Author's note: Don't ask me, "Do you wanna talk? Do you wanna talk it through?" Swear I ain't got anything on my mind. I don't wanna talk to you. - James Bay


Disillusioned

I wish I still related to you

He couldn't breathe.

He was trying—trying

His lungs wouldn't respond, wouldn't inflate. His chest was tightening, burning up from the inside.

Her orange goggles glinted in the bright light shining above him. She came toward him, rushed toward him, and he couldn't get away.

And then she was on him and prying open his mouth. She shoved a tube down his throat, tearing into him, forcing air inside of his lungs.

He couldn't stop her he couldn't move couldn't even shut his eyes she was staring at him and all he could do was stare back into those orange lenses—

Danny sat up with a jolt, one hand clawing at his neck, the other reaching into his mouth in an attempt to yank out—something—he couldn't quite remember—

He blinked and looked around. Dark, only a tiny bit of light coming in through the cracks in his blinds, but he could make out the outlines of his desk, his dresser, his closet.

And his bed.

Yes, he was in his own bed. He was in his room.

He was safe.

Danny's hands shook as he lowered them. His entire body trembled, aching with the memory of something his mind couldn't recall. He panted and lifted the hem of his sleep shirt, pulling it away from his chest now slick with sweat.

Another nightmare. Another bad dream forcing him awake.

Night after night after night waking up terrified and panicked.

He checked the time. Only one A.M. He still had hours until morning, hours to relive his trauma in his dreams.

He didn't want to sleep again.

He sat on the edge of his bed and silently cried into his hands.

"Tucker, do you ever get tired of using the same combo over and over?"

"Hey, if it works, why change it?"

"But it obviously doesn't work since I always beat you."

"One of these days, Sam, you'll see, you'll see—"

Danny listened to Sam and Tucker's typical banter as he gripped his controller in his hands, trying to remember how to play this particular game, the moves and combinations that used to be mere muscle memory for him but now his fingers fumbled over the buttons, pressing them almost randomly.

They were playing a multiplayer fighting game in Tucker's living room, a game that allowed up to four players but Jazz declined the offer to play. She was instead curled up on the single-seater sofa, reading something on her phone. But her presence only reminded him of the real reason they were all here together. It wasn't for his birthday, it wasn't to play this game, no, it was to talk about what happened to him the three weeks he was gone—

Danny's game character screamed as it was launched off the stage, knocked out by a slashing sword wielded by Sam's character. Danny stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

"Danny, what happened there?" laughed Sam, sitting beside him on the couch.

"Yeah, dude," said Tucker from the other side. "I know it's been a while, but you didn't use to suck this much."

Danny shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs as his character respawned on the stage. "Ah—sorry, I guess I just need to get back in the swing of it."

He could see Jazz looking up from her phone out of the corner of his eye, but he blocked her out and tried to focus only on the screen, on his character, on the buttons he had to press over and over in some kind of sequence—what was the sequence again?—he couldn't remember but he used to know it, right?

He used to like this game, didn't he? This was one of the games he and Tucker used to stay up until dawn playing whenever he spent the night over here. Yes, he knew this game, he was good at this game.

But the controller felt strange in his hands. His fingers tapped the buttons but never really pressed them, their movements numb and uncoordinated. His character was moving in response but he couldn't understand why.

And the screen looked so blurry, the scar cutting through his left eye obscuring and doubling the outlines of objects, fuzzing the colors, refracting the light into a painful glare. His head ached as he squinted and tried to figure out what he was even looking at.

Why…

Why was he…doing this…

This wasn't fun at all.

Danny lowered his controller into his lap and hunched over, pressing the thumb and index finger of one hand against his closed eyes. He could hear his character wailing as it was flung off the stage again.

"Danny?" Sam hit the pause button and placed her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Danny did not respond right away, still hunched over, eyes still covered. After a few silent moments, he sighed deeply and leaned back, sinking into the couch.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I just—I don't know. Sorry."

"Do you want to play a different game?" asked Tucker.

"No." Danny shook his head. "I—sorry. Just not in the mood to play video games, I guess. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," said Sam. "It's your birthday—belated as it is. We can do whatever you want."

"Yeah," said Tucker. "We could check out what's playing at the dollar theater."

"Or the big theater," said Sam. "I don't mind spotting us for the tickets if there's a movie Danny really wants to see."

"Or we could watch a movie in your home theater," said Tucker. "That's as good as any real theater. And free."

"No way, my mom would freak," said Sam. "She doesn't even know I'm with Danny right now. We're all sworn to secrecy on this, remember?"

"Right, right," said Tucker.

"Hmm." Danny sank into the couch even more.

"What about laser tag?" offered Tucker. "We've never played with Jazz before."

Jazz laughed. "I'd be willing to try it for Danny if he wants."

