone, her worry growing. She shouldn't have let him go with Sam and Tucker. Every time she tried to trust him, to have faith, to give him even an inch, he would betray that.
"What are we doing wrong?"
"I don't know. I thought we were starting to make progress," said Jack. "But it does seem like we've slid right back to where we were, doesn't it?"
"Maybe we shouldn't have talked about what we learned from Alyce," said Maddie as she ran her fingers through her hair. Danny wouldn't try to hurt himself. She didn't think he would, anyway, but she didn't most people think that about loved ones who committed suicide? "I know he has a right to the truth, but he seemed to shut down more than usual afterward."
"I think it was still the right call," said Jack. "I don't know that there would ever be a perfect time to tell him, and it's better for him to hear it from us than someone else or find it on his own."
"You might be right," said Maddie, and suddenly her phone beeped. Picking it up, she felt her heart drop as she saw a text not from Danny, but from Valerie.
You awake?
"Danny?" asked Jack, and Maddie shook her head.
"No, it's Valerie," she said, quickly texting back, and then her phone rang a minute later.
"Hey, Mrs. F, sorry to do this, but I need help," said Valerie. "I found Phantom and he's hurt pretty badly."
"What?"
"I don't know how to help a ghost, I don't even know if you can, but his left shoulder and arm are all torn up, he's got a hole through his chest, and there's ectoplasm everywhere." She sounded panicked, and Maddie bit her lip uneasily.
"Any idea what attacked him?"
"Not a clue. I–I've never seen him hurt seriously like this before. Can I bring him there? Do you know if I should just carry him on my jet sled or should I put him in a thermos?"
"Thermos, I think? It might help stabilize him," she said, but truthfully, Maddie didn't know. She didn't know how she or Jack could help, not really. Either Phantom's core was intact and he would be fine, or it was damaged and he would destabilize since neither she nor Jack could repair a damaged ghost core. She didn't know if anyone could. "I don't know if it will be enough, but Jack and I will do what we can."
Hanging up, she turned to Jack. "Phantom's hurt?" he said, having overheard most of the conversation, and she nodded. "We probably can't do anything for him, Mads."
"I know. But maybe we can get him stable enough for him to be able to tell us what attacked him. Maybe he knows if Danny was close by when it happened," she said, and heading downstairs she and Jack prepped the lab, telling herself it was a coincidence that Danny was late and not responding, that Valerie would have noticed if Danny were nearby, that there was no way Danny could have run into whatever ghost attacked Phantom and be hurt, too.
The table they prepared was one they originally intended to use for dissections. They never did manage to do one successfully, thanks to Danny constantly releasing the ghosts they captured, although perhaps that was for the best. The ethics of such a thing seemed dubious now given everything they learned so far, and Maddie no longer had the stomach for it.
It was about ten minutes before Valerie arrived, her suit spattered in ectoplasm as she held out her thermos and let her helmet retract, making her hair spill out down her back. "Can I swap for a new thermos?" she asked. "Phantom's the only ghost in there, but I want to go back and make sure that whatever hurt him that badly isn't still around."
"Of course, there are a few empty ones in the cabinet over there," said Maddie. "Please stay in touch with us, though. If something could hurt Phantom this badly, then it must be incredibly dangerous. I don't want you to get hurt, too."
"Can do," agreed Val as she grabbed a thermos from the cabinet.
"And Valerie?" she turned. "Let us know if you see Danny out there."
Her eyes went wide. "He's not home?"
"We didn't give it much thought - this has happened dozens of times before with him - but knowing that he seeks out the ghosts and that Phantom was badly injured, I'm worried he may have gotten hurt," said Maddie. "He hasn't been answering his phone all night."
"I'll look for him," she said, quickly running out the door, and Maddie took a deep breath as she hit the release button on the thermos.
