A/N: Written for the 2019 Phic Phight based off prompts by Hauntedjoanns (After a freak lab accident, the Fentons bury Maddie. But she comes back.) and Quishaphantom (Start and end the fic with the same sentence, the first time it's positive and happy. The second time it's chilling and foreboding.) on tumblr. Post-The Fright Before Christmas. Warning: Character death. Standard disclaimers apply.

"We'll always be together. We're a family, and we're Fentons. A silly little feud like this isn't going to break us apart." Maddie sat down on the foot of Danny's bed and smiled at him. "You know that, right, sweetie?"

She thought he didn't want to talk about what had happened at Christmas, when in reality he'd spent half his time with his friends and the rest in the Ghost Zone celebrating the Christmas Truce—and, on a more personal level, the end of the Ghost Writer's infernal rhymes. Had he been in his room when she'd first knocked and begun talking to him outside of his door, soothing him, trying to coax him into opening it, she might not have this impression. She'd believed his apology when he'd come back with the presents, but considering she and Jack had run out fairly soon afterwards…. Maybe she thought they'd ruined it for him again, since he'd disappeared for so much of the evening.

He wondered how late it actually was.

He probably should've come back sooner, spent more of his Christmas with them, but once he'd gone, the food in the Ghost Zone had been unexpectedly good. It had been real, fresh, and surprisingly not contaminated, unlike everything in the Fenton household. But he could make it up to them tomorrow; he was off school for another week and a half, and all he had to do was find out from Jazz which weapons it was safe to pretend to be interested in. Once he asked about those, maybe agreed to go on a quick patrol with his parents and take down an ectopus or something, they'd believe the truth when he told it: that he really didn't harbour any hard feelings about how they'd acted all these years, not anymore.

"I know, Mom," he answered dutifully.

"Sometimes we fight; every family does. And, sometimes, things escalate. And sometimes our dinner is contaminated and gains sentience." Her lips quirked into another smile, and he smiled, too. There had been too many disasters in the past for them to ignore that. "But we'll handle each problem as it comes, honey. I promise you; nothing like that will ever separate us. You and Jazz are more precious to us than anything else in this world or the Ghost Zone. We love you both. I don't want you to think anything is going to get in the way of that, or of our love for each other."

He just nodded. It wasn't like he could tell her the truth about why he'd run away—well, the whole truth, anyway—or how he'd come to be surrounded by formerly-possessed Christmas trees or where he'd gotten the presents he'd given to them in the end. It was easier if she believed his behaviour was due to the Christmas feud, of how she and Jack had carried on, of how they'd run out in pursuit of ghosts. Honestly, it was rather sweet that she'd come to reassure him. He just didn't need the reassurance.

"You can talk to us, honey. About anything."

She suspected there was more to this. If he brushed her off now, she'd find a way to bring it up again. Danny untangled himself from the covers so he could give his mom a proper hug. "I know," he repeated, "and I love you guys, too. Like I said before, I overreacted earlier, and I'm sorry. It's not that I didn't want to talk to you when you came up tonight; I just fell asleep early. I didn't hear you right away." The lie fell easily from his lips, and he forced a laugh as he finished with the truth. "It was a long day."

"I'll let you get back to sleep, then." She kissed his cheek before he had a chance to contemplate escape. "Good night, Danny. I love you."

"Night, Mom. Love you, too."

Danny woke to wailing alarms, sleepiness falling away as adrenaline filled him. He transformed—

—and four ecto-energy seeking weapons sprang out of the walls to focus on him. He groaned and changed back before they could fire. Who had activated the Fenton Anti-Creep Mode? His ghost sense had never gone off, so it wasn't like someone had breached the Fenton Ghost Portal again. He grabbed his ecto-gun off the shelf with his model rockets (he refused to sleep with it under his pillow, despite what his parents wanted) but didn't even bother shoving his feet into slippers before running into the hallway.

