Chapter 1: Forgiveness Is Weakness

..

He is finally dead

Come celebrate this day

It was slow and full of pain

Good riddance

..

Only two and a half weeks had passed since Dan Phantom destroyed the shield and nearly laid waist to the rest of Amity Park.

Valerie sat by her father's hospital bed, eyes drooping with exhaustion. A punctured lung, crushed pelvis, compound fracture to the right femur, and a severe skull fracture made up the list of her father's injuries. It was surprising he wasn't in worse shape seeing as the old Fenton Works building nearly crushed him when Dan Phantom brought it down on top of them. It was surprising still that he was even alive. Valerie, on the other hand, got off light. She only had a few nasty scrapes and bruises.

She knew how important she was to keeping the city safe, but sometimes she desperately wished she was the one crushed under rubble, not her dad, or the number of people that couldn't get into the shelters in time. If she could just trade places...

But that line of thought was dangerous.

This was the second time Dan had put her father in the hospital with critical injury, but hopefully it would be the last. No one had seen Dan Phantom in those two weeks since the shield came down. There hadn't been a ping on her radar for Phantom—or any ghost for that matter. Everyone had their fingers crossed and held their breath.

"It's gonna be okay, Dad," Valerie murmured, sleepily. "I think we finally got him this time."

Her eyes had just drooped close when a voice said, "Colonel Gray?"

Valerie blinked and looked up at a stern looking nurse. "What do you want?" she said, a bit sharper than absolutely necessary.

"Visiting hours are almost over. You only have about thirty more minutes," the nurse said.

Valerie rubbed a hand over her face in an attempt to wake herself up more. "I thought the policy was 24/7 access for family members. Did that change or something?" She muttered, still slightly groggy.

"It's still 24/7 access for family in most units, just not the ICU anymore. With the hospital nearly at capacity, we don't want to over tax the staff with having to accommodate both the patients and the family," the nurse said matter-of-factly.

Valerie wondered if the nurse had ever lost someone close to her or had to watch them waste away in a hospital bed. Valerie would think she'd be a bit more sympathetic if she had. Or maybe she was sympathetic and Valerie was just reading her wrong. She could probably see bags under the nurse's eyes and tired lines in her shoulders if she looked, but Valerie didn't look because she was too damn tired herself.

"Okay, thanks for the heads up," Valerie said rubbing a hand over her face again.

As the nurse's footsteps faded down the hall, Valerie, glanced at the clock on over the doorframe. It read 9 pm. She sighed and leaned back in the surprisingly comfortable armchair. Fuck it. The nurse said she had thirty minutes, and she had a sift patrolling around the city not too long after visiting hours ended. Valerie needed a nap and she was sure the nurse would be a good makeshift alarm clock when she came in to throw her out.

As she drifted into sleep, she could just hear the quiet chatter of the hospital staff between themselves, and hushed sobbing from a couple rooms over on the periphery of her consciousness.

And suddenly it stopped. There was a sudden chill in the air and a kind of wrongness that stuck out in the presence of the supernatural. Valerie's eyes shot open.

She saw a blue ghost dressed in a purple cloak and a doublet. It was immediately apparent that he had some sort of affinity for clocks seeing he had the pendulum of a grandfather clock literally in his chest, several wristwatches adorning his wrists, and a staff with a clock on its top. He also had what was either a scar or a tattoo in the shape of a lightening bolt zigzagging over one of his pupilless red eyes. There was a primal part of her that knew this ghost was immensely powerful and old. Her hand subconsciously inched toward the gun in her holster even though her conscious mind knew that she could never hope to win against this ghost.

The ghost gave her a small polite smile, as if they were just strangers on the street that accidentally made eye contact, and not a ghost hunter and some eldritch creature. "Hello, Valerie Gray. Don't worry. I'm only here to talk," he said calmly, with the eerie echoing voice of all ghosts, though the small lisp on some of his words did take her by surprise. "My name is Clockwork, by the way."