Sam's eyes lit up. "Girls against boys could be fun!"

Danny said nothing.

"Or mini golf?" said Sam. "Or we could just walk through the park, take advantage of the nice weather before another storm rolls in."

Danny sighed. He knew he needed to pretend he was fine and full of energy. He had to summon the resolve somehow even though he felt stuck, blocked, tired of acting, tired of putting off the inevitable uncomfortable conversation they had to have.

"I guess I don't really feel like going out." He smiled, adding sheepishly, "I didn't get much sleep last night, that's all."

A flash of his latest night terror in the early morning hours, waking up drenched in sweat and his hand at his neck panting and trembling—

"My brain's just kind of hazy," said Danny. He pointed to the TV. "Probably why I couldn't get my head in the game."

A long silence. Danny tried to maintain his smile but it faltered more and more as the seconds dragged on.

"Well, we can just talk, then," said Sam. "There's plenty of stuff we still have to catch you up on, stuff you missed."

"Yeah, like when Dash slipped in that pile of barf at lunch!" Tucker grinned. "Some freshman puked his guts all over the floor and Dash was strutting around, not watching where he was going—like usual—and he just stepped right in it and fell backwards so hard, the wind was knocked out of him." Tucker busted up laughing. "He got chili chunks all over the back of his letterman jacket, it was great."

"I nearly threw up myself," said Sam, suppressing a gag. "It reminded me of the Lunch Lady ghost throwing all that gross meat around."

"I'm really glad I wasn't there to see that," said Jazz, making a face. "Dash slipping in the chili puke, I mean."

"But don't even try bringing it up with Dash," said Tucker, his mouth still stretched wide. "He's been pounding anyone who mentions it."

Tucker continued laughing. Danny tried to imagine the scene, the thudding sound from Dash's large muscular build slamming into the floor.

He tried to force a laugh because he should have found it funny. He normally would have found that funny.

But all he could manage now was a strained chuckle. And then his chest sank with a heavy sigh.

"Oh! And you also missed prom," said Tucker. "I mean, Sam and I did, too—we're just sophomores—but Paulina was of course asked to go by tons of upperclassmen—"

"Ugh, Tucker, who cares about that?" Sam groaned.

"Danny's gonna wanna know about this!" insisted Tucker. "You know what she told them, dude?"

Tucker waggled his eyebrows at Danny, his lips pressed tight with amusement.

"She said whoever could buy her the most expensive dinner could take her?" guessed Danny, trying to feign interest.

"No." Tucker snorted. "She turned them all down. She said she would only go to prom with 'the ghost boy.'" Tucker did an admittedly good imitation of Paulina's voice while batting his eyes coquettishly. He then nudged Danny's shoulder. "That means she's all yours next year for junior prom, dude!"

"Ah—oh," said Danny, making himself smile. "That's—that's really cool to hear."

"But Danny doesn't want to go out with Paulina if she's only interested in his ghost half," cut in Sam. "It's why he still hasn't even tried asking her out as Phantom."

"The point is, Paulina turned down other guys for Danny Phantom," said Tucker, not looking at Sam. "It means you've still got a shot to turn her on to Danny Fenton instead!"

"Yeah." Danny nodded, remembering the way Paulina ran up to him in her low-cut T-shirt just yesterday and how strangely unenthused he felt in her presence. "Yeah, right. Absolutely. There's…some hope there, yeah."

"Can we stop talking about Paulina?" griped Sam. "You know, Jazz got a ton of prom proposals, too."

Danny furrowed his brow and looked at Jazz, who was now blushing furiously. "Really? A ton?"

"Yeah," said Sam. "I mean, in case you didn't know, your sister is, like, super tall and gorgeous."

"Five-nine isn't 'super tall,'" said Jazz modestly. "And I didn't get a 'ton' of proposals. Just, like, five."

"I think it would've been more than that if guys didn't find your height and big brain so intimidating," teased Tucker. "You're ranked as one of the top hottest girls in school."

Jazz's face burned even redder. "What? That's a thing? How do you even know that?"

"I'm in the know on everything when it comes to the ladies at our school," said Tucker, folding his arms and giving a jaunty jut of his chin.

"That's really nothing to be proud of," scolded Sam.

"So who did you go with?" asked Danny, genuinely curious as he looked at Jazz. "Someone we know?"

"Who did I go with where?" Jazz blinked a couple times before shaking out her head. "Oh, you mean to prom?"

"Isn't that what we're talking about?" asked Danny.

"Sorry, yes. I just got confused because…" Jazz looked down at the floor and fingered a lock of her red hair before raising her eyes to meet Danny's again. "Well, I didn't go to prom."

"But it's your senior year," said Danny. "You really didn't want to go?"