His parents' bedroom door was open. So was Jazz's. A quick peek inside both rooms proved that they were empty, as was the bathroom, so Danny started down the stairs. He saw Jack pushing Jazz towards the front door, but before he could open his mouth to ask, one of Jack's hands had grabbed his and was tugging him down the last of the steps.

"What happened?" Danny asked, twisting to look behind him.

His father's face was unusually grim. "Outside, you two. Mads and I will deal with this."

"Deal with what? What's going on?"

"Wait for us across the street," Jack said, and then he slammed the door in their faces, leaving them standing on the stoop in their pajamas.

Danny looked at Jazz, who shrugged and rubbed her arms. "Ghost?"

He shook his head. "My ghost sense never woke me up."

"And it always does?"

"Kinda hard to sleep through a sudden freezing sensation." Truth was, though, he didn't know that his ghost sense always woke him up. How could he? He'd still be asleep.

"Maybe it's a drill, then." But the alarm was still ringing inside, and Jazz didn't look convinced. Every other family drill they'd had had come with reminders—never trust a ghost, always remember technology may have been infected, never back yourself into a corner, always keep at least one weapon within arm's reach, that kind of thing—and it seemed unlikely that they'd stop now.

They'd never had a ghost drill in the middle of the night before, either, for all that his parents had threatened it. He watched some of the lights flick on in the neighbouring houses and realized why. More than one disgruntled face looked out the window before turning away and disappearing into darkness, realizing it was just the Fentons. Again.

"This is probably to keep us on our toes," Jazz said lightly. She took his ecto-gun from him and shoved it into a pocket in her housecoat—hers was already in the other pocket, judging by the bulge—before crouching in front of him. "Come on; climb on. You're barefoot, and powers or not, I don't want to find out if you can lose any toes to frostbite."

Neither did he, so Danny climbed on her back. She hadn't given him a piggyback ride in years, but she shuffled across the street and waited under the streetlight. As the wind picked up, bringing with it a few flakes of snow, he could feel her shivering beneath her thin housecoat. He wished there was something he could do to help, but with the possible exception of a ghost shield—

"Cold wind," Jazz commented after a moment, but her voice was high, wrong, and Danny suddenly realized that she wasn't shivering; she was shaking.

He clutched her tighter, turning them both intangible except for the soles of her feet and slippers, as if it would help them escape from the chest-constricting feeling that was settling over them.

Something was wrong.

Something he couldn't stop.

Something she couldn't fix.

"We have to go back in," Danny whispered. He didn't know how long it had been. Too long. It must have already been too long. Their parents should have come out to get them ages ago. They should have—

The alarms finally cut off. He flew them both back across the street, past caring that someone might see. If they did, they'd just explain it away, like they explained away everything else. It was just the Fentons, after all. Just the Fentons, steeped in their paranormal studies again, inventing strange things and talking about it to anyone close enough to listen.

Danny didn't drop their intangibility until they were safely inside. Jazz was running for the basement lab before his feet even hit the kitchen floor, but he wasn't far behind her.

The door to the lab wasn't closed like it usually was, like it was supposed to be, but he took the stairs two at a time without stopping to wonder why. The Christmas Truce was no longer in effect, but the ghosts weren't that cruel; they wouldn't have planned something for the moment the Truce ended.

And his ghost sense had never gone off.

"Dad?"

Jazz's voice sounded strangled, as if she had to force herself to speak. As if she were trying not to cry. Danny caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs and finally let himself look around. The emergency lighting was on, softer lights lining the walls and disappearing up the emergency exit tunnel to the backyard, but he didn't need the usual harsh fluorescence of the lab to know that something had happened here. Broken glass, splattered ecto-samples, scorch marks along the far wall.

A lingering smell of burnt something, acrid and plasticky and maybe a bit acidic.

"What happened?"

There was definitely panic in Jazz's voice now.

Danny followed her gaze and swallowed as he recognized the black boots sticking out from behind the examination table. The rest was hidden by his father's hulking form, but—

"Dad." Jazz's voice cracked. "How's Mom?"

Jack's shoulders shook, and something inside of Danny twisted.

A choked sob was Jazz's only answer.

