Chapter Text
Edited 10.19.2014
Maddie had noticed, of course, the way her son had withdrawn seemingly overnight from them. The sudden drop in grades. The exhaustion. The rebellion. The jumpiness. The calls in the middle afternoon from his school asking her if she had taken him home after he had disappeared halfway through third period.
At first she had thought the solution was to spend more time with him. But, the more she attempted to pull him close, the deeper he dug the boundary between them until it had ceased to be a crevice and had become a canyon.
She knew that Danny was a teenager. It was his job to put as much space between him and them as possible. It still hurt.
Jack insisted it was normal, but Maddie was convinced that something else was going on with her youngest. Danny had never had straight A's, but he had never failed anything. At the rate he was going he was going to have to repeat Junior year. So what was it? Drugs? Fighting? Gangs? Danny didn't seem like the kind prone to that kind of deviancy. Anyway, Maddie had already scoured his room. Besides a stolen Fenton Thermos and a stack of uncompleted homework there was no drugs. She had checked everywhere. She had been thorough.
The only thing she had found was an odd blood stain near his bedside table. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't have provoked such a strong visceral reaction in her. But, that tiny incriminating speck of red had stolen the breath from her lungs.
Convinced Danny was caught up in some kind of fight club, Maddie had attempted to shadow him for months, but he had the uncanny ability to vanish. One minute he would be in his room, the next gone. She checked in on him in the middle of the night. Maddie couldn't remember the last time she had found him in his bed.
In those rare moments when he was there, he was still gone. At dinner he would shovel food into his mouth and excuse himself as quickly as possible, gliding up the stairs and out of his bedroom window. In his wake he left an empty void.
It was a month ago that Maddie noticed it: The way all of their ghost instruments locked onto Danny and tracked him as he moved around the house.
They had plenty of ghost detecting equipment built into the walls. Lately, the house seemed to be unnaturally preoccupied with Danny. The instruments perked up and recorded brief snippets of information whenever he passed down a hallway or opened the fridge. At first she thought they were malfunctioning, but how could every instrument in the entire house malfunction at the same time?
Maddie loved her son more than anything, but she wasn't blinded by emotion. Like any self-respecting scientist she immediately recognized Danny as the lone variable. The instruments had started malfunctioning the same time Danny had withdrawn himself from her. Maddie knew it was no coincidence.
Danny was involved with ghosts. More specifically a ghost. Maddie knew which one it was.
She had never noticed until she had been two seconds away from blowing his head off (a mere three feet away— the closest she had ever gotten to him!) that his mannerisms, his face, his voice was as familiar as her own.
Danny always had a good heart. Easily exploitable. He would fight for a cause if he believed there was justice in it. There was only one ghost that had this whole city torn into sides. Only one that people claimed was protecting humans; only one that Danny might rally behind.
Just when Phantom had taken over her baby boy's body Maddie wasn't sure, but he had give her son back to her.
She was shocked to see just how far the enemy had infiltrated her own home. For just how long had she been talking to Phantom instead of her own son? How long had Phantom pretended to be a part of her family? How many meals had she made for him? How many movies had she watched with him? The thought of how many kisses she had given this demon made Maddie sick.
Whether Danny was willingly possessed or not, she did not care. Phantom would be expelled. If she was right, Danny will have been overshadowed for a solid six months. She wasn't sure if there would be any kind of physical— or mental— repercussions.
Maddie knew she had to tread carefully. Phantom was powerful, and she wasn't entirely certain his claim on Danny was without his permission. She had attempted small scale expulsions, like putting a few drops of anti-ghost serum in his dinner, only to have him sniff it and immediately feign illness to avoid taking a bite. She even attempted to lure him through the Catcher, but Danny already knew its purpose.
Then, this morning, the Guys in White had appeared at her door, viciously knocking it off its hinges. She had answered to the nozzle of one of their highly polished and extremely deadly ecto-weapons. They had demanded she turn Danny in, or else she would be arrested for harboring a fugitive. Of course, they had it all wrong. Danny hadn't done any of those things— at least not on his own volition. After Maddie had told them how her son was possessed they had been eager to help her.
She wanted her son out of Phantom's iron grip and back into her own arms. The GIW wanted Phantom. It was a win-win.
She sat nervously, not sure how to prepare for this type of intervention. Her fingers rapped across her knees as she sat— alone— in the kitchen. Her eyes trailed disinterestedly at her mug of tea that had long grown cold. Deep within the confines of the house she knew the GIW were setting up their own equipment in anticipation. The instant Phantom left her son they would capture him and take him back to their government facility. For months she had dreamed about capturing Phantom, until she had learned about his connection with Danny. All interest in studying Phantom had vanished and had been replaced, instead, with worry.
The GIW could have Phantom, as long as they didn't hurt her baby.
The front door cracked open as Danny (or Phantom?) crossed the threshold of the house. He paused, obviously sensing something was off. The house was silent, empty, waiting.
Maddie distantly heard the whine of guns powering up from the basement. She frowned. Why would they be powering up guns? They were supposed to extract Phantom from Danny, not shoot him.
They had specifically planned, together, that Maddie would attempt to coax Phantom out of Danny and if that failed they would use the Catcher.
Perhaps it was just a precaution. A government thing. You know, red tape.
"Mom?" Danny's voice rang out, confused, as he moved through the living room. "Dad?….Jazz? Helloooo? …Anyone home?"
"In here, honey," she answered, taking in a deep breath. She was strangely excited.
Danny appeared in the kitchen door. He paused, eying her warily, sensing something was off. Maddie took in his tired eyes and his disheveled hair. Was she talking to Danny? Or Phantom?
"Where's everyone?" he asked her.
"Out," Maddie answered. "Sit down. We need to talk."
She kicked out the opposing kitchen chair.