Wow, it's been a while. I have been super busy with my first year of college, that I have not been focusing on writing a lot. I finally feel like I have a good enough schedule this semester to spend more time writing, so I definitely think I will be finishing the story this year. There is still a little bit left to go, but I'm going to be updating a lot more, and hopefully writing more one-shots and tackling another multi-chapter story once this is done. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, it gave me the motivation to get back on FanFiction and back into writing! As always, enjoy!

"Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you are feeling. To have the hard conversations. – Brene Brown

"Lies and silences carry their own kinds of truth. You can learn a great deal about a person's character and motives through what they choose to withhold from you." –Beau Taplin

A smile crept onto my face as I got an idea. "Why don't we just pay her a visit in a few days? Hopefully I'll be strong enough by then, and I get the added bonus of freaking her out in the process."

"Sounds fine to me, as long as you have healed enough by then," she finished with a pointed look.

I do have a heart. And I'm going to prove it to her.

Much to my dismay, and Jazz's stern instructions, my fateful visit to Arkansas was held off for two weeks while I slowly healed. I was nowhere near recovered, and I hadn't tried to "go ghost" to speed up the healing. There were too many unknowns when it came to my transformations at the moment, and I didn't want to risk making my injuries worse. Once I was back to normal, some pretty powerful ghosts were going to get a talking to. Ahem- where the hell was Clockwork. Not that I don't like painful experimentation followed by self-discoveries caused by the destruction of my old sense of self, but- God, I sound like Jazz.

Anyway, I finally could get up and walk around without falling over, which I somehow convinced Jazz was reason enough to travel hundreds of miles and confront my torturer. I know, it astounds even me at this point.

So, I found myself riding in a fancy new Tesla that Sam "borrowed" from her parents. My dad offered to drive through the night to get there, because Jazz took for-freaking-ever to pack up a ridiculously long list of medical supplies into a duffel bag. How she fit them all in one bag, the world will never know. Once she finished collecting supplies and doting over my healing body, we hit the road. Five hours after the scheduled time.

Despite the long wait to get Maddie to face reality, it did give me time to rehearse what I wanted to say to her when we finally meet. But, the more time that I thought about what I would say, the more my thoughts jumped to my time in the lab.

Somehow, I had imagined this being a lot easier a few weeks ago. Which is ironic, because aren't I supposed to feel better with time? Given, two weeks feels a lot faster out here than it did down in the lab.

The closer we got to Arkansas, the more tense I became, and the more I realized just how unprepared for this moment I was. My hands shook with anxiety, no matter how many times I clenched my fists and took deep breaths, I couldn't seem to calm down. Even when I'd been down in the lab, I had never felt like this, like there was something I needed to be running from. Before I got out, there had been adrenaline, there had been panic, but there had never been this useless anxiety. Anxiety that didn't go away after a fight was over or an experiment was done.

Before there was just relief. That I could have a break from the pain, the torture, the experiments. I had a bunch of other problems down there. And they were very vital problems, yes, but there were only a few outcomes that could come of them. Not this mess of emotions and conflict over my family, over my own humanity. Not when I am surrounded by people that care about me, people that I love. Not when I should feel safe. I can't feel normal again, calm again, until Maddie stops being the unknown factor that replaced all the others when I left the lab, and she left my life.

I should be able to stand up to Maddie. I was so frustrated that I felt this way over a confrontation that I wanted to happen. And I really want this conversation to make a difference. I want something, anything to be resolved. But I was so scared that she wouldn't see my point. That she wouldn't accept that Danny Phantom is apart of who I am, and that she wouldn't believe that she did anything wrong.

I wanted to believe that I don't care what she thinks. I wanted to hate her. I wanted to hate her so badly. It was easy to be mad. It was easy to want to exclude her from my life, from Jazz's life, from my Dad's life. But I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be that easy.

DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP

By the time we arrived at the town nearest to my Aunt's house, everyone was exhausted from the drive, so it was unanimously decided to wait until morning to drive out there. Well, almost unanimously. I had protested, but Jazz had seen how much of a wreck I was on the drive down. As soon as everyone started to talk about stopping in town, she firmly told me that I wasn't allowed to take part in decisions where I would choose the one that was detrimental to my health. I was silently grateful I hadn't been given a choice, I had enough issues with the dark without having to see my mom in it.

I didn't think I would be able to sleep with how keyed up I was, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyes closed and my breathing slowed. I was so tired of the thoughts running through my head, I was grateful my body decided to chill and not take after my brain.

Next thing I knew, I felt someone shaking my shoulder, and I was instantly awake. As I jolted upright, I could tell Jazz was standing next to me, just a shadow in the dark room with the barest light streaming through the windows.