Danny couldn't swallow the lump in his throat back again as the world blurred.

Jack explained it to them later, as much as he could explain it. Maddie had gone down to the lab to tinker with something. A surprise, she'd called it. Wouldn't tell him the details, but he had a few guesses, none of which mattered now. Something shorted out. Something got knocked off the shelf. The order of events wasn't entirely clear, but some of their ecto-samples had been released, and not just the standard ectoplasm ones. Danny was pretty sure Jack had mentioned a suspected hallucinogen, though he wasn't sure which ghost was supposed to be involved in that. Maybe it wasn't a ghost at all. He hadn't realized his parents had ever done a scouting mission into the Ghost Zone, let alone collected some of the native flora, but maybe they had. Or maybe that had been part of his mother's surprise.

Whatever the exact circumstances, Jack hadn't been able to save her in the end. Something had gone wrong, something Danny couldn't stop, something Jazz couldn't fix, and now—

Jazz put a cup of hot chocolate in front of him.

He hadn't realized she'd gotten up to make something. Hadn't noticed her leave her spot at the table, hadn't heard the kettle's shrill whistle or the clink of the spoon against the cup. She'd made one for each of them.

She'd made three.

It wasn't enough.

Danny wrapped his hands around his mug, lifting it to his face to breathe in the steam, but it couldn't warm him, and his stomach twisted after the first sip.

He didn't drink the rest. Jack never touched his. By the time Jazz finished hers, it must have been ice cold.

They sat in silence, trying to come to terms with everything, until the phone rang. Jazz jumped up to get it, and Jack shot her a grateful look, and then there was too much to do to sit in silence. There was too much to do to think. Contacting all their relatives, breaking the news to Vlad, talking to the funeral home and getting all those preparations in order, writing the obituary and getting it in the paper, picking up Aunt Alicia from the airport, talking to the florist, the bank, the accountant, the lawyer, the insurance company, finding out who needed to know what and by when and which places needed a death certificate and—

None of them were sleeping.

It was a good thing he didn't need much sleep anyway.

People kept stopping by to bring them food and their condolences, which was just as well, because Danny didn't think they could eat any of the food in their house anyway. Not that any of them were hungry. They were too tired to be hungry, stuck in cycles of shock and grief as reality started to sink in. But they did try to eat, since it was there.

The ghosts stayed away, though.

Danny thought he might have Vlad to thank for that, but he didn't ask.

A lot of people turned up for the funeral.

Danny didn't know half of them, but they knew him, and they shook his hand or hugged him or touched his shoulder. In hindsight, it made sense; everyone in town knew the Fentons. But it was weird, seeing all these people show up, all these people being sad for someone he wasn't sure they'd really known. Sometimes people cried instead of trying to talk to him, and he always got tears in his eyes, too. If he let himself think about it, he cried. He tried to distance himself, tried to distract himself, just to get through it.

He couldn't remember anything anyone said to him at the funeral.

He had a vague recollection of being at the cemetery, of the cold seeping into his bones, of the wisps of snow skittering across the ground at their feet, of the way the artificial turf didn't quite cover the mound of dirt that had been displaced. He remembered looking up at one point and seeing Valerie standing there with her dad, and he remembered thinking that she knew what this felt like. Unlike Sam and Tucker, she knew.

He remembered wondering if he could ask her how long the pain would last, but he hadn't known how to ask the question, and there had been too many people at the reception, anyway.

He'd nibbled at the food on the plate Sam had brought for him, but even when she and Tucker had sat with him at a table, talking more to each other than to him, it hadn't been enough.

Was any of this his fault, even partially? Had she been doing something in response to how he'd been acting? Had she been hoping to surprise him? Had it really been a freak accident or had it been a targeted attack on her because he was Phantom? Would things have been different if she'd known the truth? His mom had always taken more safety precautions in the lab than his dad, and he knew theirs wasn't exactly the safest profession to begin with, but—

At least he'd told her he loved her. At least he had that. But he hadn't spent…. He'd left them, left them all, when he shouldn't have, and she'd thought…. She'd…. If only he'd….

