Author's note: I do so enjoy writing Danny/Maddie. Hope you guys have been enjoying my personal spin on their relationship.

Objectified

The only thing that's real or true

Breathing deeply, Danny sat on the living room couch, hunched over, head hanging, elbows resting on his thighs.

Was there any chance that it had all just been another of his nightmares and that his mother still had no idea he was half-ghost?

God, he hoped so.

Maddie appeared next to him. He could see her jumpsuit-clad legs, but he did not look up at her.

"Danny? Can I sit with you?"

Danny did not reply, did not even move. Maddie sat beside him and placed a hand on his back. Danny grimaced at her touch.

"I'm sorry, Danny. I didn't mean to go that far."

Danny remained motionless as she started rubbing his back. He hated all of this, hated how motherly and soothing she was trying to be now as if that would negate what she had just done to him. Was he supposed to just be okay with it now that she said she was sorry? Was he supposed to just forgive her because she was touching him so gently now? Did she even really know what she was apologizing for?

Because what she had done to him went so far beyond the tests.

So few regarded him as a person. So few saw him as anything other than a strange entity, an unusual creature that needed to be taken away and examined thoroughly in order to be understood, in order to give him a purpose because he couldn't possibly have one otherwise. He wasn't like normal humans who could just live their lives as they wanted. It was simply their right to live and to be free by virtue of being human.

But he wasn't human, so he apparently didn't have that same right to life and liberty. Because he was clearly not a person as far as anyone could see, it was perfectly fine to use him and strip of him of any freedoms at all. In fact, the only way he'd have any value at all in this human-dominated world was to be useful to other humans in some way, in whatever way they insisted he should be used no matter how painful or emasculating.

And it seemed the same in the Ghost Zone. Since he wasn't fully ghost, other ghosts were keen to use him for their own gain, too.

The leering face of Skulker as he relentlessly chased him. The malicious eyes of Vlad as Danny struggled in ghost-proof restraints. The callous words of the Guys in White as they informed him of their plans to take him away from everyone he loved.

The way he looked at himself in horror the first time he saw his glowing green eyes in the mirror...

And the way his own mother would scream at him and shoot at him and threaten to tear him apart. The way she'd casually discuss with his father at the dinner table the invasive procedures she'd like to put him through.

And now that she knew he was her son, too? Did her feelings toward Phantom change at all? Or was she just excited to know that she didn't have to hunt for him anymore, that he was living right under her roof to be used at her discretion?

He didn't want to believe that. He didn't want to believe that about the woman who raised him and taught him and cared for him and tended to his injuries and nursed him when he was ill and praised him for even his smallest achievements and encouraged him when he was unsure and stayed by his side when he was afraid and loved him no matter how many times he failed and made mistakes.

She had just gotten carried away. She had been a scientist obsessed with ghosts since before he was born, and she only wanted to know more about the first ghost she had ever seen, the ghost that had restored her faith in her work. If she just knew how being used as a specimen made him feel, then she would understand and wouldn't ever try again. It would all be okay. He just had to tell her.

He wanted to give her that benefit of doubt.

Because it was either that or forever feel unsafe with her.

At last, he sat up straight. "That wasn't the first time I've been in that position," he said quietly.

He turned to her. She focused on him with curious eyes.

"I know that you're a scientist and that you just want to learn more about what I am, but…" Danny let out a deep, shuddery breath. "I have nightmares about that sort of thing."

Her eyes widened, her mouth hung slightly open. Danny looked away again and down at the floor as he waited her for to speak next.

"Danny, can you tell me more?"

He raised his head.

"What's it like to be you, Danny?" his mother whispered.

He stared straight ahead as this deceptively simple question resonated in his head.

How could he even begin to answer that?

Where to even start?

He tried to sort it out, tried to figure out what it even really meant.

His eyes and mouth twitched. His diaphragm jolted in a small contraction. He was suddenly seized by laughter that he attempted to keep stifled. He instinctually put a hand loosely over his mouth as he shook with sudden and uncontrollable mirth.

He could see Maddie's perplexed expression in his periphery. He himself had no idea why this was so damn funny to him. Something about the simplicity of the question, something about him not expecting it at all, something about it being a question that actually suggested she did in fact care about him, something about the relief he felt that she would ask it because it meant that maybe she saw him as a person after all.

Something about it being a question that no one had ever asked him before, not even Sam or Tucker or Jazz.

But perhaps the real reason he was laughing was because he knew if he didn't, he'd be crying instead.

Maddie remained silent. Whether it was because she was just waiting for him to calm down or she was too stunned by his reaction was unknown to him. At last, he gulped in a huge breath of air and leaned back. He stared up at the ceiling with an amused grin. "What's it like to be me, you ask?"

Maddie pulled up her legs and propped an elbow up on the back of the couch near his head. "I do ask. Tell me everything."

He started at the beginning with the ghost portal incident and narrated a number of important events in his ghostly existence. His thoughts, his reactions, his concerns. He answered her questions to the best of his abilities, to the extent that he was comfortable answering her. She wanted everything, but there were still things that he wasn't ready to discuss with her just yet, things he wasn't even prepared to tell Sam or Tucker about.

"What are you most afraid of?"

His body involuntarily tensed as a shiver ran through him. A flash of his dark future, his ultimate enemy that he still wasn't convinced was gone.

"I'm not ready to tell you that yet."

But apart from that one question, his words and explanations came so much easier than he would've thought, as if they were a weight inside of him that he could finally pull out and set down, a weight that another person could help him carry.

And his mother never criticized or judged anything. She just listened and nodded and asked clarifying questions. As their conversation progressed, her arm moved and wrapped around him until they were both fully reclined on the couch.

"What do you think of it so far?" Danny asked somewhat sleepily.

Her fingers were gently tangled in his hair.

"I think it's an incredible story," she said, "and I couldn't be happier and prouder to have you for a son."

Danny smiled softly.

"What do you think of it so far?" she asked him.

Danny considered his answer for some time. The thrill of obtaining and mastering a new ghost power. The ghosts that kept returning no matter how many times he pleaded with them to stop hurting the people of his town. The few good ghostly friends he had managed to meet. The genuine fear he felt when he was sure he was going to die or, worse, was sure someone else was going to die due to his own failure. The appreciation he felt when someone actually thanked him for what he did. The increasingly unbelievable excuses he had to concoct for his absences and tardies and late assignments so that he could fulfill his personal obligation to protect the town. The worth and significance he now felt when for so long he thought he would never amount to anything. The agonizing injuries he suffered during battles that kept him awake at night. The exhilaration of flying through the clouds as they stretched beneath the stars.

"There are times I like it," he finally said, "and other times I don't."

He closed his eyes and moved in just a little closer to her.

"But I kind of like it right now," he murmured.

His mind was shutting off, too exhausted from lack of sleep and overwhelming emotions to stay awake any longer. He could feel himself drifting away in his mother's embrace, but he didn't fight it. He could sense her falling asleep as well, but even if she wasn't, he felt safe with her again. He wasn't afraid of her. Not now.

Hopefully never again.

(Aaaaaaaaaaaaand now it's the end. That's all she wrote. ^^ Thanks so much for reading, and please check out MonsterousThings's Tumblr for more awesome art including the full view of the cover art.)