Phantom's condition was much, much worse than Valerie let on, and Maddie swallowed as she took in the sight. His Hazmat suit was ripped to shreds along his left sleeve with dozens of puncture wounds. Animal bites, perhaps? Phantom's shoulder appeared to be dislocated, too, although how that was even possible for a ghost she couldn't say given that they shouldn't have any bones or joints to speak of, but as she felt his arm she could feel a structure there, of something beyond the mere ectoplasm that should have been there. But the worst was the hole through his chest, roughly the size of a golf ball. If he were human, he would be gone, his heart already destroyed. As a ghost? Ectoplasm spilled from the wound as they carefully moved Phantom to the table, and Maddie shook her head. It must have missed destroying his core, at least, otherwise, he would already be little more than a pile of ectoplasm, but the damage was severe, his glow severely muted.
"I'm not sure we can help him, Jack," she said as she tried to undo the zipper on his suit, but it appeared to be fused. "Scissors?"
Jack reached into the cabinet and pulled out a heavy-duty pair, handing it over to her. "Here," he said. "Maybe I can use some of the extra line for the Fenton Fisher. Might be a little thicker than we'd like for stitches, but he shouldn't be able to phase it out at least."
"But if he ends up out of phase, then it also won't become intangible with him," said Maddie. "He'd lose the stitches completely."
"I–right you are, Mads. We'll have to use something resistant but not completely phase-proof, then," he said. "Let me see what I have."
"Do it quickly," she said as she carefully cut away at the top part of the suit. It was hard work - the suit was resistant to tears and fought hard as she dragged the scissors through the material - but eventually, she managed to cut away the top and separate it from the hood and face shield as Jazz tugged off his boots. Beneath the suit he was wearing a thin, vaguely familiar looking t-shirt, which she managed to cut away, too as Jack pulled off the rest of the suit, leaving on a pair of dark pants. His shirt was soaked in ectoplasm, and as she peeled it away from his skin she saw something that made her heart stop.
"Hon," she said as Jack fiddled with a needle and thread, and her voice cracked as she spoke, "he's got a Lichtenberg figure."
"What?" Jack looked up at it, frowning, but even beneath the spilled ectoplasm they could see the glowing, fern-like pattern stretching up his left hand and arm and about halfway across his pale chest, stopping roughly where it would meet a human heart, or in this case, the gaping wound. "Mads–this–it can't be, right?"
She flipped over Phantom's left hand, her stomach dropping as she saw the perfectly round, glowing mark on his palm, and Maddie felt physically ill as she stared at it. It looked like a galaxy in miniature, black and swirling and pulsing with tiny lights, and it was in the exact same spot as Danny's own portal scar that marked him as a liminal. "Help me get his hood off?" she said, and Jack nodded, swallowing as they slowly removed it. They should be moving quickly, trying to fix Phantom's injuries, but they had to know.
Pulling off his hood, she saw a shock of faintly glowing, brilliant white hair. His eyes, which she could usually see glowing green beneath his face shield, were closed, and a faint trail of ectoplasm leaked from the corner of his mouth. He was younger than either of them ever thought, having only heard his voice through his radio. But despite the shift in coloration, despite the way he glowed, despite everything she recognized him immediately, the shape of his face all too familiar.
"It's Danny," she said, wringing her hands. "How . . .? He's not . . . He can't . . ."
"Doesn't matter right now," said Jack as he put a firm hand on her shoulder. "We need to help him. We can't let our son die."
She didn't correct him. Didn't point out the obvious, that if this was Danny lying here (and it was, wasn't it?) then clearly her son was already dead and had been for a long time. Instead, she started moving, cleaning up the ectoplasm spilling from him around the wound in his chest and applying pressure there so Jack could try to stitch it and stop him from losing any more fluid as she tried, impossibly, to not think about it. Not focus on the fact that this was her son, that these wounds could have easily been caused by them mere months after they'd shot at him countless times, that he was–had been–
"Think we can replace what he's lost so far?" asked Jack as he finished prepping the needle. Compartmentalize. Focus. Breathe.