Danny cried himself to sleep that night.

Again.

When Danny woke, it took him a few seconds to orient himself. He was in his room, of course, in bed, but he couldn't remember falling asleep. It had been after three in the morning when he'd last looked at the clock and sworn to himself that he wouldn't look at it again, and—

Bright red numbers informed him that it was half past six. It was still dark outside. The house was quiet. He couldn't remember dreaming. He wondered dumbly what had woken him.

And then a shiver ran through him, and he coughed, and he realized his grace period was over.

He wasn't ready for normal, wasn't ready for any semblance of normal, but the ghosts weren't going to wait any longer.

Danny grabbed the ecto-gun off the shelf, picked up the thermos he'd started storing next to it, and shuffled his slippers onto his feet.

He didn't want to fight.

But he didn't want to lose anyone else, either.

And maybe it would just be the Box Ghost, and Danny could give him some cereal boxes and send him over to Vlad's to look for more and be done with it. He shouldn't, considering Vlad had agreed to put up Aunt Alicia and take her back to the airport in the morning, but Vlad would just call Valerie anyway. Frankly, Danny was happy to leave the ghost hunting to Valerie for a while.

Something fell. Shattered, from the sound of it. Maybe it was the Box Ghost after all. Or Technus after the toaster again. Or the Lunch Lady, stocking up on semi-sentient meat. Danny headed downstairs and walked towards the kitchen. He didn't want to do this, but Jack and Jazz hadn't been sleeping well, either, and if he could deal with this before either of them woke up—

He crossed over the threshold of the kitchen, blinked, and froze.

It was a cloudy night. Some light from the streetlamps spilled inside, but he didn't need that to be sure of what he was seeing. Ghosts always had their own glow, however subtle, and it was his ghost sense which had woken him up. Even running on very little sleep, Danny knew there was no mistaking what he saw.

Maddie stood over the shards of her glass mixing bowl, and when she looked up at him, she smiled. "Hi, sweetie," she called softly.

He took a step back.

"Did I wake you? I just wanted to make some cookies."

He took another step back.

"Did you want some water? Let me get you some water."

She glided smoothly over broken glass to the cupboard by the sink, and after a moment's concentration, she had a glass in her hand and was fighting to grasp the tap, to turn it on and fill a glass of water for him.

He was halfway up the stairs when he heard running water, and he didn't look back.

They didn't talk about it. There was no screaming, no crying, no denials. No one drew any weapons, either.

Not even Jack.

She'd made sure they didn't have any weapons left to draw.

None of them had ventured into the lab until her return, but she had, probably that first night. As far as Danny could tell, what she couldn't destroy, she'd simply tossed into the Ghost Zone. Whether the genetic lock recognized her or whether she simply used her knowledge of it to get around all the protocols, he didn't know. He did know that she'd deactivated the Fenton Anti-Creep Mode, probably at the same time she'd stolen his dad's arsenal and swiped his sister's ecto-gun and thermos.

She hadn't found his yet, despite watching him carefully behind a too-sharp smile.

She didn't know he'd hidden them in his bedroom wall that first night.

She still didn't know he could.

She must have never talked to any of the other ghosts. Not that he thought they'd talk to her, except maybe Plasmius, but Vlad didn't know or he'd be here. He'd probably come even knowing this wasn't really Maddie anymore; he'd just be desperate to see her one last time. But he wouldn't come without knowing, and as far as Danny could tell, the other ghosts were still avoiding the Real World—or at least avoiding his little corner of it.

He'd even tried calling Cujo, to no avail. Either Cujo hadn't heard him or he couldn't get through whatever Maddie had reconfigured to keep other ghosts out. There was definitely something. Danny kept hitting a barrier, presumably the Fenton Ghost Shield, every time he tried to phase all the way through an outside wall. Trying to phase through the ground didn't work, either; whatever it was passed through the earth, too, which might be what was messing with Cujo's ability to create portals if he had heard Danny's call.

