Okay, so that was an unfairly long wait, but hey, at least it wasn't four years, eh? Going into my third (fourth? Losing track of time) week in Europe and absolutely loving it here. I am, however, extremely busy, and it's affecting my updates. *inserts apologies here* Here's a longer chapter to compensate. Also, I will be updating at times other than my usual US time zone (duh), so if you don't want to miss it, there's always the story alert option. Enjoy~

"What did you do?"

"Saved you from becoming zombie-breakfast," Danny said irritably as his mom tried shoving him away from her. "You know, if I let go of you, you'll fall into the infinite matter of the Ghost Zone. Unless you want that to happen, I suggest you quit struggling."

"Is that a threat?" Maddie snapped.

Danny sighed. The lack of sleep and month-long starvation was really getting to him, so much so that he seemed to keep forgetting that this was his mother that he was dealing with, not another ghost. He was almost tempted to let go for a second, just to prove his point, but immediately shot the idea down. Scaring her out of her wits was not the best way to convince his mom that his alter ego was the good guy.

"Not a threat, just a warning."

Maddie continued glaring at him, but at least she stopped fidgeting. Her interest was soon centered on the scenery around them: floating purple doors, swirling green masses, and the occasional ghost. It was familiar to Danny and his friends, though to Maddie it was something of a dream to be exploring a world she and her husband had been studying for years.

"Where are we going?" she asked after several minutes of flying in silence. Danny was still busy fighting his inner battle over whether or not he should just come out and tell her the truth, but figuring that she had seen enough surprises for one day, it couldn't hurt to put off telling her at a later date.

"Across town," Danny said simply.

"Across town? But we're in the Ghost Zone—"

"Think you're the only one in Amity Park that has a Ghost Portal?"

"I—wait," Maddie said, suspicion creeping up on her face. "You already know the answer, don't you? Who, then?"

"Think, Maddie. Who in Amity Park besides you and your husband had—has—a history of studying ghosts?"

"Vlad," she said automatically, though she sounded quite surprised by the idea. "I didn't know he had a portal."

"There's a lot you don't know about your old college pal," Danny muttered under his breath.

"And what makes you think we'll be safe there?"

Danny cringed. His mom was obviously thinking back to one of the many times Vlad had tried convincing her to leave her husband and go live with him, with the Colorado incident being the worst. The thought of seeking refuge with Vlad after that experience had to be a nightmare for her, but it wasn't Vlad's mansion Danny sought after; it was the ectoplasmic experiments in the basement that might be able to get him back to normal in order to more reliably protect his mom and perhaps find other survivors.

And food, he thought as his stomach roared with such a magnitude, it would have put his ghostly wail to shame. Unfortunately, this did not go unnoticed by his mom.

"Hungry?" she asked sardonically.

"Actually yeah," Danny admitted. There was simply no way to get around this one. He assumed his half-dead nature was the only thing allowing him to survive for so long with so little sustenance, but he couldn't keep this up much longer. He and his mom needed food; today. With any luck, Vlad's trove of cereal at the bottom of the pantry would only be semi-stale; if the Walkers hadn't already gotten to it, anyway.

"What could a ghost possibly need—"

"Food for?" Danny interrupted. "Everything needs—"

"But you're dead, yes?"

"So are the Walkers. That doesn't stop them from eating every scrap of fresh flesh in sight."

Maddie's stomach lurched at the mental image.

"Maybe we should stop talking about food?" Danny suggested.

She nodded and averted her head to the side, observing the freakish world around her. There were no ghosts in the area; odd. Her own stomach growled every so often, and after one particularly tumultuous rumble, Danny couldn't hold back his laughter. In spite of the direness of their situation, it was nice to have something to laugh about, no matter how temporary this elation would be.

Seeing his mom watching him with renewed suspicion, he tried to suppress his chuckling fit by biting his lip, but his grin wouldn't fade completely.

"Something funny, ghost?"

What a buzzkill, Danny thought, his positivity dissolving into bitter pragmatism at once.

"Oh come on, Maddie," he said, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "I'm the first person you've been able to converse with in over a month and you can't let this grudge go, even just for a little while?"

"I already agreed not to shoot you—"

"I'm not talking about bullets—which you're only hoarding because you need to protect yourself from the things that actually want to hurt you—I'm talking about my name."

"Your name?" Maddie repeated. "Phan—"

"No, it's always been 'Putrid Protoplasm!' Or 'Filthy Ghost!' I mean, at least those aren't as bad as 'Inviso-Bill' was—yes, that was pretty much unbearable, believe me—but if you're going to address me, why does it always have to be name-calling?"

"But you are a gh—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm a ghost. Does that mean I don't deserve the same…uh, respect as anyone else? What do you have against addressing me by my name?"

Maddie stared at him, unable to respond for quite some time. While it didn't necessarily qualify as an "outburst," it was definitely something she had never heard from the boy before.

Profoundly mature in argumentation tactics, she made a mental note. Seems to believe he deserves the same treatment as a human being.

"Phan—"

"Danny," he said, putting extra emphasis on his first name. He wanted nothing more than for her to put two and two together and start churning up a 'crazy' theory as she had so often done in collusion with his dad, but right now, she kept missing the point. It would have been so easy to just let her work it out for herself, rather than directly telling her. He wanted her to know, he truly did. But, having never explicitly told anyone in his life, the truth just wouldn't bubble to the surface. Confirming a theory would be so much easier than having to spell it out for her.

"Danny Phantom," she said in a hollow voice. He stared into her eyes, begging for her to make the connection, but the spark never came.

