Spy Guy: This is a collab between myself and the darling Tori (she pretty much came up with the plot, and I wrote it out). I was hoping for this chapter to be longer, but I felt that there wasn't enough of Danny in this situation to really make it effective...so...I give you, THIS.

The pavement was cold and wet, pelted by relentless rain, and covered in debris from the surrounding buildings. Danny tried to get up, tried to gather his limbs together, but found himself unable. Thunder boomed in the distance, but it was all he could hear. No screaming, no sounds of destruction.

He heard footsteps, and suddenly, he was surrounded by familiar faces, a circle of those he knew from his past life, and those from the new life he had learned to accept. They were silent as well, stopping a few feet from his prone form, their faces impassive.

"I'm not a ghost." Danny whispered, eyes darting around, taking in the faces of those who had shunned him, of those who had supported him, and of those he once considered family. Their eyes were blank, unreadable, and Danny felt a sob tear through his throat as he realized what had happened...that he had failed.

"I'm just a kid." He said, tears welling in his eyes. "Why was it my job to protect you? Why!"

They didn't answer him...but he didn't expect them to. Danny buried his head in his arms and sobbed, not even flinching as hands grasped at his limbs and hauled him away.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to save them. I'm Danny Phantom...

"I'm supposed to save everyone..."

Chapter 1: They Say to Always Tell the Truth.

Danny wasn't sure why he'd told them.

No. He knew why. It was because he was tired of lying to them, tired of going behind their backs. He had always been honest with his parents, and a few "ghost powers" shouldn't have changed that; shouldn't have made everything deteriorate like it had. Jazz had understood when she found out. She supported him, covered for him. But at what cost? The price of her own relationship with their parents.

And Danny wasn't going to make her live with that anymore.

His first mistake was telling them at all.

His second was telling them when Jazz wasn't around. Jazz had always been the "smarter" child. Maybe their parents would have believed him if she had been there to back him up.

But, no. She was away at college. Wouldn't be home for weeks.

His third mistake was believing that his parents would ever accept him. That they would believe him.

He should have known...

He should have known.

"Places like these are always haunted, Danny." Maddie whispered, pulling gently on her son's wrist. "They're dangerous."

"Then, why are you making me go?" The boy demanded, tears welling in his eyes. "I told you the truth. I told you-"

"Sweetie, it's impossible."

"No." Danny snapped, pulling his arm away. "It's not impossible. There's two of us. I told you. Me and-"

"Vlad is not a ghost."

His father's voice was uncharacteristically serious. The halfa felt a shiver race up his spine as he struggled against the bonds holding him to the table.

"Mom." He begged. "Mom, please. I don't want to go. I won't mention it again."

He felt his mother's gloved hand rest on his shoulder and couldn't keep back the panicked tears forming in his eyes. They didn't believe him. He'd told them the truth, and they refused to believe him. Now, instead of being torn apart molecule by molecule, he was being sent away...to get better. But, the only thing that was wrong with him couldn't be cured like that. He wasn't sure if it could be cured at all.

"We're going to use this little gun to shoot the chip right into the skin. It'll hurt a little bit, but then you'll always be protected, okay?"

"From what?" Danny asked.

"Ghosts."

"No!" He wrenched his wrist away again, "Mom, you can't do that. You really can't do that. Please!"

Maddie's eyes narrowed.

"It's not because of Phantom is it? Danny, you're not half ghost."

Jack took his son's wrist again, his grip strong. The end of the gun was cold against his skin, its barrel pressing into the soft flesh there.

"I am. I am, listen to me, I am!"

"Danny." Maddie whispered. "This is why you have to go. And we have to know that you're protected."

"You're not protecting me! Mom, don't-"

They didn't call them asylums anymore; too many negative connotations associated with that name these days. It was an institution, for people who needed to be watched. Mentally unstable people. People who though they were things they weren't. By the time Danny found the pamphlet on the kitchen counter, it was too late to change his story. He was in the basement, having that chip imbedded into his wrist, and then he was bundled off into a white van and taken away.

That was how it went.

No goodbyes, no tearful hugs. Just hollow promises and lies. At the time, his parent's words had given him hope, but now, Danny could see them for what they were: things said just to placate him. They weren't coming...They never would.

His wrist constantly burned, a throbbing pain that refused to go away. Danny ran his fingers over the skin, the irritation invisible to the human eye. But, his ghost half was squirming in pain, trying to get away from the thing suppressing it. The boy spent his nights whispering to Phantom, trying to get him to calm down, reassuring him that someday it wouldn't hurt anymore. He wasn't sure if he was lying or not, but it made him feel better at least.

The chip acted as an inhibitor to his ghost powers. It protected him, yes, and he supposed that he did need it. There were ghosts everywhere in the asylum. Most were invisible, but he could feel their presences outside his room, and sometimes hear them wailing in the night, their spectral voices sounding too ethereal to be from current patients. Danny was safe as long as that chip was in his skin.

He would simply have to endure.

"There's a little ghost rat that sits outside your door at night." Phantom whispered in his head. "It's real quiet."

"How do you know it's a rat?" Danny asked, rolling over on its side.

"Smells like one. I don't like how nosy it is."

Danny chucked.

"You don't like anyone."

The ghost was silent.

There was a part of him that worried about how he talked to himself...No...To Phantom (who, even then, only existed in his head). His whispers at night probably weren't helping to prove that he was getting any better, but he was lonely, and he needed some interaction...even if it was only in his mind. He never got to see anyone but the stone-faced nurses, and occasionally a doctor who asked him a lot of questions and wrote constantly on a large clipboard. No one would talk to him...

His parents hadn't come to visit.

There was the sound of a lock turning in the door, and Danny sat up, perching himself on the edge of the mattress. The door opened, and one of the nurses stood in, holding a tiny plastic cup that rattled when she moved. The boy cringed when he saw it...It'd been a few days since he'd had to take his meds...and he was finally starting to feel like himself again.

"Get out of here, bitch." Phantom hissed. "Danny, tell this bitch to get out of here."

"No." The boy whispered.

"You need to take your medicine, Danny."

"Don't do it. I don't want to go away."

"Danny. I won't leave until you take this."

"Do you want to be alone? I'll talk to you. I always talk to you."

"Danny."

"Please."

With a shaking hand, the boy took the plastic cup from the nurse, shaking the various sized pills onto his tongue, washing them all down with a hasty gulp of water. In his head, Phantom was whimpering, a soft sound that reminded Danny of puppy, but he knew that he had to ignore it. Phantom would have to be quiet for a little while, so the nurse would go away. So the doctors wouldn't come in their white coats and their masks, and force the drugs into him, one way or another.

He couldn't go through with that again.

Once the nurse was gone-satisfied that he wasn't merely hiding the pills beneath his tongue-Danny lay on his small cot, staring at the white ceiling above him. Everything around him was white: the ceiling, the walls, the floor. His bedding was white, his clothes were white, the slippers on his feet were white. It was a maddening color, too sterile and clean. If he ever managed to get out, he'd never own anything white again.

The meds made everything silent. They made his head feel like it was full of cotton. He wasn't sure how long it had been, but it felt like an eternity. There were times when he wondered if he'd ever get out, or if his family had simply dumped him there forever.