Intentional trap or not, it meant Danny couldn't sneak messages out that way. Or any way, really, considering Maddie had destroyed their computer, their phones, and everything else she thought they might ultimately use against her. Since their routines had been so disrupted, no one was going to question this. Even Sam and Tucker had been trying to give him space, sending only the occasional message to check up on him with assurances that he didn't have to answer right away and promises that they'd be there if he ever wanted to do something, whether that involved talking about what had happened or avoiding the subject at all costs. Not hearing from him for a few days would have been weird before, but not now.

It was…strange. They were all walking on eggshells, trying to adjust, trying to figure out the boundaries without pushing too far. They didn't know what the consequences would be, not yet, but they still feared them. Feared this. Feared what Maddie had become.

Danny was finally beginning to appreciate some of his parents' theories on ghosts.

Then again, ghosts were as much a culmination of people's beliefs around the afterlife, around ghosts, as they were people's spirits and echoes of their lives.

And Maddie had believed ghosts had obsessions.

She had believed they didn't feel pain.

She had believed they had no true emotions, merely masks, and that they were expert manipulators.

She had believed they couldn't be trusted.

Some of that certainly held true now, but he didn't yet know how much.

Danny lay in his bed with his eyes closed. Not pretending to sleep—she wouldn't believe that—but content to use it as an excuse to think. She was watching him. He knew that. She was watching him the most closely of all, probably because she'd come to realize she could trust him the least.

Danny wasn't sure, if it came down to it, if Jack would be able to fight her. She was a ghost, but she was his wife. That might change things, just as knowing he was Phantom might change things, if he ever gave it the chance. It wasn't quite the same—she was dead, a proper ghost; she had no body, no human side to embrace, not anymore—but for every fear he'd ever had about them finding out, he now found himself thinking that the opposite would happen here. They wouldn't have attacked him for being Phantom, and Jack wouldn't attack Maddie now.

Even if he had the opportunity, even knowing what he did, he'd hesitate.

She'd know what to say to make him hesitate.

And then she'd act before he could, and the opportunity would be lost.

Jazz wouldn't be any better. He could pass a weapon to her without explaining how he still had it, but she was trying to get through to their mom. To talk to her. Remind her of who she really was, not this façade, this shadow. Jazz wouldn't want to attack until she was convinced it was too late, and if he talked to her about this, she'd just ask for him to give her time.

He wasn't concerned about keeping his secret from his dad anymore; he just wanted to keep it a secret from his mom. It was the only advantage they had. Telling Jack anything now just ran the risk of Maddie finding out, especially since Jack wasn't great at subtle.

It would be different if Maddie hadn't changed. But for all that the ghost of his mother smiled at them and baked batch after batch of cookies, the ghost wasn't his mom. Not really.

There was a thump across the hall. Jazz. Danny opened his eyes, climbed out of bed, and met her in the hallway. Her eyebrows rose a fraction, and he gave his head a minute shake. It wasn't safe to talk. Maddie was listening.

Jazz risked reaching for the front door handle, but Danny wasn't surprised when her hand fell away and she kept pace with him into the living room. The doors in the house weren't locked, per se, but they wouldn't open, either. Neither did the windows. No doubt the Fenton Ops Centre was locked down as tightly as the Fenton Ghost Portal—and, presumably, the emergency exit to the backyard.

Jack looked up from his needlework. "You kids all right?" The stitches Danny could see were tiny, tight, but he wasn't much farther along than he had been last time Danny had looked. Likely as not, he kept picking them out.

"We're great, Dad," Jazz chirped, but her eyes told the real story.

They were a family of ghost hunters trapped in their own home by a ghost who had been one of them, who knew their usual tricks. Jazz hadn't been making any progress with her psychology, Jack seemed at a loss for what to do, Danny wasn't sure of the best plan of attack and couldn't discuss it with either of them, and she was afraid.

"Isn't this wonderful?" Maddie asked, materializing as Danny and Jazz sat down on the sofa. "We need to spend more time together, as a family. We're better this way."

It didn't even sound like her anymore.