Jazz shrugged, chuckling nervously. "Ah, you know those social things aren't really my scene." She paused, running her fingers down along the same lock of hair over and over. "And you had only been back for a week by the time prom night rolled around. There was just too much going on, and I had already turned down all the proposals back when you were…well, you know. Still not home."

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Danny knew Jazz definitely did want to go to prom. He had seen her selected prom dress hanging in her closet, long-sleeved and teal with a full, billowy skirt cascading all the way to the floor, layered with hints of shiny lavender and cinched at the waist with a silver belt.

His chest deflated with guilt that his beautiful big sister missed out on her senior prom because of her broken little brother.

"Um, but on that note." Jazz cleared her throat and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Do you think maybe—well, I mean, if you're not up to playing games or going out—can we talk about…what happened?" Jazz scratched her neck. "When you were gone, I mean."

"Yeah," said Sam, her tone gentle. "Is now an okay time to talk about it?"

Danny looked at each of his friends' faces, expectant, anxious, waiting.

His stomach knotted with dread but also a plea for release, all of his pent-up nerves just wanting to get this over with.

"Not here," he said quietly. "Upstairs."

Tucker immediately switched off the game console and put the controllers away. Sam and Jazz jumped off the couch and led the way upstairs. Danny's feet felt heavy as he lifted them onto each step.

In Tucker's room, Sam and Jazz took a seat on the bed while Tucker pulled his ergonomic gaming chair to the middle of the floor. He then shut his door before dropping onto his beanbag chair near the bed.

"You don't have to give me your chair, Tucker," said Danny.

"Go on, sit," said Tucker with a wave of his hand. "I want you to have it."

Danny hesitated before lowering himself into the chair. "Thanks," he mumbled.

No one spoke for a long time. Danny felt his skin getting hot because he knew they were waiting for him to start but God he really really wished he didn't have to be here right now.

"Um." Danny swallowed. "Okay, so, um…where to start…"

"We saw the video of you running out of your house, transforming, and then flying away," said Sam. "Maybe you can start there."

Danny tilted his head. "You saw that?"

"Yeah, Vlad apparently set up a camera right in front of our house." Jazz shook her head. "What a creep."

"But at least we were able to see that you really did run away," said Tucker. "Made us feel a little better that you weren't taken against your will somewhere. His creepiness paid off."

Danny vaguely recalled Vlad telling him that he had shown his friends and sister the security camera footage recorded in front of his house the night he ran away. Danny had been shackled to the lab table, listening while Vlad told him many things but refused to free him.

"Yes," said Danny monotonously. "How very lucky we are that Vlad is a creep."

He sighed and leaned back, stalling for just a final couple seconds.

"Okay, well, right before what you saw in that video, I had a headache," he said. "And my mom caught me trying to steal painkillers from the medicine cabinet in the kitchen."

"Right, we heard that," said Sam with a small nod.

"Sure. Of course you did." Danny exhaled through his nose, wondering just how often they went over the details of his disappearance when he was gone. "Well, when she confronted me like that and made me feel like just a troubled addict… I don't know. I just lost it." He paused. "I just needed to get out of the house. So I did. I ran out and then I went ghost and just…took off. But I wasn't really planning on running away. I mean, I didn't plan on staying away from the house for more than a few hours."

This part was true, at least. He hadn't meant to be gone long. He would've returned by the morning, in time for breakfast, in time for school.

He hadn't expected his own mother to track him down and capture him.

"So obviously you changed your mind," said Sam. "Right?"

This was it. Time to lie. Danny quickly went over the story he had come up with the night before, wishing he had rehearsed it a couple more times at least.

"I couldn't go back," said Danny. He realized his poor choice of words and shook his head. "I mean, I didn't want to go back. I wanted to get away from everyone for a while. So I started thinking of different places I could go to just lie low, places where no one would possibly find me or go looking for me." He looked at Sam and Tucker. "Which meant I couldn't go to either of your houses."

"My mom would've been happy to let you stay awhile," said Tucker.

"Yeah, but she would've reached out to my parents and told them where I was," said Danny.

"Did you really want to stay that hidden, Danny?" asked Sam. "Even from us?"

Danny stiffened and averted his eyes to the floor. "It was nothing personal. I just didn't want to risk my parents finding me and forcing me to come back. And I knew there was nowhere in Amity Park or anywhere in our world that I could hide where I wouldn't eventually be spotted, so…" He breathed in. "I went to the Ghost Zone."

Silence. Danny looked up to find Sam, Tucker, and Jazz staring at him curiously.

"Where in the Ghost Zone did you go?" asked Tucker.

"Yeah, we already know you weren't with Clockwork," said Sam, rolling her eyes.

Danny recalled Jazz having the same reaction earlier that week, more evidence that the encounter with Clockwork really did happen.

"Were you with Frostbite?" asked Tucker. "We tried to get to the Far Frozen, but we couldn't—ah, well, the map you drew was kind of hard to follow."

