Disclaimer: I do not own Jack Fenton, Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom, the Fenton Lab, the Fenton Ghost Portal, halfas, or anything else from the show.

Secrets from Self

My only son walks into the lab and I hastily put away the original blueprint of what I'm working on. It wouldn't do to let Danny see what all my inventions for the last couple months were originally intended for. He might start to catch on to the fact that he's part ghost.

As always, he didn't notice my hiding anything. I think he gets that from Maddie. Sure, I didn't know what Danny was for several months after his accident, but Maddie still doesn't know. (I could never tell her that Danny's Phantom. She tends to get a little ghost-hunting happy.)

"Hey Dad," Danny greets me. Ah Danny, such a son. It was his love for me and Maddie that made him an unwilling ghost/human hybrid. All he was trying to do was fix the Fenton Ghost Portal for us.

The lab tape showed me enough of what happened for me to find out how Danny got to be part-ghost. I could see Danny putting on his jumpsuit on the tape, but the accident took so much power that the Fenton Lab Security Camera had to resort to battery, and that didn't last long. Just long enough to show him coming out of the portal as Phantom.

Since the day Danny found out for sure that ghosts aren't bogus, he's been interested in ghost hunting like his folks. Every day after school, he comes down to see what I'm working on in the lab.

He never knows why I invent all this ghost equipment. While I haven't succeeded in creating what I really mean to create so far, most of my stuff seems to work fine for something else ghost-hunting-related, and as long as the family needs money, and my son continues to show interest in my gadgets, I'll keep messing with my failed attempts to make something that works for something.

"Danny boy!" I call. "It's great to see you're home!" Under my breath, I add so softly that Danny can't hear me, "Because as long as you're in my sight as your true human self, you can't be that evil ghost kid Danny Phantom."

My son nods to the half-finished device in my hands. "What are you making?"

I'm trying to make something to make him a normal human again, but if I tell him that, I'll have to explain to him that he's not a completely normal kid. I'd have to tell him that he's half ghost – half the thing he despises – that half of him is the notorious ghost punk. I can only tell him what the thing in my hands will actually be able to do.

"It's the Fenton Research Machine! It finds information on a ghost's life after a quick scan." I explain. "This baby will allow us to find ghosts' weaknesses!" This was one I was never going to have to use on my son.

Speaking of my son, Danny's eyes go wide. They're wide with amazement, but if I didn't know better, I'd say they're wide with fear. "Will it work on every ghost?" he asks. "What if ... What if the information hurts a ghost's living family members?"

So his eyes were wide with fear. Little does he know that the ghost whose information would hurt his family most is right here in the lab. But of course, I'm keeping that information safe. I'm not going to let another one of my inventions hurt my boy.

But what if he does know? Sometimes it almost seems like he knows he's the halfa. But that can't be; he wouldn't be able to live with himself he knew that. Trying to hide the truth from my unfortunate son, I ask, "Why would it hurt a ghost's living family?"

Danny doesn't answer. I look up at my son and see him shivering. He has that look in his eyes that he gets whenever he's about to run off and change into that curséd alter ego of his. "Anyways," he finally says, "I've got to go Dad. Things to do, y'know..."

"Alright. If you see any ghosts, kick their butt!" I call.

Poor Danny. He wants to please his old man and be a ghost hunter so badly. It would tear him in half if he knew that half the time he was one of those evil ghosts he wants to hunt.

He keeps running off to transform whenever the corrupt ghost side of his brain starts to take over. He does some pretty bad things as Phantom – kidnapping the mayor, robbing jewelry stores, shooting ectoplasm at his parents – but he never remembers those things as the Fenton he really is. His panicked human mind, unable to remember the last stretch of time and having no real explanation as to what he's been doing, fills in a crazy story as to what happened after his time as a ghost.

It hurts to think that maybe one of these days, he'll remember exactly what he's done and find out he's Phantom. He'd have to live with the knowledge that, although he's a junior ghost hunter, he's also one of the most evil ghosts in existence himself, and that there's nothing he can do about it. No Fenton should go through that.