Danny had thought, if there were a change, that it would be gradual. Time deteriorated all things, even memories. But this was…. She'd never seemed like herself since she'd come back. Maybe not all of her had come back.

"It's nice to have quality family time," Jazz agreed carefully. "Too many people have trouble keeping their lives balanced."

The smile that had been fixed on Maddie's face faltered. "Oh, sweetie, don't worry. We'll make up for lost time. I promise."

Jazz swallowed and glanced at Danny. He pretended not to see.

"We're making do," Jack said. "We…we still have food we can eat."

As opposed to food they couldn't eat, like the Christmas oranges the cookies had infected yesterday. Danny had nearly had to reveal himself then and there, until Jazz had fished the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick out of her closet and, between that and Jack's golf clubs, they'd turned the oranges into pulp and trapped the remains in jars.

Maddie had been suspiciously absent for the entire incident.

"You haven't finished my cookies." Maddie's tone was light, but she was watching their reactions, frowning slightly at every grimace. Danny wasn't sure if she was intentionally contaminating every batch or not. He hadn't figured out what she wanted.

Aside from trapping them all inside, she hadn't given them a lot of clues. Revenge for what had happened to her? As far as he knew, it had been a freak accident—not even the sort carelessness could cause, like not cleaning the ecto-filter on the portal. Unfinished business? Maybe, except ghost hunting had been the family business, and destroying their weapons so they couldn't be used against her, while beneficial to her continued existence in the Real World, wasn't conducive to achieving that goal and moving on. He hoped she didn't want him and Jazz to take up ghost hunting more wholeheartedly than either of them had, but if that was her goal and the reason she was trying to keep them here….

"Just don't have much of a sweet tooth lately," Jazz murmured. None of them had tried their hand at cooking a meal yet, but Danny knew they were running out of gifted casseroles—albeit more because they kept getting contaminated than because they were being eaten. Maddie wasn't exactly careful in the kitchen anymore, but he knew how hard it could be to learn to control new powers. He doubted it was much easier for her than it had been for him, especially since she was spending all her time in the Real World.

Still, they'd have to act soon. Three days of being a prisoner in his own home, and his skin was constantly crawling.

Cold flooded through him, and Danny shivered. "You're being awfully quiet, sweetie," his mother said.

"I was just thinking," he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

"Aren't you happy? We're a family again."

Danny's head shot up. Was that all it was? Was that what this was? He wished he could discuss it with Jazz—she'd know in a heartbeat; she probably already had a guess—but all he could do now was search Maddie's face. She was smiling again, and it was more than her usual mask. Cruelness twisted on the edge of it, and her eyes…. He hadn't seen them look so cold when she'd been alive, even when she'd been cheerfully informing them that ghosts didn't feel pain.

Maddie stepped back, but the cold didn't diminish, some combination of her presence and his ghost sense and who knew what else. "You don't think we're a family," she concluded, and her gaze focused on Jack and Jazz. "Do any of you think we're still a family?"

Even Danny knew their pause was too long, their assurances too late.

Shadows danced across the drawn curtains as the light in the room pulled away and dimmed. Jazz didn't even look at him, knowing full well he wasn't the cause. Her gaze was fixed on Maddie. This was the first time she'd openly displayed any of her new powers, and which ones she had would give them the best clues as to what had happened.

"I'll just have to prove it to you, then," she said, and Danny heard a thump from the kitchen. He jumped to his feet, and Jazz screamed, and Jack was looking around for something to use as a weapon—

There was something in here with them, something besides Maddie, but he couldn't spot it, and he was so cold now that he wasn't sure he'd have noticed his ghost sense going off. Could Maddie really control light and shadows or was there some sort of mutual agreement between her and a shadow ghost, not unlike what Johnny 13 and Shadow had? But when would she have made one—when could she have made one—and who would make such a deal with her without even telling her who he really was? If they'd planned to double cross her—

"Look out!" Jazz shrieked, and she tackled him. Something exploded overhead, showering them with sparks, and then he could smell smoke, and burning cloth, burning hair, and fire crackled and heat swelled and his eyes were smarting, and Jack was yelling at them to get to the door—

And then there was nothing.