"No, I wasn't staying with any ghosts," said Danny. "I really did just want to be alone. So I figured, you know, maybe it was time for me to create my own lair. I mean, it's my right as a ghost to claim a part of the Ghost Zone for myself."

"Your prerogative," offered Jazz while throwing back her shoulders.

"Yeah, that word," said Danny somewhat irritably.

"You really created your own lair in the Ghost Zone?" Tucker grinned with an open mouth. "Dude, that's awesome. I've been waiting for you to do that. What did you create?"

"What did I…create?" echoed Danny uneasily.

"Yeah, what does it look like?" clarified Tucker. "A big mansion? With a pool? That's what I'd make. Some place where all the ghost babes can come and chill out whenever they want."

"You are so disgusting," said Sam. "Figures you'd make a playboy ghost mansion."

"Look, if I have to die, I'm gonna make something awesome of my afterlife in the Ghost Zone."

"Let me guess: You're gonna find some poor ghost blobs and other less intelligent ghosts to be at your beck and call?"

"Well, it's not a mansion without a butler and some servants."

Danny tuned out Sam and Tucker's bickering, hoping they carried on for as long as possible because fuck he forgot to come up with what his lair would look like if he really did make it.

He looked up at the ceiling, trying to conjure an idea of what sort of lair he would like. But he didn't even want to live in the Ghost Zone, it was somehow an even shittier place than the human world. God damn it why was this so hard—

"So what does your lair look like, Danny?" asked Jazz, causing Danny's head to snap back down to attention. Sam and Tucker were quiet now, watching him.

"Um…well." Danny scratched his eyebrow. "It actually looks like…our house."

Jazz scrunched her mouth. "Our house?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "I mean, not exactly like it, but, uh…how it would look if it were normal. You know, without the big Fenton Works sign and the Ops Center on top. No basement lab either."

An image entered Danny's mind, a home that looked like everyone else's, a place that didn't have a lab down below where his own parents tortured ghosts, a bedroom where he didn't lie in bed afraid to fall asleep because he didn't want to wake up strapped to a cold examination table.

"Just…a regular house." Danny lowered his eyes. "Like other normal families live in."

"But you kept the telescope, right?" asked Jazz.

Danny looked up, puzzled.

"The telescope that's up in the Ops Center," said Jazz. "You didn't get rid of that, right? You always loved that telescope when you were a kid, when Mom and Dad would bring you up there to look at the stars on clear nights."

"Uh…oh." Danny blinked and shook his head in a quick jerking motion. "Well, there aren't any stars in the Ghost Zone. No sense in keeping that."

"Oh. I guess you're right." Jazz's bottom lip stuck out as she nodded in understanding. "I just thought maybe you'd keep it anyway since you love astronomy so much."

Danny said nothing, unable to even remember the last time he went stargazing. Certainly not since he had been home.

Why was that? Why hadn't he been up to the roof to stare up at the constellations? He used to do that all the time.

"When can we go see it?" asked Sam. "That could be a really cool hangout spot. Especially since there's no cell reception in the Ghost Zone, so my parents can't possibly bug me out there."

"Yeah, I wanna see it, too!" said Tucker eagerly.

"Uh…" Danny rubbed his neck. "Well, it's gone now. I, uh, destroyed it."

Tucker's jaw dropped. "You what?"

Danny rubbed the other side of his neck. "Yeah, I just decided that I didn't want to live in the Ghost Zone after all. So I used my wail to destroy it and…" He lowered his hand. "Came back."

Sam squinted. "But then how did your eye get scratched like that? Without those contacts you've been wearing all week, it's pretty obvious."

"Uh…oh, right." Danny cleared his throat. "Well, before I destroyed my lair, uh, I guess I broke a zoning rule when I created it—"

"Zoning rules? In the Ghost Zone?" asked Tucker.

"What rule did you break?" asked Jazz.

"I don't remember." Danny waved a shaky hand dismissively. "Something Walker just made up, I think."

"Wait, Walker?" Sam raised both eyebrows.

"Yeah, his rules never make sense to me," said Danny. "The guy hates me, pretty sure he makes them up just to bust me."

"What did he do?" asked Jazz, sounding concerned.

"Um…" Danny could feel sweat prickling his skin under his shirt. He didn't want to talk anymore, didn't want to say anything about the torture he was forced to endure even if he lied about who it was that hurt him.

He didn't want his friends and sister to see him as weak, as a victim.

He didn't want to see himself that way either.

"I mean, what do you think he did?" Danny shrugged. "He arrested me, took me straight to prison. Didn't even have time to try to fight him off."

"Walker took you in himself?" asked Sam, her mouth pursing.

"Uh, no, of course not," said Danny quickly. "It was a couple of ghost cops. Well, more than a couple, I could've certainly taken on just two. But then again, they did kind of ambush me." Danny caught his breath. "Point is, they put me in cuffs and threw me in jail."