"We will leave in a few minutes. I have to wake everyone else up, but I don't think they are too keen to stay here longer than we have to." She gave me a small smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder, then her shadow swept across the room and vanished out the door.

I got up shakily and walked over to the bathroom so I could change out of my pajamas. Jazz had purchased a few of my favorite t-shirts in a smaller size, so the way my clothes hung off me lately wasn't as noticeable. She hadn't told me about it, but I could tell. They were so bright beside the off-white, worn down t-shirts I had been wearing for years. I loved running my fingers across the hem of the new shirts. They were so clean, so white, so perfect. It gave me confidence. The last time I had seen her, the ghostly white of my suit was a multi-colored mess -torn, grimy, and full of bad I am the one who is prepared. This time I was coming to her in a cage of her own making.

When I walked downstairs, everyone was pulling on jackets and slipping on shoes. I walked outside, everyone else followed shortly after and piled into the car. The ride was very silent. Everyone seemed to be steeling themselves, preparing for any possibility. None of us knew how Maddie would react, or what she had told Aunt Alicia. Something told me that my aunt wouldn't stay in the dark for long.

We pulled up to the small, wooden house just as it started to get light outside. The slamming of the car doors sounded loud compared to the nature around us. I took a few deep breaths before taking slow steps towards the porch. I was almost there when a hand on my shoulder stopped me from going any further.

Jazz looked at me for a second. "I'll go with you. I don't want to leave you alone up there."

"That sounds like a good plan," I said, grateful for the support.

I looked back towards the car and saw everyone giving me encouraging smiles, but they looked sort of sad and apprehensive at the same time. I can't blame them. Jazz and I walked up the steps together and she gave the door three hard knocks. Knowing my aunt, she would be up by now. After a few seconds we could hear a chair scrape across the floor and heavy footsteps coming towards us from the back of the house. Alicia had the door open halfway before she caught a glimpse of us and froze.

"What are you doing here?" Her eyebrows were furrowed and her eyes flashed with anger. "After everything you've done why can't you just leave her alone until she's ready?"

Jazz's lips thinned and she held clenched fists to her side. "Excuse me?"

"Leave her alone," Alicia repeated, "You had no right to kick her out of your life in the first place, and now you show up here unannounced!"

"Well, you've obviously been misinformed. Because it is Mom, not Danny, that is at fault here," she said, staring down Aunt Alicia with an intensity I hadn't knew she had in her.

"What are you talking about?" Alicia sent a confused, but slightly angry, glance my way. "You kicked her out because she decided to hunt down some stupid ghost! It's her career for crying out loud, as much as I am reluctant to admit it some days."

I decided this was a good time to interject. "Well, there was a ghost involved, but there was a human involved, too." I shook my head. "And the messed-up fact that Maddie can't see the frickin' similarities between Danny Phantom and her own son. I mean, look at the damn name why don't you- Phantom, Fenton. Both of them even start with Danny for crying out loud.

"What do you mean? Danny Phantom, Danny Fenton… you mean to say that you…" Alicia trailed off, a bewildered expression taking over her face.

"Alicia, they… are the same… person," Jazz articulated, saying the words as slowly as possible. She then glanced towards me. "I don't know how people haven't figured it out. I can't believe I didn't figure it out. You look practically the same either way."

"It's all in the act, Jazz, you just need to act weak and nerdy as a human, and confident as a hero," I quipped with a smirk, "I mean if Superman were real he'd be applauding me right now."

Before Aunt Alicia could say anything else, Maddie appeared down the hall, looking hesitant.

"Why did you lie to her Maddie?" I said with a glance at Alicia then back at her.

"Ph- Danny, I'm so sorry, I just, I didn't know what to tell her."

I felt a tightness in my chest and my hands shook as I tried to look her in the face. I could only feel revulsion. It was so hard to glance her way much less stare her down. "Why not the truth? Where you too ashamed? Were you too caught up in your own lies to yourself? What was it, I'm very curious to know?"

"You don't know how hard this is for me Danny, I feel so guilty, I didn't know. I swear I didn't know," Maddie defended. "I had no way of knowing. If you had told me sooner, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

I felt a spark of anger ignite in my chest. "How…" my voice broke, trembling with anger and shame, "do you get off blaming me for what happened. How is this my fault? How is it my fault that your need to dissect ghosts managed to get in the way of your family?"

"I may not have told you the whole truth. But by the time I wanted to, it was too late. I was too...," I shut my eyes, my jaw clenched and my chest rose with a deep, painful breath, "too hurt, too afraid to say anything. Even if I had, I had absolutely no reason to think that you would believe me."

There was something in Maddie's expression. She was afraid. She felt guilty. But she didn't look regretful. She didn't look sorry.

