People do not lack strength; they lack will.

- Victor Hugo

I don't know what I expected when she finally found out, but this...this wasn't it. The knots in my stomach twist painfully. She looks sad. Uncomfortable. Disappointed. But that…that's it? Don't get me wrong, I didn't—don't!—want to hurt her. But I'm still her son, right? Shouldn't she care just a bit more?

"Okay, I...wow." Breathe, hero. I drag my fingers through my tangled hair, as if that would sort out the mess in my head. "Okay."

"You didn't want me to know?" Mom sounds hurt, like I've been holding out on her. Like I've been hoarding all these secrets just for the thrill of it, keeping her out of the fun. I feel a flash of irritation. There were reasons. Good reasons. I wasn't being selfish. I've been protecting her and Dad, I was protecting everybody.

Just keep telling yourself that, Fenturd.

"No! That's not, I-well, yeah, I did. Eventually."

Eventually meaning probably never…but it wasn't like I hadn't planned on telling them. I just never got around to it. Stupid. Now the whole freakin' GIW is sitting back and watching. I bet they're popping popcorn.

"Just…not here. Not with them." I look at my hand, which is stick-thin and grimy with my own ectoplasm. I screwed up for real this time. "Not like this."

"I'm so sorry, Danny."

I close my eyes, suddenly not caring quite so much that she's mad at me. It feels good to hear her say it. Not ghost, not Phantom. It's a small, stupid thing, but it washes over me like cool water. Danny. Just plain old, ordinary Danny. That's me. "I should have told you back then."

She shakes her head, sounding forlorn. "I should have seen it."

Maybe she'll ground me; the thought makes me smile. After this, I'm ready to sleep in my room for the rest of time. "That I'm half-ghost? How crazy is that, right? Nobody could just guess something that out there, not even you."

"It was the portal, wasn't it?"

My summer homework's still piled on my desk…not that I would have done it before the last week of summer anyway. I left a thermos with the Box Ghost still in it under the bed. Unless Sam and Tuck found it, it's still there. He's gonna be so mad when I let him out. "Yeah. I somehow made it work. From the inside."

"You mean you actually activated-" I nod, and Mom pales, tapping her fingers on her thigh like she does when she's thinking hard. I expect her to freak, again, but she just gets all thin-lipped with that little furrow between her eyebrows.

"This is all my fault."

What, that her stupid teenage son ignored all her warnings and lectures about the dangers of the technology in the basement just to show off? That by some random chance she and Dad had invented something that actually worked—the first thing in forever that did? That it happened to be the only device that would let me walk back out in one piece?

"It was a total accident."

Mom just shakes her head. "What were we thinking, building something so dangerous into our home?"

"That it was worth it to be near your family?" Mom and Dad lived and breathed inventing…doing that away from home would mean never being home. Jazz complained that this just meant they could "rationalize their workaholism", but I knew she liked it, too. It was nice to have them close.

"Was it worth this?"

I'm startled by the tone of her voice. She's so… I don't know. Dissatisfied. It's like I'm the worst case scenario. I guess it's true. What could be worse for a ghost hunter than having a half-ghost freak as a son? But man, that stings.

"I-I don't know." I stare at the floor, wishing I was anywhere else in the world but here. Where's Desiree when you actually need her? I could be a million miles away.

The silence builds, awkward and awful. Say something, genius.

"I..."

I'm sorry that I'm not the son you wanted? I'm sorry I'm a ghost? Because I'm not. I'm really not, and I won't say it, even if that's what she wants. I'm glad I got to be this way…even if getting into that accident was stupid. Being a halfa, that's been a good thing. I just have to make her see it. I take a breath and try again.

"I may not have been the best kind of hero. I messed up a lot. I did some stupid immature stuff, too. But I did help. I saved people who needed it. People who wouldn't have had anybody otherwise. Me, some random loser, I made a difference."

It's made a difference for me, too. I'm not some random loser anymore. I'm Danny Phantom. I'm even kinda cool, sometimes.

