A/N: "WELL! What the heck took you so long?!" you must be thinking, and also "Why is this chapter so short?!" you might think later.

Hm... First of all, it was my last few weeks in high school (I am DONE with school! :D), and unfortunately, after that, I refused to do anything but play games on my computer, because I was rejoicing.

Soon enough, I started having Anxiety attacks, yeah, and I was overly worried about my health and thought I was going to die (Yeah, not really a panic attack, but anxiety attack is scary too, and lasts way longer), and then, despite two doctors and a blood exam telling me I was completely fine, I was still fretting over it, and I couldn't bring myself to focus on a story that focuses on death so much, because it made feel HORRIBLE and SCARED and SAD!

So, with the doctor's reassurance, I decided to wait it out and share my worries with people willing to tolerate my worrywart ramblings. Luckily, I avoided medication (I didn't want to create a dependency), and decided to get over it with the best of my abilities, which took time, and now I only get overly worried once in a while (still every week), but nothing like the first few times (every night).

So after I calmed down, I was facing major author's block, because of the long pause from writing, and then I just sat down one day and thought: LET'S DO THIS! and started writing again. Didn't go very far, and I rewrote it a few times, but I got something done! It's short, but I needed to publish SOMETHING! So here it is...

Oh, one word about this chapter: I don't like characters who are too cold and calculating, so Phantom is not like that (for who thought he was). Characters like that, to me at least, lack passion, and without passion, there's no motivation to go to great distances and they are no fun to write. I don't like working with them, so yeah (I also rarely take a liking to this kind of character in other stories).

Sorry for any typos and errors, if you find any! I'm in a hurry to publish this!

Mother Knows Best

Chapter 06

Forever Family

Never had she felt such a strong need to flee.

Not even fighting seemed feasible. Only 'running as far as she could and hope it wouldn't find her' was the way, and even then, it felt like her beating heart would fail her with its effort of pumping enough blood to accomplish this feat.

"Well?" The ghost in front of her waited for an answer, almost mockingly calm, as if sure she wouldn't be able to explain herself in any acceptable way. He stood straight and confident, completely opposite to Danny's shy posture.

Maybe because that's what Danny always wanted.

"…Danny…" She chocked, not able to find the words she wanted while she rubbed her hands nervously.

He frowned ever so slightly at the name. "Didn't you say I'm not 'Danny'?" He spoke with no hesitation, but she could hear the tone leering beneath his words. The accusation.

It was like the flames of his emotions were snuffed out, leaving nothing but cold. But why? Why does he access emotions in one form, and not in the other? How is he even capable of changing forms in the first place?

Maddie couldn't hold the reins of her mind, and the questions kept popping in, despite the fact that she was sweating cold with the fear the ghost in front of her was causing.

Ghost hunting required more courage than she had ever imagined.

But she couldn't let this stop her. She was sure that if she turned around and ran, Danny wouldn't go after her, but he also wouldn't come back.

"Well?" His tone sounded a little less patient now, and Maddie's shoulders twitched with the sudden sound.

"I did say that…" She wanted to take a step closer to him, but her legs wouldn't listen. "But that's still your name, no?"

He tilted his head indifferently, not saying anything for a few seconds, and she wasn't sure if he was thinking, or if he wanted her to continue.

He finally frowned. His head turned around a little, but his eyes never left her. "But you called me by that name."

"I did…" It was the first name she called him. Danny. Was it her fault he was so delusional in thinking he was human? Did she solidify that belief by giving him that name? Was it all her fault in the end? "But you're my son's ghost, there's no other name I should use…" her words faltered pathetically.

She had no idea what she was supposed to say or do at this point.

Her mind was dangerously blank even though she had already decided why she needed him to change – to know if she truly cared – or what she intended to tell him after unraveling her true feelings on this.

"Ah, no, shut up," But Danny was having none of it. He stopped her quickly with a hand in the air, looking away for a second as if he couldn't stand to even look at her. "I don't care what you said before, and I don't care about what you have to say now."

She couldn't bring herself to get angry, tell him off and ground him for the blatant disrespect.

"But you know what?" He frowned even deeper, taking heavy steps towards her, with clenched fists that betrayed his calm tone. "You gave me that name, and that's what parents do. I don't care if you think I'm not actually your son. I cared before, and I'm sure I'll care about it again later, but right now, I don't."

He was close enough to have to look up to see her face, his expression slipped back into the calm, nearly blank look from before, and Maddie realized she was holding her breath. She heaved a little, and took a step back. "I don't understand what you are even saying-"

He grabbed her wrist before she could take any more steps away. "What I'm saying is that you're my parents, and that's that, but you and Dad practically ruined my life, and the only reason I won't hurt you is because I…" He stopped for a second, like one would do when forgetting the required word. "Well, probably because I love you guys."