"Phantom…" she broke off, "Danny, I…"

"You can't even call me by my own name anymore! You tortured me, you wouldn't stop even when I gave you information. True information. I told you how I died…" Maddie's breath caught at the word.

"I told you how Danny would feel. I told you that I wasn't the enemy. But all I got in return was unbearable pain and a brief period of unconsciousness. I've protected you time and time again as Danny Phantom. I saved this city, and I've saved the world. But the only thing you seem to see is a vengeful ghost. You couldn't even see your own son when I was right there trying to tell you it was me. Maybe not with words, but in so many other ways. You couldn't even see it.

I could feel tears stinging my eyes and the emotion in my voice, but there were so many feelings roiling inside me I couldn't even name which ones they were. "You couldn't even see it."

"But Vlad, he gave me all these resources." She glanced up quickly. "He wanted to do the project. I just tagged along. I-."

"We all know you were dying to get a chance to dissect the illustrious Danny Phantom and discover all his secrets. Because you knew that he was different from other ghosts," I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm. "And I already had a talk with Vlad. This is about you, not him."

"Fine," she scoffed, "But it's not like I knew someone could be a ghost and a human. Why would that even cross my mind? The only way I would know is if you told me."

"That's bullshit and you know it," I asserted, "The only thing that changes when I go ghost is my hair and eye color. I'm like a ghostly Clark Kent."

"But Danny, how could I think that Phantom was you? He is, uh… you, I mean you are a ghost, how could that happen?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" I seethed.

"I know electricity was involved but there hasn't been any…. we haven't done any large-scale experiments that would require large amounts of voltage in… years."

"Electrocution, plus a certain ghost portal we know and love," I quipped. "I don't have time to explain all the details, go ask Vlad to write you an essay on ghost portals and stupid mistakes if its so confusing for you to get through your head."

"Danny, I'm sorry! I swear, I just… I need some time to wrap my head around everything."

"Who says that I came to get you back?"

There was a long pause for a minute as Maddie glanced around at all of us standing there. Dad looked happy that I hadn't just given in to her. Sam looked like she wanted to come and stand with me so badly, and Tucker was giving me a sad smile in silent support of me. Alicia looked astonished at the argument that had just unfolded.

"Danny, I just want to forget what happened between us. I want you to be able to hug me, laugh with me, just like before this misunderstanding."

She took a step forward, and she reached out her arm to touch my hand. I jolted backwards violently, and my momentum caused my feet to lose purchase on the wooden boards. I hit the dirt hard. My back was screaming in pain, and I heard footsteps run towards me. Violet eyes looked down at me as Sam held out her arm for me to grab. I let her pull me up into a sitting position, but instead of getting back up I stayed there.

I didn't trust myself to be able to stand between the pain in my back and how much my body was shaking from almost making contact with Maddie. I rested my arms on my knees and put my head down for a second, trying to catch my breath.

"Misunderstanding," I closed my eyes for a second and tried not to cry, "There is not a worse word to describe what happened. I'm not who I was before. I lost so much of myself, I…."

I shook my head. My throat was tight. I couldn't hold back the tears that had threatened to spill over earlier. What do you say when the worst possible thing that could happen happened? What do you say when you don't have anything left to give? What do you say to the person that took everything you knew as normal away from you? And what do you say when there is no way they can give it back?

"I don't think you have it in you to understand. And I don't have it in me to pointlessly argue with you about it."

I tried to wipe the tears from my face, but more kept coming. I looked towards Sam. "Can you help me to the car?" She wordlessly helped me the rest of the way up, and supported my weight as we walked together.

I could hear Jazz screaming behind me.

"How long will you keep running away? From your family, from "Phantom", and most of all from yourself. You're on your own right now. You better start being honest with yourself. Nobody here is going to make it easy for you. I know I sure as hell am not"

Maddie didn't reply.

Jazz practically stomped back to the car, abruptly pulling away as soon as the doors were closed. It was a long ride back, and after the short time I had been awake I was already exhausted. As I was drifting off to sleep, I felt a hand touch my hair, but I had no energy left to flinch away from the touch. Sam had leaned over, fingers flowing smoothly through my hair, over and over again. After being isolated from everyone but Maddie for such a long time, it was extremely soothing and a feeling grew in my chest that I forgot had existed.

She brought her face closer to my ear, saving her words for only me." "I'm so proud of you."

Despite everything, I couldn't prevent the corners of my mouth turning up into a smile. I had been so ready to take this on, so ready to show how angry I was at Maddie. And so ready to stand up for myself. This day had been so hard, but somehow it was going to be alright.

This has been my favorite chapter to write, and I hope it was just as enjoyable to read it as it was for me to write it!

I would love to get feedback, and if anybody catches a typo or mistake, feel free point it out so I can change it. Thank you for reading! Until next time, folks...