Of course it had to be something like that, Valerie thought. She almost laughed at the name. Almost.

Instead, she glanced over at her father. She noticed he was still, not even breathing, and the screen of the heart monitor was stuck in between beats. "What did you do?" she asked, sounding a little more worried than she would like.

"I merely stopped time so we could talk. The only reason you're not frozen as well is because of the time medallion around your neck," the ghost said.

Valerie, for the first time, realized she had a weight around her neck. She looked down and saw a gear shaped pendant with the letters CW in the middle fastened around her neck with a thick ribbon made from a heavy kind of material.

She looked back up a Clockwork, her hand still discreetly going for her weapon, and said, "So, what do you want? Or did you interrupt my nap just for the hell of it?"

"Why don't we first address the fact that your hand is still going for the blaster on your belt, despite the futility of shooting me," the ghost deadpanned.

Valerie froze for a beat, then she shot up from her chair, aiming the blaster at the ghost. "Oh, yeah?" she shouted and pressed the trigger.

The green plasma bolt that came out of the muzzle froze in mid air. With a small almost regretful smile Clockwork waved it away with a hand, making it completely disappear, as if it simply ceased to exist.

Valerie realized after a moment that her mouth was slightly agape and closed it with a snap. After a small pause, she let out a huff with apparent annoyance and shoved her gun back into its holster then crossed her arms over her chest. She just hopped that Clockwork didn't notice the slight tremble in her movements.

She asked in hardly less than a snarl, "What the fuck do you want?"

Clockwork gave her another small smile and said, "I'm sure you've noticed the lack of your enemy, Dan Phantom."

"Yeah, if only all the ghost would disappear like him," Valerie said pointedly.

"Unfortunately, that isn't the case. All the ghost activities, around here especially, has damaged the barrier between our worlds quite a bit," the ghost explained. "Although I'm sure that's not quite what you meant."

"No, not really but thanks for the info," Valerie bit out sarcastically.

"I, in part, am responsible for his disappearance. I brought his younger form here to stop him, and to stop young Danny from becoming him."

She frowned. "Let me guess, you failed on the last part."

"No, not necessarily."

"Then why am I still here?" she asked, finding herself a little too comfortable with the idea of simply ceasing to exist.

"Sometimes the timeline branches off, creating tributaries of alternate outcomes. But I'm not here to discuss quantum theory with you. I feel that my domain would be a better place to discuss this," he said as a portal opened up. It hovered about a foot off the floor, green energy swirling slowly within its perimeter.

Valerie glanced from the portal to the ghost watching her with a deadpan expression. She cocked an eyebrow and said, "You seriously think I'm just going to go with you…into your...lair? What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

"I don't think you're an idiot," Clockwork said in a frustratingly calm voice. "Maybe a little naive, but then again you are hardly more than an infant, and you always were a bit brash."

A spark of rage flared in her chest. Valerie narrowed eyes narrowed. "Naive? Do you have any idea what I've been through!?" she spat.

"Yes, all too well," Clockwork said with such earnestness that it made Valerie pause. "But that is neither here not there. If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead, and I wouldn't have asked you nicely to come with me. You honestly amuse me with your naive notion that you have any real power against me in this situation."

Valerie averted her eyes and tried to pretend she hadn't just broken out in a cold sweat

"Now," he gestured towards the portal, "I believe you would like to hear what I have to say, seeing as it concerns your 'greatest enemy.' I have him in my custody, and I'm willing to give you a voice in his fate. After all he's put you through, it's the least you deserve."

Valerie glanced at the portal then looked back to the ghost. "And why do you care?"

"I care because I know what you and he both have gone through. I've always cared, even when you cried out asking 'why' as Phantom ravaged your town. I'll say it again, Valerie, I've always cared, even as I've had to watch the most horrific things people have done to each other all throughout history."

"Then why didn't you do anything?" Valerie demanded.