"Were you not able to change back into your human form and just walk out?" asked Tucker.

"Ah, no. Walker somehow had this—uh—" Danny snapped his fingers, then pointed a finger gun to his neck, imitating an injection. "This stuff that kept me from changing back. So I couldn't phase through any of the walls there."

"He had that just for you?" asked Sam.

"Er—no, I think he uses it for all the ghosts now. It blocks all ghost powers."

"Sounds like the Fenton Solidifier," said Jazz, stroking her chin.

"You know, I wouldn't put it past Walker to somehow steal that from Mom and Dad," said Danny. "He knows where we live, he knows about our parents' ghost research."

"But bottom line, you were in Walker's jail and couldn't escape," said Sam.

Danny nodded.

"So did Walker do that to your eye?"

Danny shrank back. "Oh—um—"

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz stared at him in complete silence. Danny's neck burned and sweated.

"Yes," said Danny hesitantly.

"Why?" asked Jazz.

"I was…being mouthy or something, I don't remember what I said exactly." Danny swallowed, trying to stop himself from panting. "He just…had some other ghosts hold me down and did it."

"But I mean, why your eye?" asked Jazz. "Why would he do that?"

"Yeah, I know Walker's not above torture and has been trying to make your life hell ever since the first time you escaped his prison, but he seems more like the type that would just beat you up," said Tucker.

More sweat popped up on Danny's neck and back. He had spent hours the night before trying to decide who he was going to pin the blame on for his eye injury and long absence. He had narrowed it down to three possibilities: Skulker, Walker, or the Guys in White.

He discarded Skulker because he surely would've had all his skin flayed off if Skulker really did manage to hold him prisoner for that long, and Danny wanted to insist that his eye was the only major injury he had received.

He discarded the Guys in White for the same reason, because there was no way Sam, Tucker, and Jazz would believe that the Guys in White didn't do much worse to him, and he didn't want to admit that he had some surgical scarring on his lower body as well. Further, they'd never believe that he could somehow escape from the Guys in White on his own.

—a flash of memory from the day before, a white van parked near the school when Detective Calhoun dropped him off—

"Slashing your eye just seems…oddly intimate, for lack of a better word," said Jazz. "Why would Walker choose to punish you in that particular way?"

"I… I don't know why he chose to do that." Danny fought back tears, remembering the tip of his mother's knife hovering above his eye and wondering why why why was this happening to him?

Walker was the only option left, the only one that Danny could believably say had imprisoned him for that long and traumatized him without necessarily brutalizing him, apart from the eye injury. He just had to find some convincing way to sell the lie.

"I mean, um…" Danny cleared his throat. "I think maybe he just wanted to leave a lasting scar somehow. You know, one I'll always see."

"One you'll always see?" echoed Jazz with a frown.

"Yeah, my vision's totally fucked in this eye." Danny pointed to his left eye. "I can still see, but it's really blurry. My enhanced healing abilities couldn't heal it completely, I guess."

"But did he do anything else to you while you were locked up?" asked Jazz. "I mean, I know the doctor's report said that you showed no signs of physical trauma besides that eye injury, but that can't be all that happened, right?"

"Yeah," said Sam. "You've been acting really weird and jumpy, like yesterday when you ran out of Lancer's class."

"Yeah, I've never seen you look so freaked out before," said Tucker. "That had to have been more than just a slashed eye."

Danny resisted the urge to glance up at Tucker's ceiling fan because God he wished he could turn it on but he didn't want to let on just how hot he was.

"Uh—yeah, I mean, of course that wasn't the only thing that happened," said Danny. "Pretty much everyone in that prison hated me for something. Walker and his guards, other ghost prisoners that I had caught and forcibly returned to the Ghost Zone in the past. They all had reason to take out some of their anger on me."

"What did they do?" asked Jazz, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Nothing like what you're thinking," said Danny quickly, holding up a hand as if to stop her thoughts. "They just beat me up a few times, but I was able to heal quickly. That's why the doctor didn't see any signs of that."

"But you've been beat up loads of times," said Tucker. "Bad enough that we've had to stitch you up or find ways to stop the bleeding before you went to school the next morning. I mean, dude, what was it exactly that made you freak and run out of Lancer's class yesterday?"

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were all staring at him again. Danny had known he was eventually going to have to explain his panicked episode in Lancer's English class, but even with the extra time he managed to give himself to prepare, he just wasn't ready.

"Um…" Danny swallowed, attempting to reopen his closing throat. "Walker and the guards, they… They forced us to play 'would you rather.' And, um… It wasn't a good experience. So when we started playing it in class yesterday, it just… I had to get out of there."

"How did the game work when they made you play?" asked Jazz.