"This is what I'm protecting you from," Maddie said as Jazz rolled off his back and climbed tentatively to her feet. He sat up but stayed on the floor. His eyes were watering. Smoke and ash still stung his nostrils and hung on his tongue. But the heat was gone, and the earlier cold, and he was more convinced than ever that his ghost sense hadn't gone off.

Not for someone besides his mother, anyway.

He thought he knew what this was now. He'd met enough ghosts that worked with illusions, or near enough, and if Jack was right about what he thought had happened….

"It's not safe outside," she continued. "Not anymore. When I broke through, when I came back…. They followed me. They got out, and now they're trying to get all of you. I won't let that happen."

"I'll fight—"

"You can't," Maddie interrupted, cutting off Jack before he could begin his argument. "Not these ghosts. You're a terrible shot, honey."

"Not when it comes to protecting my family," he replied, lifting his head.

"That's all I'm doing," she answered. "That's all I've ever wanted to do. And now I can do it properly. You'll all stay here, and you'll stay safe. Now, I'll bring in those cookies in case anyone decides their sweet tooth is back."

Danny caught Jazz's eye as Maddie left the room and risked a tiny nod. He didn't have a plan, not really, but she'd follow his lead, and Jack would catch on soon enough. They needed to move before things got worse, before Maddie got stronger.

While she was preoccupied in the kitchen, Danny slipped upstairs.

Danny didn't know if Maddie had any sort of ghost sense. If she knew of his ghost powers, she certainly hadn't let on. Then again, he'd barely used his ghost powers since her return. Until now.

He wasn't as good as Vlad when it came to duplicating himself—he couldn't hold a duplicate very long in ghost mode, let alone in human form—and he risked giving the game away faster if he tried sending one downstairs as a stand-in. He didn't need it disappearing mid-sentence. Instead, he'd let Jazz cover for him, like she always had before.

Danny turned invisible the moment he was out of sight, though he stayed tangible until he needed to grab the weapons he'd stowed away. He stayed this way as he flew back to the living room and pressed the thermos into Jazz's hands. She shifted, subtly pointing to the pillow resting against the arm of the couch, and he slipped it behind that instead as Maddie returned with a plate of chocolate chip cookies that emitted a faint green glow.

Danny steered clear of her as he edged toward Jack, but he needn't have worried. Maddie stopped in her tracks when she noticed his absence. The room grew colder again.

"Danny just ran to the washroom," Jazz offered before Maddie asked. Maddie looked in the direction of the upstairs bathroom, frowning slightly. Danny shivered even though he was certain she didn't know—yet—that he wasn't actually up there.

Maddie's lips thinned, and Jazz glanced at Jack before snagging Maddie's attention again. Danny took the opening for what it was. "Trust me," he murmured in Jack's ear as he slipped the ecto-gun into one of the side pockets of his dad's suit. To Jack's credit, he jerked but didn't say anything—maybe because he recognized the familiar weight of what had become forbidden weaponry.

Danny sneaked back upstairs, flushing the toilet and running the tap for good measure, before joining the others in the living room again. Maddie didn't smile when she saw him. Whether or not she knew the truth, she didn't believe the lie. She'd be expecting something.

"Are you feeling okay, sweetie?" she asked, half turning towards him.

Danny opened his mouth to repeat his usual lie—I'm fine—when he saw Jack draw the ecto-gun and flip off the safety. Maddie was turning back to him even before it finished powering up, but she surely wasn't expecting the pillow Jazz threw at her or she'd have phased through it.

The distraction was enough for the ecto-gun's whine to reach its climax. Jack fired. Danny ducked and shot off an ectoblast for good measure. Maddie had also managed to avoid Jack's blast, but she hadn't been anticipating his when she'd thought him unarmed. It caught her in the side and threw her across the room. He rolled and transformed, figuring he'd withstand anything she retaliated with better in ghost mode and not wanting to be in the same spot by the time she recovered enough to send something at him. Just because he hadn't seen her use a ghost ray, didn't mean she couldn't.