"Trust me when I say it's complicated," the ghost said with a weary look. His features suddenly morphed, wrinkles forming and his frame becoming hunched to simulate the appearance of an old man. "But as I can see you are still not completely convinced that I have no nefarious intentions, you have my word that you will not be harmed and you will be free to leave whenever you please."

Valerie scoffed. "Just how much does your word really mean, ghost?"

"I would say the word of the Master of Time himself means quite a bit," Clockwork said intensely.

Valerie pursed her lips and looked to the portal again. She cursed under her breath. "Fine." Without another word, she stepped through the portal

She was dazed for just a second by the atmospheric shift. She looked around the large cathedral like room that had a multitude of clocks and strange screens lining the walls. Despite the light produced by the glowing screens and the light of the Ghost Zone filtering through the windows, the room was still dimly lit and had a cave like feel to it. She glanced up and saw enormous gears as if she was at the base of a clock tower.

"Wow, you really like clocks don't you," she said dryly.

"You could say it's sort of my theme," he said as he came through the portal behind her, now taking the form of a small child.

"You could have fooled me."

"Anyway," Clockwork said directing her attention to a pedestal holding an old dented and beaten up Fenton Thermos, "this is currently Dan's form of prison."

She directed a wide eyed look at the thermos. "You're saying he's in there…right now?"

"Yes," Clockwork answered shortly.

"They why don't you just destroy him?!" Valerie said. "You can do that, can't you, Master of Time?" she said mockingly.

"I could, but I would rather not—well, truly it's not a matter of preference, but of principle. I could snuff out anyone's life, erase them entirely from history, if I wanted to, but I couldn't predict how that would affect the timeline. I see an infinite amount of possibilities, but I don't know which will come true."

"Don't you think you could make an exception for him?" Valerie said.

"No, I've never made an exception. Not for Pariah Dark millennia ago, not for him," Clockwork said with a nod towards the thermos. "I've had worse than you pester me to make an exception. I've found ways around it just as I will now."

"Then let me kill him," Valerie said, putting her hand on the gun in her holster.

The ghost looked disappointed. "If that is still what you want afterwards, then I will permit you to destroy him."

"After what?" Valerie asked, annoyed that the ghost was being intentionally vague.

"Before we decide his fate, I need to talk to you about your future," Clockwork turned from her and glided towards a swirling monitor, "and his past."

With that the screen changed. Valerie's brow furrowed in confusion when Danny Fenton and his two friends, Sam Manson, and Tucker Foley were displayed upon it.

"What does this have to do with—" Valerie was quickly silenced by a prompt 'shh' from Clockwork. He gestured to the screen with his staff, and with a sour expression she turned her attention back to it.

On the screen Danny was struggling to pull on a black and white jumpsuit. He turned and gave his friends a shaky thumbs up and began to walk into a machine that could only be described as a hole in the wall. Valerie was suddenly hit with an overwhelming sense of dread, and she couldn't understand the reason for the feeling.

There was a moment of Danny just walking around in the device then he turned back and yelled out the opening of the machine to his friends, "Alright, I'm coming out now. I hope you already have all the pictures you want, Sam."

"Yeah, I'm good," she yelled back absently, looking through the small stack of polaroids in her hands.

Danny's foot suddenly caught on one of the wires as he came out of the tunnel, and he only just caught himself on the side of the machine. It was only one tiny slip but the fallout was near instantaneous. A green light consumed the screen. The hairs on the back of Valerie's neck raised as Danny's awful tortured screams rang out through the time ghost's lair.

Her breathing hitched. Faces stretched in agony, forever burned into her memory by the one and only Dan Phantom, entered her vision. She had to turn away from Clockwork, who respectfully kept his eyes on the screen, so he couldn't see the shadows of the horrors she'd seen replay across her face.

Finally, Danny's agonized screaming stopped, and Valerie could breathe again. She turned back to the screen and gasped at what she saw. Danny Phantom crawled out of the machine, reaching desperately for Danny Fenton's horrified friends. He looked so pathetic and pained in that moment that even Valerie felt unsettled seeing him drag himself across the floor. Just before he reached Sam and Tucker who were frozen to the spot, his radioactive green eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell limp. Pail blue rings suddenly appeared around Phantom and transformed him, changing white hair to black, and a black and white jumpsuit into tattered blue jeans and a red and white t-shirt.