"Maybe?" Checking the fridge, she found a few purified ectoplasm samples and paused for a moment. Was ectoplasm like blood? Were there types she didn't know about? Would she hurt him if she gave him a transfusion now, possibly saving him only to make him suffer worse later? They never saw any indication that such a thing existed, but then again, they never really looked, and Danny stopped them from doing that level of in-depth research by freeing the ghosts before they could run more detailed experiments. Already there were things she could see that didn't make sense, a bone structure and what looked like a much more complex biological system than they believed possible for ghosts, and she found herself spiraling again when she felt Jack's steady hand on her shoulder.
"Breathe, Mads."
Maddie nodded as she let out a shaky breath as she tried to refocus. She didn't know the best place to inject it, didn't think that ghosts had veins yet she could clearly see some semblance of bone and tissue and other structures there in the wound, and the more she worked the more she realized just how little they were positioned to help. The two foremost experts in the paranormal, with her own specialty in ecto biology, of all things, and it was utterly worthless when she desperately needed it more than any other moment in her life. "Where should I put it?"
"I–does he have veins?" asked Jack, echoing her own thoughts.
"I don't know - I would've said no, a year ago, but I don't–so much of our research has been proven wrong. I would've said he didn't have bones or joints, and yet his shoulder is dislocated," she whispered. "Maybe just stitch him?"
Jack nodded as he stuck the needle in carefully, and she saw Danny's fingers twitch but he remained unconscious as Jack slowly continued. She cleaned Danny's arms, breathing a small sigh of relief when she saw that at least his other wounds didn't look like they would need stitches.
As Jack finished, she carefully put gauze over the scratches and puncture wounds. "What now?" she wondered quietly as her phone chimed. Valerie. She hadn't found the ghost responsible. Hadn't found Danny. Maddie had to choke down a half-laugh, half-sob. She sent her a quick note of thanks, telling her to go to bed and that they would take care of it. There was no way she could have this conversation with her, not right now.
"I think his shoulder is dislocated," said Jack. "He might wake up if we try to set it."
"He didn't wake up from the stitches." The shoulder would be worse. She knew that, having experienced both in her own life after a nasty car accident as a teenager. But Phantom–Danny–only looked paler, the glow from his skin fading more and more as he lay on the table. "He's getting worse."
"I know. I think we need to attempt the transfusion," he suggested.
"His core?" The thought crossed her mind, too. "It could damage it."
"Worse than if we do nothing?"
"I don't know." She gently touched his chest, trying to see if she could feel it, somehow, like a heartbeat, and she tried not to focus on how there was no steady heart beat there now as she searched. To her surprise, something resonated beneath her fingertips, humming and almost whispering to her in a language she could not quite understand. "There's something there. Might be it."
"I'll do it," offered Jack.
She swallowed, nodding as she handed over the purified ectoplasm. Jack carefully set up a syringe, and then Maddie moved her hand and put his there instead. "Feel it?"
"I think so," he confirmed as he gently placed the needle there, and she could see his hand trembling slightly but still by far less than her own. "Here goes."
He inserted the syringe and then pushed in the plunger, emptying the contents into what was hopefully Danny's core, and then pulled it out. For a moment nothing happened, but then the glow around Danny seemed to brighten. "Do you think that was enough?"
"Honey," she groaned, wishing she could put her head in her hands since of course, she didn't know. There was no way to know anything for sure, not right now. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was approaching about two in the morning. They were down here with him for so long - how could it have possibly been almost two hours?
"Sorry, right. I guess we'll give it a few minutes, at least?" He sat down on the stool beside the table, pulling off his gloves to hold Danny's hand, and then he winced. "That's probably not good."
"What?"
"He feels hot," said Jack, and Maddie pulled off her own gloves, her fingers gently touching his chest. Jack was right - Danny didn't feel feverish the way a living person might, but his skin was warm to the touch in a way it hadn't been in nearly two years. "Would ice packs make sense? I don't–I wish we weren't flying so blind here, Mads."
"I know," she sighed as she checked the freezers, but there were no ice packs within even if they could potentially help. "Should we wake up Jazz? If he's not going to make it, she'll want a chance to say something to him."