When Danny came back up in a crouch, the world was thick with smoke. Turning intangible helped—it was easier to breathe, the smoke didn't sting anymore, and he couldn't feel any heat from the flames which had sprung up—but it didn't give him his sight lines back. Jazz and Jack were lost in choking darkness, and Maddie was far enough away that he couldn't spot her, either. He knew this couldn't be real, but he also had no idea how he was supposed to see through an illusion like this.

There wasn't fire, just as there wasn't really smoke, so trying to do anything to fight it wouldn't get him anywhere. He'd do more harm than good. But she could have easily removed herself from view in a world spun of her own illusions, and if he didn't do something—

The world filled with blinding light, and then everything was dark.

Reality snapped back into place when the thermos left Jazz's hands. "Wh…what…?"

"It seems someone's been keeping secrets," Maddie said, tucking the thermos under her arm. Jazz's eyes darted around the room, her heart sinking when she couldn't spot her little brother. True, there was a chance he was hiding again and biding his time, but….

But that didn't seem likely, given that Maddie held the thermos and the ecto-gun Jack had used was in pieces on the carpet. Jack was staring blankly at the remains, and Jazz didn't know if he was shocked to find out he'd spent the last few days living with two ghosts or because he was still lost in Maddie's illusions.

That's what it had to be. It was rare for a ghost not to have some power related to either the means of their death or their obsession, particularly a ghost who could keep their form and interact with the Real World for as long as Maddie had. She didn't have Spectra's years of practice, and Jazz doubted she'd opened the Fenton Ghost Portal since coming through it from the other side. It was too risky for her to leave such an obvious hole in their defenses, even if she hadn't known of Danny's dual nature or Vlad's personal portal.

Jazz had tried overriding the security system of the Ops Centre last night. She'd tried crawling out through a vent the night before, thinking it a less obvious choice. But while the air could get through, she could not. And Danny couldn't have had any luck with anything he had tried, either, or he'd have let her know. Somehow.

And Jack….

Jazz swallowed.

Jack hadn't hesitated before taking a shot at Maddie at the first opportunity.

She hoped he hadn't merely been acting on old instincts. If this was an indication that he might not accept Danny—

"We're supposed to be a family," Maddie said. Jazz flinched at her sharp tone, but Jack looked over, and Jazz edged closer to her father. She'd have to figure out how to get the thermos back later. She'd have to— "Do you not want to be a family, now that things have changed?"

Jazz knew better than to answer that question. Jack frowned, but he kept quiet, too.

"I'll admit this was a surprise—" here Maddie tapped her finger on the thermos's lid— "but it works in our favour, really. Danny will come over sooner or later. I just keep him safe in here until you two have come over to my side."

"To your side?" Jack growled. "You can't pretend we're a family when this is what you do."

Maddie's smile was all wrong. "You know exactly which side I mean, honey."

Jazz's breath hitched. Maddie might not be able to cut off their air supply, but it wouldn't be difficult for her to contaminate the rest of their food. She might be able to taint their water, too. She might—

"You'll see things from my perspective soon enough," Maddie continued. Her tone made it clear that she didn't intend to give them a choice. Jazz tried to remember if she still had a Fenton Lipstick sewn into Bearbert or if she'd forgotten to replace it the last time half his stuffing had been ripped out. She'd have to check.

Providing she ever had the opportunity.

With Maddie's apparent control of illusion, with her ability to bend their perspective of reality, Jazz couldn't even be sure this much was real.

"We're family, after all, and I'm going to do what's best for you. For all of you." Maddie stroked the thermos before looking up at the two of them. Her eyes held no love for them; they were filled instead with possessiveness, with obsession. Their hardness kept Jazz rooted in place, terrified of what a misstep might mean now that Danny was trapped. "We can be a family of ghosts instead of a family of ghost hunters. I'll do whatever's needed to make that happen. Don't worry. We'll always be together."