Clockwork, mercifully, paused the events unfolding on the screen.

Valerie took a deep breath and ran a hand through her short cropped hair. "I always knew, somehow, deep down, I just didn't want to admit it," she muttered to her self, drawing her hand down from her hair and running down her face.

She raised her eyes to Clockwork with a glare. "Why did you bring me here to show me this? Just to torture me?"

"I'm showing you this for perspective," he said in a completely deadpan voice,

"Perspective?" Valerie practically spat.

"Yes, a little perspective could have gone a long way for many people, saving countless lives and stopping virtually any war before it even started, but perspective is so rarely used."

"Alright, I get it," she muttered.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

He held up his hand and the screen began to swirl green again. "I showed you his beginning. Would you like to see his end?"

Valerie felt her heart leap in her throat, knowing exactly what he was about to show her. "No!" she nearly shouted. Clockwork raised an eyebrow without emotion. Valerie took a breath. "I don't need to see him like that. I get it. It was all over the news when his family died."

Clockwork leisurely lowered his hand and Valerie had to stop herself from breathing a sigh of relief when the screen didn't change.

"He lost everyone he loved all in one fail swoop—except for you. He thought about going to you, but he didn't think he could take the rejection. He preferred to keep you in his mind as his last friend, so instead he went to his enemy."

Valerie frowned. "Danny disappeared after the accident at the Nasty Burger. No one knew what happened to him. Most people thought he ran away. What are you talking about?"

"Vlad Masters," Clockwork said cryptically.

Valerie's eyes widened. "Vlad Masters?" she repeated softly. "What does he have to do with anything?" she asked, even though she already had a terrible suspicion.

"You see, Vlad was a halfa, as well, a human ghost hybrid also created during a lab accident involving Danny's parents, long before Danny himself was transformed, except Vlad was never a good person, not like Danny. He wasn't evil per say before he became a halfa, but ectoplasm is know for clinging to emotions, especially negative ones."

Valerie drew in a deep breath. "He used me." She remembered receiving the ghost weaponry by some anonymous benefactor and didn't even question it in the slightest. Then she met the man right before Pariah Dark attacked. Looking back on the encounter now, it was so obvious he was just a slimy businessman. "How could I be so stupid?"

Clockwork tsked and he shifted into his older form. "You let your anger control you. You refused to see reason, and you punished Danny for it. Perhaps he was right not to go to you."

"No! No, you can't say that! I wouldn't... I could have been there for him!"

"And you could have listened to him in the first place, believed him when he told you your ruin was not his fault."

"But he was a ghost!"

Clockwork raised a scraggly eyebrow, an amused smile playing at his lips. "So you think prejudice is an excuse?"

She let the tension out of her jaw and forced her hands to unclench. "What are you playing at? Am I on trial, too?" she said, her tone cold but even.

He snorted softly and changed back to his toddler form. "No, I'm just trying to make you understand that your unchecked anger and hate are what drove him away."

"Are you trying to say that I'm to blame for this?" she spat.

"In a way, we're all to blame, but tell me, Valerie Gray, would you have accepted Danny as Phantom if he had come to you? Don't lie."

She wanted to say 'of course' but as she opened her mouth to utter the words, all that came out was a puff of air. She swallowed hard and dropped her gaze. "I...maybe not immediately, but..." But what? It didn't matter did it? If she had eventually accepted him or not at all, it would be a betrayal either way. She let out a long breath as a claw of self hatred dug into her chest. She was so stupid then, just a bratty little girl that needed someone to blame for her misfortune.

She shook her head. "Why didn't he kill me?" Valerie whispered to herself.

She blinked, surprised at her own words.

