Chapter 12

She immediately bit her lip. This ghost thought of her as his own mother, the mother he had yearned for... Even though it wasn't true in the slightest, she was in between a rock and a hard place and at a complete loss for what to do. After all he had admitted to her, after that simple confession that he felt loved when she was around despite everything she ever did to him... Her job wasn't supposed to make excuses for anything and was supposed to be very strict, but this was a peculiar situation that demanded an explanation. Yet the strange thing was, she already had one. He told her everything but she was still feeling so curious. Ghosts would never behave this way. But he was a weird ghost... He did have human DNA inside him...

Did that DNA make him part human, so to speak? Was she actually doing this to a child?!

She clenched her fists and deftly scanned over Phantom. Or was he seven? Well, no, the DNA was dead. But technically it was part of a human anyway. Still, it only caused more stability. But it was from his body. No, that really didn't make a difference. Phantom was still a ghost, even if he was full of mysteries that had to be unraveled.

Finally she looked up, as though praying desperately for an answer or some kind of instruction booklet to follow. In most ways, she was praying for something. She had planned out a billion possible solutions to a billion possible situations, but nothing in the world could've prepared her for this. Yet here it was! And then what? What now? She couldn't simply tell him that she wanted to perform a surgical operation on him to take a better look at his insides. He could've been trying to trick her but how? How could he be tricking her right now when it was so obvious that he had a bad hangover?

It was another one of his dreams... No, that couldn't be right either! All his dreams were memories that she didn't even want to look through anymore! He was literally just an open book at night, all too easy to read even without a lamp to light him!

Oh if only there was a nice, comfortable brick wall in front of her...

"I-I..." She trailed off, knowing his question deserved an answer but not knowing what to say.

Well...the answer could be... No, she couldn't sit there and tell him about her surgical plans. She couldn't even go through with those plans; not after what he said!

"Maddie?" he mumbled.

The fact that he'd changed his mind about calling her his mother proved that he thought he was doing something to upset her. She was upset, but not because of anything he did or said.

"Phantom, I have to talk to you about something," she said.

He blinked. "I know, I shouldn't have ca-"

"I know all about your death," she interrupted. "Down to every last detail..."

"Wh...What? My death? What are you...? I mean..." He took a breath. "What do you mean you know about my death? I already told you about it."

She shook her head and blinked away a few tears.

"No," she said.

"Yes I did. A while back, I told you I was the one who caused it in an accident. Ring a bell?"

"No, Phantom... I know all about it. I know about the accident, I know about how you caused it... I...I just... I know."

He only laughed, which at first came as a shock...until his reply came.

"Yeah, okay, I'm sure you just magically know. I mean, I know you're a mom and I know they say mothers know everything, but let's face it, you weren't even there when it happened."

He didn't believe her. She couldn't really blame him. The idea of her knowing how he died without any true explanation from him did seem extremely farfetched.

"Phantom..."

"Oh, oh! And I bet you thought up of some new idea or theory or whatever and decided to put that down as my death! Yeah, and the idea is probably like some kind of...I don't know...like I fell off a building or something. Oh! Or maybe I climbed the Eiffel Tower and got hit on the head with a brick or something!"

"It wasn't brick, Phantom. You know that."

His laughter died down to a milder level and he wiped away an invisible tear with his finger.

"Of course I didn't get hit with a brick. That's why I was making fun of it," he said.

"It was concrete."

His lighthearted laughter suddenly turned into a nervous chuckle.

"Concrete? Please, only an idiot would die from concrete."

"You weren't an idiot, you were just interested in the machines," she quietly told him.

He swallowed but kept chuckling nonetheless.

"Machines?"

"You tried to get away but by the time you realized the beam had caved in it was too late."

"Beam?" he breathed.

His breathing quickened and he backed up several steps away from her. He was feeling threatened, just like he always did when his past was brought up.

"You were eventually trapped when a chunk of concrete fell on your leg."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he choked out.

"You were crushed underneath all that concrete. When you rose as a spirit, you were horrified to find your body like it was."

"I only said it was an accident... I never said anything about the demolition site..."

She didn't say anything about the demolition site either, which meant that the dreams were real after all and Phantom had just slipped up.

"And I know what happened with your parents...especially with your mother," she whispered.

"Who told you all this?! How do you know about my parents?!"

"Phantom, please, I just want you to-"

"NO!" he shrieked. "I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING ELSE!"

"Wait, I only-"

"YOU'LL JUST ACT LIKE THEM NOW, WON'T YOU! It'll be the same thing all over ag-" A lump in his throat cut him off.

"I would nev-"

He quickly choked the lump down and shouted, "I for one think I didn't do anything wrong! SO WHAT IF I WENT BACK THERE!"

"Just calm down," she said gently.

"Calm down? Calm down?! Why?! So you can point some guns at me?! Or how about another biopsy?! Maybe you'd like to stick some needles in me! Maybe you'd like to starve me again! Or a better idea, how about more chemical testing and heat waves! I'm done being chased off!"

"But I've never tried to chase you off."

"Don't play dumb with me!" he spat. "You obviously know every little thing! Don't act like you don't know what happened after I died! You just said you knew!"

"I do but-"

"Just leave me alone!" he yelled.

Before she could say another word, he lifted himself into the air and shot across the containment unit. She only watched as he crossed his legs and settled for ignoring her. At any other time this would enrage her and she would think something negative about a ghost acting like this. Despite that urge to humanize himself, his acting so closely to a hurting teenager would be more than enough to send her over the edge.

She knew in this instant that Phantom didn't trust her with his memories even though it had become apparent that he didn't know he was letting them leak into her mind. She wasn't sure whether she required his trust to view his memories, she only knew that she needed to care about him. But if she required both to build that bridge, then she needed to do something. What, though? She couldn't simply give Phantom his freedom back; he would surely run away and never let his guard down again. In fact, he would make it so she would never again have a chance to capture him. At the same time, Phantom didn't seem to be very interested in listening to her. Actually, it looked like he felt betrayed. Maybe he planned to tell her eventually, if at all, but now that chance was taken from him. He wasn't prepared for her to know and now all of a sudden he found out that she had known all along and never let on. It wasn't a betrayal at all since it wasn't her fault, but it made sense that it would arouse that feeling in him.

He was a different ghost...but he was also more than that. This was not just one more ghost to study. This was not just one more question to answer. This before her was a young boy who could feel true emotion; the emotions she thought could never be felt by a ghost. He felt pain, remembered his life and afterlife, didn't like to upset people, and had a wonderful personality that she had completely ignored before. He didn't fight merely to fight, but because he had to. He had, and perhaps still was in his own way, struggled for the acceptance of everyone...of anyone. She was exactly the opposite of everything she "knew" him to be, and that was why she couldn't figure him out.

But now would be different. From here on out, he wasn't some trophy or prize; he wasn't some thing to be used; he would, and deserved to be, a person that should and would have every privilege anyone else did.

He wasn't just one more experiment. He was Danny Phantom.