Maddie blinked. "…Love?" It wasn't possible. He shouldn't be able of recreating an emotion like love. All he could recreate were temporary feelings, and nothing too deep. "You're probably mistaking it for something else…" She found herself mumbling. "You're not capable of-"

"Says your theories." He cut her, his grip on her wrist becoming painfully tight.

"My theories are-!"

"Just theories." This time he frowned. "I know what I was feeling."

"What you were feeling before the accident wasn't you! Those are memories!"

But it didn't seem like Danny even considered her words. Something slipped past his calm expression, he closed his eyes, and it took only a second for it to snap into a vicious scowl.

It was like he suddenly lost his patience with her, an unnatural flip of a coin, and he immediately dropped the indifference and switched to rage. He grabbed the hard fabric of her suit with his other hand and dragged her down to his eye level.

"I was talking about this whole damn week…!" He hissed when he got awfully close to her face, their foreheads almost touching.

She was thrown off by the change of demeanor. The fear response she had pushed to the back of her mind was back tenfold, accompanied by a sickening feeling, a strangely specific fear…

For a second, she wasn't in the lab. She was surrounded by nothing but vast nothingness of frozen land, completely paralyzed and helpless against the looming threat that approached too quickly for her to process or even defend against, and as soon as it came, the image was gone.

"Oh well then! You want to talk about before the accident?!" Danny continued with a cruel mock tinging his voice, and she couldn't respond. "Fine! My day was great…! I woke up, got some breakfast, hung out with my friends, then came back home. I didn't do my homework like you told me to, by the way…"

Maddie gasped. She didn't want to hear about that day… It was still much too painful, too fresh in her mind. She didn't want to relieve it, and she didn't want to hear it from Danny's perspective.

But Danny… by the cruel and cold smile slipping on his face, she could tell right there that he wanted her to feel pain.

He wanted her to relieve it, and he wanted revenge, because…

"And then you! You were so, so happy with this stupid invention, and asked me to 'help' you two! Like you needed any help!"

Because he blamed her…

He let go of her wrist and curled his hand near her neck, as if tempted to choke her, his fingertips becoming sharp as claws beneath his gloves. "But it didn't work! And you were so, so, so disappointed, that I felt really bad about it, a-and I thought 'Well maaaybe they just missed something! Maaaybe if I just look around, I'll find the problem!' Maybe right? And look! ...I fixed it after all…!" He finished with fake enthusiasm as he rested his clawed hand on his cheek, faking a bewildered look.

He had pushed her on her knees so he could look down on her, maybe to intimidate, but Maddie didn't care about that. She couldn't control her tears and the gaping hole in her heart she desperately tried to fill, despite her brain telling her that this wasn't how her Danny would feel about her. He wouldn't blame her…

He wouldn't…

This was just his ghost… Naturally filled with resentment and hatred because of the sudden, painful and undeserved death. But it didn't stop the pain in her chest, like claws keeping a visceral grip in her heart. "Danny… P-please stop…!" She held his hand, the one currently gripping her suit, trying to appease him, but he never reacted to it.

"Stop?! Oh, right, you know how it felt like…?! It was like… the worst pain you could ever imagine, and I wanted it to stop too…!" Ghosts shouldn't remember the physiological aspect of their deaths… The way they are formed suggests they only focused on the psychological aspect, but she couldn't say she was surprised that he remembers the physical pain… "It was like being burned, that sharp, burning pain you know…? But all over the place, inside and out… And then on top of that, there were like, thin and long knives being stabbed everywhere and then twisting around, and then…"

Maddie felt her skin crawl in empathy, almost like she could feel that pain, and then, an even greater overwhelming despair in knowing that her baby felt all of that at the very end, making it difficult to breathe with the pain in the back of her throat.

Danny's expression had eased into a blank look. "Then… just… cold… a painful kind of cold… Then nothing…"

His face remained blank, looking at her and yet, not really seeing her. His grip on her suit eased, he fell on his knees and let go. The fear reaction he cause was slowly slipping away, and Maddie felt her stomach twisting at his mere presence and voice.

Maddie fell on her behind after he let her go, and she pulled herself away from him, but then stopped.

Danny's spirit was angry, and he blamed her, and he wanted her to feel guilt and pain over what she did, she was sure of it. But he didn't want to kill her, of physically hurt her.

He looked so small and defeated…

She wanted to hug him, comfort him and say everything was going to be okay, and this time, she felt it towards the white haired ghost in front of her. He didn't want to kill her… He stopped when remembering the pain of death, because he was beyond hurt, with painful memories, and that, he couldn't fix with attacking her.