"Cool, thanks," he said, deflated. Seeing the entrance to Vlad's portal up ahead, he pushed the revelation dilemma to the back of his mind and began readying himself for another onslaught of Walkers.

As much as he hated to admit it, Danny was terrified. Every gunshot, every sound of a body collapsing onto the floor; it shook him up. He didn't know how it had happened, but it bothered him more than he could ever possibly express to someone who still doubted his loyalties to the people of Amity Park. Watching a close friend and classmate die right in front of him…words couldn't fully express his devastation. His eyes blurred with tears as the scene replayed over in his head, clearer than a high-definition television. Every sound, smell, visual detail…none of it could be purged from his mind. His beloved town, the people he had secretly sworn to himself that he would protect, ghost threat or otherwise…the world beyond the Ghost Zone was a trophy of his failures. School grades had never meant much to him, but Danny Phantom's inerasable failure was written in red ink on the streets beyond the comforts of a realm in which he only partially belonged. If it weren't for his mom and the tiny glimmer of hope he was still harboring in his heart about Jazz, he would have lost it altogether.

"You ready?" he asked after pushing away the portal's obstruction.

Her face was ash white, but she still nodded. His mom was brave, oh so brave. Few others would have survived over one month in the circumstances she had had to cope with. Not to mention four weeks, alone and thinking nonstop about the fate of her family members. As far as she knew, all three were still missing. Danny mentally hit himself at this realization. Secret identity be damned; his mom deserved the comfort of knowing her son was still alive!

"Mom," he whispered, but she was already through the portal. He quickly followed after her, breathing a sigh of relief when he discovered his ability to fly had returned. Doing so made him feel weak the longer he remained in the air, however, so he landed back on the smooth linoleum, preserving his energy for an emergency.

"It's quiet," his mom said, too busy scouring the lab to listen to his half-hearted attempts at getting her to pause for a moment and hear him out.

Indeed, it was quiet; too quiet. The lab itself was pristine, clear of any blood or detached limbs.

"We can use this as a safe haven," Maddie announced after twenty minutes of silently pacing through rows of machinery and ectoplasmic weapon vaults. She had found a lone pistol; this actually alarmed Danny. Vlad fought of ghosts with his own ghost powers and the occasional ecto-weapon, yes; what did he need an actual gun for? It wouldn't work on ghosts, and self defense wasn't exactly a major concern for a half-ghost, so that only left one option…

"What are you doing?" Danny asked when his mom opened the door and started up the stairs.

"We need food," Maddie said simply, then continued walking, fully-loaded pistol in hand.

Danny would have smiled at the fact that she had remembered to think of him if it hadn't been for the knot of fearing clenching at his chest as he followed her up into Vlad's study.

He tested his hands for his ghost ray; still dormant. That would at least be enough to get the Walkers out of the way while they escaped, but as much as he loathed it, he would have to continue relying on his gun, which only had three shots left.

His mom reached to top of the stairs first and gasped. Instantly in panic-mode, Danny expended some energy and flew the rest of the way up the stairs.

"What is it?" he asked frantically, then saw where his mom was pointing. The sight almost made him fall to his knees. "No!"

It was Vlad. In human form, walking towards them, coated in old blood and groaning slightly. There was a limp in his step and his arms looked like beef jerky that had been nibbled away by ravenous mice: fleshless and showing too much cartilage through what was left of his bicep muscles. His gray hair, once pulled back in a perfectly-composed ponytail, was tarred a nasty brown color in some places and strewn out on all sides, like an electrocuted Einstein. His clothing, no doubt worth more than what the Fenton couple had in their bank account, was in tatters, so much so that a homeless person would have thought them unworthy of wearing.

What hurt Danny the most was the absence of personality. Sure, he hated Vlad at times, there was no questioning that. But the devious glint in his eyes was gone and replaced by hunger. A deadly hunger for the human and half-human in front of him, just a few limps away. The sharp wit and evil smirk were also gone. In their places, hissing and foam dribbling down the edges of his chin. It was disgusting to see how far a human being, particularly one as brilliant as Vlad Masters, could fall.

Although he was still a safe distance away, Maddie grimly held up her pistol. Danny stared at her in shock, wondering if she was really going to shoot him. He may have developed into a creepy guy over the years, but he was still one of her best friends in college. It was almost the equivalent of Danny shooting Sam or Tucker. Just thinking about it hurt more than what Danny could bear at the moment.

He saw her eyes looking at him as her fingers twiddled the trigger. He stared back, wanting to tell her no, let this one live, just this one, but his mouth was too dry to produce any verbalizations.

Taking his non-responsiveness as a signal to go ahead, Maddie's head swivelled back at her target. He was now just six or seven strides away. They could have made a run for it, but was it really worth playing tag with him, knowing they would eventually have to pull the trigger anyway?

"Well…"

It was all Maddie could say.

Just a second or two before firing, a vaguely familiar voice from above them shouted, "Don't shoot him!"

Startled, Maddie's arm dropped, but she still fired. Luckily—if it could be called lucky at all—the bullet only went through Vlad's leg. Howling in unhuman-like mortification, he fell to the side, obviously feeling some variation of pain, but still "alive."

Feeling safe with the only threat in the proximity currently incapacitated, Danny and Maddie looked around for the voice. Danny was the first one to see her: running down a secret stairway that led to the second level of the library was none other than Jazz, fully unblemished and human.

That's all folks…till next chapter, anyway. I'll make it a goal to update within 3-4 weeks, but no promises. Reviews, as always, are appreciated :)