This is an ANGST DAY companion piece to "Strong Enough". It works like a fill in chapter between chapters, yet can easily stand on its own. For those reading "Strong Enough", this might answer a few questions… while generating more…

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.

-----------------------------------

Intentions

(A Danny Phantom Fanfiction)

By Patience Memory

--

Tragedy was fresh in Amity. People still walked the streets and lived there lives, but now they were wary. Ghosts had always been a bother, but who knew this could happen? Who knew someone could… die?

Ironically, the only one in Amity Park unaware of what had happened was the one most affected by the monstrosity. No one knew exactly what he'd seen, and no one would; at least untill he woke from his trauma induced a coma. Though this was troublesome for the Police and Guys in White's criminal investigations, most thought the teen's comatose state to be good for him. This way he wouldn't have to deal with the pain while it was still new.

The florescent light on the hospital room ceiling glared down at the boy. His black hair was messy and his eyes closed. A cast covered one arm and bandages were wrapped around his thin torso and left leg.

He had lain there for two days, unresponsive and oblivious to the tragedy that was now his life.

If only he could've stayed oblivious.

He felt the pain before any thing else. It wasn't harsh or defined but a low persistent throbbing which told Danny that his body had been wounded. But why had he been wounded? He wasn't sure. He just knew he didn't like it.

The next thing Danny noticed was his own breath. It was slow and shallow, but normal… at least for a half-ghost. Danny tried to open his eyes, but failed. His mind seemed to be the only things open to him. Danny struggled once again to force his eyes open, but the battle for control proved futile.

The helplessness, the feeling of being closed within himself was unbareable. He had to fight it. That's all he could think. He had to move, he had to fight, and he had to save them-

Save who? Why did they need to be saved?

Danny felt as if his mind was holding out on him, as if it was trying not to remember, as if it didn't want to tell him why.

Danny wouldn't give his head a res though. He needed answers, and he needed them now. He didn't care if his subconscious mind was trying to protect him from what had happened… but once again, what had happened?

He had to find out. He had to get out of the trap that was his own body... but the harder he fought the more apparent his inability to make his body work became apparent. He could control nothing; not even the occasional breath that left his mouth.

Slowly the boy's mind began to function faster, and even though he was still unable to move the boy was grateful for the change. This change came in the form of sounds. Danny could make out noises; the steady beeping of a nearby machine, the muted calls of someone far away from the spot he… lay? Sat? Danny couldn't tell. He just knew that he hurt. That he couldn't move. That he was there.

Danny stopped fighting to move, putting every ounce of energy he possessed into catching the new sounds instead.

The next think Danny heard was footsteps.

A door opened. He heard shoes clicking against the floor, one, two, three, four, five, six steps. The person stopped by Danny's head. A chair squeaked as this person sat down. Danny continued breathing, as he had been. Not that he could do anything else.

"It's hard to see you like this little badger." A smooth if not troubled voice said.

Danny hated that voice.

"This wasn't my intention; you know that don't you? I would have never triggered the explosion if I had known it would cause Maddie's death."

Danny's head reeled in shock. Maddie's death, Maddie's death, Maddie's death.

Oh no. No. Oh Lord no.

"I never wanted it this way child. It was a false move, a mistake... who knew the one time I did not plan on winning I would? Although trust me my boy, this is a very tainted victory."

Danny wanted to blast Vlad, make the man admit he was lying, bluffing, anything, but still Danny lay and breathed in and out, unchanged.

On the outside anyways.

On the inside he was screaming.

"All is not lost my dear boy. I hope someday you will realize that. I lost her Daniel. I lost my dear Maddie. Yet even now in this terrible, broken time-"

"Don't you dare say it you crazy whacked up Fruit Loop!"

"-I have gained something else, something I have been chasing for quite a while. You."

"Just stop!" Danny pleaded silently. He couldn't release the sob that found itself trapped in his chest, he couldn't show Vlad that he was hurting him, he couldn't-

The beeping of the monitor didn't speed. It kept going evenly, mocking the pain the boy felt.

He couldn't even raise his own heart beat.

"Your wounds are healing nicely. The doctors are surprised by the speed with which you are recovering. Of course I'm not." Vlad continued.

Danny exploded in his head. Vlad, it was Vlad's fault, it had to be. Suddenly the memories flooded his mind, overwhelming his senses. Plasmius's wicked smile, that smile Danny loathed. The mocking words –Danny shut them out immediately. They were too painful to recall.

Those terrible claws buried into his side, the fear of knowing exactly what the older hybrid's new weapon could do, the burning pain of the vile substance the claws had been covered in running through his veins and then…

Then nothing. Absolutely nothing but the unrelenting helplessness the moment before FetonWorks had-

He should have cringed. If his stupid face was working he would have cringed. There was no house there, no home. It was gone, blown apart, now simply a million fragments of what it once was. His home was gone. His family was gone.

Everything was... gone.

"I just want you to know, even though you don't feel it now, I care to give you what you need, even if you don't like it. I won't leave you alone in the world Daniel. You need someone who understands. You need me, if you like it or not."