Maybe he understood that...

Maddie took a deep breath, carefully crawling closer, and calmly easing a hand on his shoulder. She was expecting him to slap her hand away, but he remained motionless.

She pulled him a little and gave him the hug he so desperately needed, and it was like he welcomed the gesture, as he sighed – is he breathing…? – and rested his chin on her shoulder.

He felt less cold than before, as if he were getting steadily warmer by the second.

The warming stopped, and she felt him go cold again. "You know…" Her heart skipped a beat when she felt his hands pushing her shoulders calmly, but not very gently. "I remember a button… on the inside of the portal. An ON button…"

Maddie blinked. A coldness gripping her heart like a snake.

"I think I pushed it when I tripped." Danny nodded to himself a little, not really looking at her.

"A button…?"

He nodded again, this time more assertively.

She felt like everything just broke down on top of her.

She didn't build the portal all on her own of course, she worked mostly on the calculations and helped her husband here and there with the infrastructure. She also did most of the handling with the ectoplasm.

She remembers the button now, but she'd completely forgotten about it the day the portal failed to activate.

She looked at Danny, waiting to see a mean smirk or anything that indicated this was another attempt at hurting her. But there was just an indifferent look once again.

The button was supposed to be pushed before they activated the portal. Didn't she tell Jack to do it…?

He only shrugged at her panicked look. "Thought you needed to know." He did notice her turbulent thoughts, but showed absolutely no regret over it.

Maddie felt her breathing picking up and heart beating faster again. She quickly stood up and walked past Danny, towards the portal, and turned off all of the buttons, outlets and mechanisms keeping the doorway alive.

Once the light died, she walked inside, ignoring the trepidation of walking inside the thing the killed her son, and said son's ghost watching her like a hawk. She could feel his stare again, and it caused much more discomfort, like she had a weapon pointed to her head, ready to fire.

There… Just like he said. There was a rectangular piece, with two buttons, one red, off, and one green, on, just like she remembered. That is what caused everything… She was standing exactly where Danny himself was, just before-

Maddie slowly looked at Danny again in fright for confirmation. He suddenly showed a small derisive smirk. 'He told me because he knew it would hurt me…'

He stood up and crossed his arms, walking towards her, and stopped right outside the portal, hesitating just a little.

Maddie felt tempted to curl in there and stay there, because maybe, Danny wasn't willing to walk into the deactivated portal again, and she was, possibly, very safe.

But she walked out, almost mechanically.

Danny raised an eyebrow. "I haven't forgiven you yet…" His spiteful smile became less demeaning, and more caring all the sudden, as he unexpectedly hugged her with affect, in a way that made her blink in confusion.

Danny would be too embarrassed to do such a thing, so "Why…?"

Danny was almost nuzzling on her, like a child. "I'm willing to forgive you."

And despite his words, she felt tiredness creeping on her limbs, and quickly realized how she was growing frightfully exhausted, losing warmth with each passing second, like something was drained every last bit of hope she had. 'He's furious with me...'

"Just not today…"

A/N: Aah, Phantom is difficult to write, so this is going to be a challenge. He's all over the place and is way too volatile, but I managed. I have both Danny's and Phantom's personalities mapped out (yes, they have separate personalities, obviously) so I wouldn't get confused in my plans.

The rest of what was supposed to be the rest of this chapter, well, I'll write from Danny's POV next, and now that I think about it, it's better this way.

Also, here, hear me out! A DP idea struck me, a few months ago, and I've been wanting to write it for a while now. I did write the first chapter, along with this chapter right here, so it's also one of the reasons why I took so long... But it just wouldn't leave me alone! I was just too excited, so I planed at least 10 chapters of it, wrote the first chapter, and now I'm raising a flag here.

There's ONE story out there with the same idea, a different complication in the Masters of All Time episode, where Maddie and Vlad have and kid, and the producers didn't go that way because, with Danny's morals, it would've been HELL for them to curve around something like Danny going back, fixing things, and erasing someone's existence. And you know how I love moral dilemmas!

Unfortunately, the fic I read didn't quite reach my standards, so I decided to write it myself. I rarely focus on OCs, specially never on OC POV, but I'm particularly confident in this one. My fic also takes an unexpected twist. :P (And no, I'll not give up on this fic to write that one. I just want to write both!) It's also an experiment, to see how I do with Danny's POV.

ANYWAY! REVIEW, tell me what you think of this chapter, and my other possible story! Sorry for the time I took to write this! Next time I'll write a bigger chapter and I'll update sooner!

See ya then!