"They, uh—" Danny shuddered, but he knew he had to say more, had to give a more satisfying explanation. "They gave us two choices for…something bad to be done to us, and we had to choose one or the other. And if we didn't choose, they would do both."

"Oh—I—" Sam clutched at the collar of her shirt.

"That—wow—" Tucker gripped both elbows.

"What kind of choices?" asked Jazz, her voice tinged with heightened worry and concern. "What did they do to you?"

—his jaw cracking and his tongue tearing and his throat bleeding—

"I don't want to talk about it." Danny shut his eyes tight but the memories were still there even in the darkness. "I—I don't, please."

A very uncomfortable silence followed. Danny tried to regain control over his breathing, wishing he could go home and cry in bed or maybe in the shower where no one would hear him.

"We're not going to make you tell us what exactly you experienced if it's too hard for you right now," said Jazz gently, "but what about something that happened to a different ghost? One of the other prisoners forced to play the game with you? You said they made 'us' play, so it wasn't just you, right?"

Danny shook his head.

"So can you tell us what sort of choices the other ghosts had to make?" asked Jazz, her tone more pressing now.

"No," said Danny, again shaking his head.

"It would just give us an idea of what happened, Danny."

"No, I don't want you to have an idea." Danny spoke through clenched teeth. "It was just bad, okay? Why do you need to know more than that?"

"Because we want to help you, Danny," said Jazz, pleading.

"I don't need your help."

"It's not good to repress these things. We can help you process and heal if you let us in."

"Stop it," hissed Danny, glaring at her. "You're not a real therapist, Jazz. Stop trying to pretend you are."

Jazz shrank back and ducked her head. Sam and Tucker looked between the two siblings, their eyes wide.

And for a moment, Danny almost felt bad enough to apologize.

But he knew that hurting her was usually the only way to get his overbearing sister to stop and just leave him alone already.

"All right," said Jazz in a small voice, not meeting his gaze. "Well, just know that we're ready to listen when you do want to talk."

Danny did not reply. And nothing was said for many long, painfully awkward seconds.

"So, um…" Sam cleared her throat. "How did you get out? Walker's prison, I mean. How did you escape?"

Danny blinked and looked only at Sam, thinking. "I…didn't."

Sam cocked her head and raised one eyebrow. "But you're here, so obviously you escaped somehow, right?"

His mother had looked so defeated, tears shining in her eyes.

And then she undid each restraint holding him down, one by one until he was free.

"She—He let me go," whispered Danny. He inhaled and pushed strength into his voice. "I guess the sentence for breaking zoning laws is only a couple weeks."

"Really? That seems oddly lenient for Walker," said Tucker. "Isn't the sentence for possession of real-world contraband in the Ghost Zone, like, one thousand years or something?"

"Yeah, I thought it was strange, too," murmured Danny, looking off to the side, remembering how he had absolutely no idea what to do after Maddie freed him, no idea how to be just a person again after being her specimen for so long.

"Well, we're…" Sam paused, dropping her gaze to the floor before looking up at Danny again. "We're so sorry for not finding you sooner, Danny."

He had fantasized about being rescued so many times when he was locked up in that lab. So many times he imagined Sam coming to him and helping him off the table, placing a kiss on his trembling lips wet with his own tears.

Those fantasies now seemed so empty, meaningless, a waste of his time even in that prison where he had nothing to do for hours but cry and moan and dream.

"You don't need to be sorry," muttered Danny.

"We all just really wanted to believe that you weren't in danger, that you would just come home when you were ready," said Tucker.

"Yes," said Jazz, raising her eyes for the first time since Danny had snapped at her. "Even when all those terrible rumors started spreading around, we all wanted to believe that you could take care of yourself out there."

"What rumors?" asked Danny warily.

"Uh—well, you already know about them," said Jazz. "The ones about Mom?"

"Mom had nothing to do with it."

"We know that now, but she would go out somewhere every night while you were gone, and—I don't know." Jazz shivered. "We couldn't help but wonder."

"It wasn't Mom," said Danny, more firmly, more irritably.

His friends and sister said nothing, simply looked at him with such pity.

And Danny hated it.

"I wasn't in any real danger," said Danny as dismissively as he could, ready to just end this whole conversation. "I was in ghost jail for a bit, and then when I got out, I decided I definitely didn't want to be in the Ghost Zone a minute longer and destroyed my lair. Then I came home." He pouted, adding with a grumble, "I can take care of myself."

"I didn't say you couldn't," said Jazz.

"But regardless, we should've searched the Ghost Zone more thoroughly," said Sam. She glared at Tucker. "I said we needed to search more."

"We did search, Sam," retorted Tucker.

"Not enough. Obviously. We never even tried checking out Walker's prison!"

"It was too dangerous for us to go that far alone. We tried and nearly got killed, remember?"

"We could've gotten Vlad to go with us again."