"I don't need anyone, ESPECIALY you." Danny thought. He tried again to open his eyes, but his body was still unresponsive.

A hand was held against Danny's cheek. The motionless teen did all in his power to shrink away, to faze through, heck he would have even bitten Vlad if he could, but he couldn't. He was unable to move, as if his consciousness was completely separate from his body. There was no way he could stop this, no way could he fight back.

He could feel though. Feel every finger as it brushed his black hair away from his cheek.

"You'll need to be strong son. I know you can't be right now, but that's alright. I can be strong enough for both of us."

Vlad had called him son. If anything was going to miraculously wake Danny from a coma that would be it, but still, the air flowed in and out, evenly. Still his eyes stayed shut. No one knew he heard anything. No one knew that his heart was being torn to pieces.

"But maybe I'm asking too much. You did see my new invention did you not? They're a modified version of your late father's Ghost Gauntlets."

Of course Danny had seen them. He wondered what excuse Vlad had given the doctors for the wound the claws had inflicted the young half-ghost with. Then that terrible burning serum… the doctors wouldn't know how to help with that. The Guys in White probably didn't know how to work with that stuff. But the burning pain was not present, so either the killing liquid had left his body naturally or… Vlad had done something to stop it.

Revulsion filled the Danny's mind as he realized it was very possible his arch enemy had saved his life.

As all this was speeding through the teen's head, Vlad was still talking of his weapon. "They're not just for fighting. They have other capacities. The capacity to end the pain you will soon be facing… but maybe I should wait until you're well to go into that."

Vlad didn't have to go into anything. Danny knew exactly what those godforsaken Ghost Gauntlets did.

"It's happening again. Dear God, it's happening again. No, please no. Don't let it- don't let me-"

"As I said, I never would have chanced triggering the bomb while dear Maddie was there. I don't know why she came back. It was so perfect…"

Danny knew why she had gone back. It was because Jazz had asked her to. It as becouse he had asked her to.

The Fenton family had been in high spirits that day, at leat until Vlad had come over to "show" Jack with a new invention; the Ghost Gauntlets. Vlad had insisted Maddie take Danny and Jazz out for a bit. Maddie had been thankful for the interruption, Jazz had been worried… and Danny?

Danny had been furious. He knew that glint in the Mayor's eye, and there was no way he was leaving Plasmius alone with his father.

Not a chance.

Maybe what hurt the most was the straightforwardness. This wasn't an elaborate attempt to rid the world of Jack Fenton. There was no intricate plot, no underlying plans. Vlad didn't even try to hide the intentions from the boy. This wasn't a murder attempt, this was a game, a game the two hybrid's had played since the day they met.

Neither of them had expected Vlad to win.

Danny had told Jazz. He had asked her to get their mother into FentonWorks, to go somewhere safe.

He had been so confident.

The beeping of the machines continued, undaunted. Vlad's hand played with the boy's hair, unaware of the turmoil in the teen's heart, or the memories flitting through his head.

Jazz hadn't wanted to. She had wanted to help with the ghost. Danny had told her no. He had told her that he could handle it, that she should trust him…

That's the last thing he said to her. Trust me. And she had.

That trust killed her.

Danny had seen Plasmius flying out of the Op Center. Danny had taken off after him, leaving Jazz to lure Maddie indoors. Plasmius had not shone surprise when the Ghost Boy arrived. The two had fought. Danny had been wounded badly. And then…

Bile rose in the back of Danny's throat but he had not the strength to force it back down. Then it was over. The house, Danny's home had exploded in a light display to be remembered.

Danny remembered the screams. He didn't know if they were real; an explosion like that wouldn't have left time for screaming, but he couldn't help hearing them.

Maybe they were Jazz's. Maybe they were his mother's.

Maybe they were his.

Vlad began to hum in the silence. He had no idea that Danny heard him. He didn't know of the fourteen year old heart being mercilessly killed over and over again in the boy's chest.

No one knew of his desperation, the wrenching sobs he could not muster, the terrible revelations that he tried to hide his mind from.

He had been the one to send his family back into danger's way. It wasn't Plasmius' fault they were dead after all.

It was his.

No one knew the torment and anguish Danny was facing at that moment. They only knew what happened on the outside, and that looked so much like tranquility, a boy at peace.

But you can't always rely on the way things seem. What Danny was experiencing was anything but the peace the rest the world assumed he was feeling.

On the inside… he was dying.

You know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And this one boy, his soul plagued with the agony of knowing that if Jazz had said that she didn't trust him, if she had been stubborn and ornery instead of gentle and loving she might still be alive…

He agreed.

-------------------------------------------------

So those reading "Strong Enough" now know why Danny won't let others trust him and what happened in Amity Park, and how he got the scar. Those who aren't just got a dose of angst (hopefully). I promise I'll go back to my not-as-angsty self tomorrow, but for today, I hope you enjoyed this. I think I got this out a day before Angst Day, but oh well. It's October 1 somewhere in the world, right? So Happy Danny Phantom Angst Day everyone!