It sounded silly, talking about it this way. As if he were still alive and not already dead, as if this wasn't already a ghost and not her son but some shadow of him, an echo of his subconscious implanted onto an ectoplasmic construct at the moment of his death in the portal. Their portal. Her stomach clenched as she swallowed. This was their fault, wasn't it? How had they missed it?
"If he doesn't improve soon . . ." he let it hang. How would they begin to explain it to her? What if Danny destabilized before they told her and there was simply nothing left of him but a puddle of ectoplasm? How would they explain it to anyone? Claim he ran away? Nobody would understand it or believe it. Two ghost hunters, living in a house with a ghost, never realizing their poor son was actually dead and had been for ages now.
"Why didn't the doctors figure it out?" wondered Jack as he gently tucked Danny's hair behind his ears the way he used to when he was a child. "They did so many tests."
"I–" She stopped, catching herself. It was an excellent question, one she asked before when it came to her son, when they first realized he wasn't possessed. Although they certainly met ghosts that could fool the naked eye like Ember, any close examination would quickly reveal they weren't living, breathing humans. They never succeeded in dissecting Ember or Spectra, but both failed to have heartbeats, to breathe, or to have any of the very real, very living characteristics her son had during the few tests they did manage. But right now his heart didn't beat, he had no pulse, he didn't breathe . . . was it possible it was faked, somehow? An elaborate illusion crafted from ectoplasm? "I don't know. Overshadowing?"
"Seems unlikely." She didn't disagree. But her brain struggled to come up with anything at this point, exhausted from both a lack of sleep and the constant, unyielding panic she felt since the second she realized Danny was Phantom.
They watched him in silence, sitting beside him. Jack spoke to him softly while she simply held his left hand in hers, the strange scar on his hand buzzing beneath her skin as they waited.
"Maybe we should try another injection," said Jack after a half hour or so with little to no change.
"Okay," she agreed as she put on a new pair of gloves and pulled another sample from the freezer, not sure what else to do. Handing it over to him, she watched as he prepped it yet again, and then plunged it into Danny's chest after finding what they hoped was indeed his core.
Putting aside the syringe, Jack pulled off his gloves and touched Danny's head. "Temperature has dropped a bit with that one. Probably a good sign, right?"
"I hope so." His glow seemed to improve, too, and she watched him carefully for a moment, her arms wrapped around her chest as she leaned over in her chair.
And then his eyelids fluttered. "Jack," she said, feeling the tiniest bit of hope for the first time all night, and the two of them stood up and watched him carefully. Danny blinked, his eyes glowing an intense, toxic shade of green as his fingers went to his chest.
"No," he whispered as his hands brushed his stitches. "No no no no no nonononononono—"
"-Danny, honey, it's okay, you were hurt, we–"
His eyes were wide as he sat up and stumbled, falling off the lab table and crashing to the floor. He let out a small scream as he landed on his injured arm, desperately scrambling away from her. From Jack.
"Danny?" she wondered, staring at him. It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.
"What did you do?" he whispered, his voice echoing as he trembled and looked at the two of them, and it was only then that she remembered his confession about his nightmares.
The ones where he was a ghost. Where she and Jack experimented on him, dissected him . . . "Oh, hon, I'm so sorry," she said as she tried to explain, but apologizing was the wrong thing to do, his mouth opening in shock and horror, and then there was a small popping sound and he vanished.
"Did he . . . ?"
"Teleport? I think so," said Jack, staring. "Did he think–does he not–?"
"I don't know," she said as she stared at the spot her son was moments ago. The only evidence he was here tonight was the ectoplasm staining their jumpsuits and the large pile of ruined sponges and washcloths she used to clean the ectoplasm from his skin, and unable to help herself, Maddie finally broke down and sobbed.
A/N: And that's the end of Part Two. Thanks for the reviews, favorites, follows, etc. I appreciate it, as always. I didn't intend to disappear for over two months, but, uh, unexpected health issues (along with a half-dozen other life problems popping up) will do that. I'm still recovering from surgery at this point, but I don't think it'll be so long to the next update. I won't promise any specific dates, though, since I'm still trying to do Invisobang and the last part of this fic requires more heavy editing than the first two parts.