"You were the one who kept saying we couldn't trust Vlad!"

Danny furrowed his brows, pretending to be clueless. "You went to the Ghost Zone with Vlad?"

"Oh, right. We have to catch you up on some stuff too, I guess." Sam groaned and pressed a palm to her forehead. "Sorry, Tucker. It's not you I'm mad at, really. It's Clockwork."

"Clockwork?" Danny sat up straighter in his chair.

"Yes, we went to see him in the Ghost Zone and brought Vlad with us," said Sam. "He's so smarmy and tricked the whole town into electing him as mayor, so we figured if anyone could convince Clockwork to tell us where you were, it would be him."

"Plus, the Ghost Zone really is dangerous for humans," said Tucker.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, the trip ended up being a complete waste of time because Clockwork refused to tell us where you were."

Danny's chest twinged, but he did not say anything.

"He just kept saying that it wasn't his job, that he wasn't God sitting around waiting to answer prayers, that he was just supposed to watch time and not meddle with fate or some bullshit reason." Sam narrowed her eyes. "That asshole would not budge."

"Yeah, and Sam really tried," laughed Tucker. "She was so pissed by the time we left."

"Weren't you?" demanded Sam.

"It was very frustrating," said Jazz, holding up a hand in a gesture of peace. "But like Vlad told us when we were there, there's literally no way to force a ghost to go against their obsession, and Clockwork's obsession is to ensure time progresses as it's meant to."

"So Danny was just meant to be tortured by Walker?" spat Sam. "And we were just supposed to accept that?"

Danny winced at the choice of words. "I—I wasn't tortured."

"Danny, what do you call slashing your eye like that?" asked Sam.

Danny winced again and looked down at his lap.

"I know you don't like us using words like that with you—trauma, torture—but you don't need to downplay what happened to you," said Sam more gently this time. "Even if you don't want to tell us all the specifics, at least don't try to pretend that it wasn't a big deal when it clearly was a very big deal. I mean, you don't just get up running out of class in a panic over nothing."

Danny kept his eyes down, no excuse or story to spin this time. Because as much as he hated being seen as a helpless victim, there was no other convincing explanation for his jumpy behavior that he could possibly give.

"Anyway." Sam crossed her arms. "I really did try to make Clockwork tell us where you were, and even Vlad's sleazy charm wasn't enough to convince him. Just a total waste of time."

"Not a total waste," said Jazz, somewhat brightly. "He did tell us one thing, that we'd see Danny alive again." She smiled. "And thank God that turned out to be true."

The feeling of betrayal knotted deep in Danny's gut. Because no, he wasn't about to thank God that Vlad really was telling the truth and Clockwork really did just refuse to help him. While Danny lay in agony night after night on that lab table, Clockwork knew exactly what he was going through and had the perfect opportunity to help him and just didn't.

He never thought it was possible to hate someone more than Vlad.

Thank God, no. God damn ghosts and their inability to go against their obsessions.

The teens moved on to other topics, including all the ghost activity while Danny was gone and how Vlad souped up Casper High and other schools in the district with enhanced anti-ghost technology.

"Valerie's become a lot more popular in your absence," said Sam. "She still hasn't made an official name for herself, but most people call her the Red Huntress."

"We think Vlad might be paying her to do more full-time ghost hunting," said Tucker. "We don't even see her at the mall or Nasty Burger doing her part-time jobs anymore."

"I can't even remember the last time we saw her outside of school," remarked Sam. "But we've seen her up in the sky late at night many times."

Danny nodded but had little comment on the topic. He was glad that Vlad had managed to keep the town safe from ghosts while he was gone, but he hated that Valerie had to get even more caught up in such dangerous work.

Hey, Danny! We should hang out soon, yeah?

Valerie had called out to him just yesterday morning in the hall, but now he knew with certainty that she definitely didn't mean it.

But he wasn't even hurt by her lack of interest. Not anymore.

"What about you, Danny?"

Danny blinked. "What about me—what?"

"The whole town's been anxious for Danny Phantom to return," said Jazz. "Are you going to get back out there soon?"

"Yeah, we're ready whenever you are," said Sam. "I miss our nightly ghost patrols."

"Me, too," said Tucker.

Danny furrowed his brow. "Why?"

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz stared back at him in confused silence.

"Why do you miss going out on patrol?" asked Danny. "It's dangerous. You've almost been killed multiple times." He placed a fist against his tightening chest. "And there might come a time when I can't save you."

His friends and sister exchanged glances before returning to Danny.

"We know it's dangerous," said Sam, her tone puzzled. "We've always known that. But we're a team. We agreed that we're in this together when you first got your ghost powers."

Danny sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"You are going to go back out and fight ghosts again," said Sam, "aren't you?"

"I'm surprised you haven't already," said Tucker. "I mean, isn't that your obsession? To protect the town from ghosts?"