Mom's looking at me with a weird expression. I blush, rubbing my shoulder self-consciously. "That sounds kinda stupid now that I say it, but...I don't regret it. I'm not sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry. It...it wasn't your fault." Those words should make me relieved, but her tone just makes me more uneasy. It's strange. I don't know why, but it is. Mom tries to laugh, but the smile seems stretched across her face. "You couldn't have found a better model for your psyche. My Danny's the sweetest, most responsible kid I know."

…model? Psyche?

"What?" I say blankly, stupidly.

"There...there have never been good methods for dealing with ectoplasmic waste. Experiments that have failed are usually reintroduced to the sub-dimension where they are expected to dissolve. Artificial specimens rarely have the stability to exist independent of the lab that created them. But in your case, you had a physiological structure that prevented that degradation. Long enough for you to resonate with the portal and return to the real world. Long enough for you to imprint from my son, and-"

"Wait, imprint?" I interrupt as what she's saying actually registers. Is she saying…is she wrong? Again?

"Yes," she responds impatiently. "A cadaver would lack the psychic element, that specific electric pattern that allows for sentience in an ectoplasmic entity. It wouldn't matter how much electricity was introduced, it could only have created a blank, an inanimate doll. Your form was incomplete without an ectosignature. The raw ectoplasm in your system was drawn to the first psychic signature it encountered, to the person who was in the lab when the portal activated. To...to my son. Your imprint. Danny Fenton."

I'm scrambling to make sense of what she's saying. What…an imprint? Ectosignature? Then it hits me. "A cadaver? You mean...like a corpse?"

This is incredible. It sucks. It's awesome. The Fenton family clueless disease strikes again. Tears sting in my eyes. She doesn't recognize me. At the same time a huge wave of relief washes over me. She doesn't recognize me. It's the most awful and wonderful thing all at once. I don't even know what to do anymore.

I want her to know. It's been so long since I've been anything but a ghost. It may be a stupid, little thing, but I just want her to call me Danny, and know it's me. But after all this... I never, ever want her to know. Just thinking about it, it's… I don't even want to imagine it. I'd rather bury my secret under a mountain of rock.

But that's the thing. She'll find out. I'm not waiting at home. I won't be there. But Jazz, or Tuck and Sam, they will. They'll know. Ghost hunter goes out of town, ghost vanishes. It doesn't take a genius to put those two together. It'll all come out, one way or another. And then what?

I'm so freakin' tired.

"Phantom..." the name catches my attention, and I look up at her. She's looking at me with the gentlest face I've seen in a while. I see the dark circles under her eyes, how she slouches in the chair, clenching her hands in her lap. She really is sorry. Even if she has it wrong, even if this is all she knows. I have to give her that much. "You know you're not my son, right?"

This is it. She's listening, waiting. All I have to do is spit it out. Surely it won't be as bad coming from me. Better than finding out afterward, anyway. The way things are, she'll leave me. Here. Alone. An experiment forever...or until this ghost body gives up. The awfulness of that idea makes the choice for me.

"Mom, I..." Her expression stops me cold.

It was just for a moment, but I saw it. Mom winced. She looked disgusted. She hated that I used that name; she really hated it.

I shut my mouth with a snap. No matter how nice Mom's been today, she still sees me as someone...something else. A fake. After all this, a ghost. And she's, like always, a ghost hunter.

I can't prove it. If I change back now, I'd probably die. Even if I did take the chance, she might just come up with another crazy theory. She'd call it an illusion. A trick. Another lie. It's kinda funny that most of the lies Mom believes about me she's told herself. All I've ever had to do is agree with her.

But she won't believe the truth. Not from this me. It's never gonna happen.

"I...of course not, Dr. Fenton. I know that."

Liar. Coward. Idiot.

I can't stop the terrible feeling that this is wrong and I'm just making it worse. But I'm not brave enough to try it. I'm so freaking tired.

fin

A/N: And here's the other half. Now I'm gonna go back and hide in my comfort zone and NOT try anything like this again...concrit?

-Hj