"Why didn't he kill me?" she repeated in her mind. What exactly was she trying to say? Was she finally admitting out loud that Phantom pulled his punches, because he definitely did, even in recent fights. Or was she verbally proclaiming her own feelings of guilt and self hate? Or a little bit of both?

Clockwork chuckled hollowly, putting a stop to her spiraling train of thought. "He still, in his warped mind, sees you as his only friend left. If pressed upon it, I honestly don't think he could kill you."

"What a nice sentiment," Valerie said bitterly.

"Isn't it? It shows that he can feel something besides hate," Clockwork said dryly. He let out another hollow chuckle. "But unfortunately that isn't enough. Even when faced with his childhood friends from the past, all he could feel was hate. He twisted their memory in his mind so he could...bare their loss."

Valerie raised a hand to her forehead and began to massage a spot over her eyebrow where a headache was brewing. "Okay, okay, I see now. He's fucked up. I fucked up. We all made a huge mess of everything. But that could never excuse him for what he did!"

"Of course not. Remember, Valerie, I'm only trying to inform your decision," Clockwork said in his usual patient way. "And besides, I feel that you have a right to know these things."

"I don't think my decision will change," she said crossing her arms. "What other options could there be anyway? It's either staying in the thermos forever, or I destroy him, right?"

"We'll get to that in time," he said. Valerie frowned at the pun.

Clockwork paused and glanced at the monitor. "Would you like to know how Danny came to be as he is now?" he said looking back to her solemnly. "I won't show you it. I'm only asking if you're curious."

Valerie's stomach did a flip and she swallowed. "There's still more to this horror show?"

"I'm afraid so," Clockwork said nodding grimly.

She drew in a long breath. She already knew what her answer was. It would eat her up not knowing, now that the time ghost had hinted at more. And Dan wouldn't exactly be forthcoming—especially if Valerie got her way.

"Alright, just tell me."

Clockwork nodded again giving her a look Valerie would almost say was pity.

"After going to Vlad, Danny requested to have his ghost half ripped out. Immediately thereafter, Phantom ripped out Vlad's ghost half, and Phantom forced them to fuse. Vlad Masters was the only survivor of the incident, and he barely survived.

A hot wave washed over Valerie, and her chest felt tight. She hadn't realized until then that she had held out some small hope that a part of Danny was still alive. It wouldn't have been better—in fact, it would be worse if he was still a halfa since she'd also have to kill a human. It was illogical, unless she also hoped that she wouldn't have to kill him.

"He killed Danny, didn't he?" she said quietly.

Clockwork nodded again.

"How did...? No, no, I don't—I don't wanna know. Thank you for not showing me that."

"I know this means nothing, but I am so very sorry for everything that happened."

Valerie drew in a deep breath and nodded. She couldn't think of anything to say other than, "Yeah, me to." Her voice was slightly hoarse.

Valerie wanted to ask 'why'. Just why to any of it. Why did Danny decide that he needed to have his ghost half cut out? Why the hell did Vlad agree to it? But she quickly decided it didn't matter in that moment. None of the questions really mattered. Because Danny was dead, and that was the largest thing that loomed in Valerie's mind, and overshadowed anything else that tried to worm its way in.

She had known deep down that Danny was dead after he disappeared just as she had known there was a connection between him and Phantom when the ghost also disappeared. She was so good at hiding things from herself. She just put things at the back of her mind to deal with later and then never did. Hell, she wasn't even sure she had fully dealt with her mother's death nearly fourteen fucking years ago. She just charged ahead, covering all her issues with snide remarks and cold anger.

Clockwork gave her several moments to herself until he saw she was simply falling further and further into a pit. He cleared his throat.

Valerie looked up at him blinking several times to try to clear her eyes.

"I'm afraid we're not done quite yet. I need to show you one more thing," he said.

Valerie groaned and rubbed her face. "More past bullshit?"

"No, actually. I'm going to show you some future bullshit to even things out." Valerie almost laughed at his deadpan delivery of the line.

He waved at the screen and it began to change again. "Now watch."