Danny clenched his jaw as an ectoplasmic glow surged in his eyes. Jazz sucked her teeth while Sam lightly smacked Tucker upside his head. Tucker whined and rubbed the sore spot.

"I'm only half ghost, in case you've forgotten," said Danny hotly. "I have control over my obsession and can go against it if I want." He paused, adding under his breath, "Unlike Clockwork, apparently."

"Are you saying you…want to go against your obsession right now?" asked Jazz very tentatively, sounding a little scared.

Danny now turned his glare on Jazz, who shrank back and lowered her eyes.

"I'm saying this has nothing to do with obsessions or me being a ghost," said Danny. "And besides, we never even figured out what my obsession actually is."

Weeks ago, a memory of his father in that alley being attacked by the spider ghost and Danny leaving him behind because he had to get away from his mother, had to take this moment to escape because if he didn't she would catch him and kill him and—

Yes, there had been times when he chose not to help people even when he saw that they were in trouble, times when he had to choose his own safety over theirs.

But he would never admit that, could never reveal that his obsession was so much more selfish than wanting to be a hero, could never explain why he was unable to transform right now even if he tried. Because Phantom was too afraid to come out of hiding.

So much guilt and shame and pain.

All he wanted was to make the hurt go away.

"Your ghostly obsession is not something you usually like to talk about," said Sam gently. "And we understand why, really. But we also know that protecting the town is really important to you, obsession or not."

Danny shrugged. "Well, it seems like Mayor Masters and the Red Huntress have it all under control. The town hasn't been overrun by ghosts since I've been gone, so I guess I'm not really needed anymore."

"Oh, Danny," said Jazz, her bottom lip sticking out.

"What?" snapped Danny, remembering a few weeks ago when Jazz had a talk with him in his room soon after his mother had cornered and nearly killed him in that alley. "Weren't you the one telling me that I should quit fighting ghosts? That it wasn't safe for me to keep doing it?"

Jazz flinched. "Yes, I do remember saying that, but I didn't expect you to give it up this suddenly."

Danny kept his eyes on her, his irritation melting into fatigue, a dull ache in his chest.

"I'm not giving it up," he said in a low voice. "I'm just…taking a break."

The rest of the day wore on for Danny as he forced himself to keep going, to eat when they went out to get pizza, to stay alert when he just wanted to crumple up and feel nothing in sleep. He checked the time on his phone again and again, agonizing over how slowly the minutes were moving, wondering when was the earliest time he could excuse himself to go home without being rude.

Jazz left that evening to give Danny time with just his friends. Danny sat on the Foley living room couch with Sam and Tucker as they presented their belated birthday gifts to him, each wrapped in the same galaxy-themed paper.

"It's eco-friendly wrapping paper," explained Sam.

"Literally no one cares, Sam," said Tucker.

"Well, I just wanted to make up for the non-vegan cake somehow." Sam turned up her nose and gestured to the partly eaten vanilla cake next to three plates on the coffee table. Danny's slice of cake had only a couple bites taken out of it while Sam's and Tucker's plates had just crumbs on them.

"You bought a vegan slice of cake for yourself, remember?" said Tucker.

"Yeah, and that's why I'm going to outlive both of you," said Sam.

"Whatever. Open mine first, dude," said Tucker, thrusting his gift into Danny's hands.

Danny tried to muster enthusiasm as he opened the present, a gaming headset with LED lighting. But he couldn't imagine what he was supposed to do with it. He knew he used to always ask to borrow Tucker's LED gaming headset whenever they played games together, so he should've been happy to have his own now, right?

Next was Sam's present, a mini sandbox playset that resembled the surface of the moon complete with a small Danny Phantom figurine that Sam had made herself.

"It comes with rakes and little shovels for digging. It's supposed to be good for relaxation and meditation." Sam placed the custom figurine wearing his iconic black and white jumpsuit right on the edge of one of the moon craters. "And now Danny Phantom can go to the moon whenever he wants."

Danny stared at his ghostly alter ego standing on the sandy grey surface of the moon. He knew he used to dream about going to the moon someday, but he could no longer remember why. It seemed like such a cold and lonely place, so distant and empty.

"So what did you get from your family?" asked Sam. "Anything good?"

Danny glanced up, recalling the night before when he unwrapped a couple new video games, new clothes, electronics and gadgets, and three concert tickets for Dumpty Humpty's upcoming show that summer, tickets he was supposed to share with Sam and Tucker so they could all go together and "have fun."

But it didn't sound fun at all. Danny wasn't even sure why he used to like Dumpty Humpty's music, it just sounded like discordant noise to him now.

"Yeah," said Danny. "Good stuff."

"Like what?" asked Tucker.

Danny shrugged and picked up his slice of cake, forcing a huge bite down his throat.