An Unspoken Truce (A Danny Phantom One-Shot)

An Unspoken Truce

It had been a long day and Maddie Fenton felt like she was going to pass out at any moment. She had just been out fighting a ghost and now it was two in the morning. Jack was off at a retreat with some of his college buddies and Jazz was spending the night at a friend's house. This left just her and Danny in the house. This also meant that since Jack wasn't there she had to fight the ghost all by herself. Needless to say she was exhausted.

She had just walked in the door when she felt her foot slide a bit. She looked down and saw a green liquid now coated the bottom of her shoe. She knelt down to examine it and determined that it was ectoplasm. "How did this get here...?" she looked up and saw that there was a trail of the green slime leading out of the room.

Maddie slowly followed the trail out of the entrance way and into the kitchen. It then went into the living room and she could see it went up the stairs. As she crept up the steps she noticed something strange about the ectoplasm. The further she went she started to notice tiny red dots mixed in. They started out just scattered in with the rest of the green slime but slowly more of it started to appear. By the time she had gotten to the top of the steps there was an even mixture of red and green. It almost looked like... blood...

She was starting to get nervous now. Maddie took out her ecto gun and continued down the path until the trail stopped in front of a door. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized that she was standing outside Danny's room. Had something attacked her son?!

She reached for the door knob and saw that it was covered in the same liquid that had gotten her this far. She took a deep breath and turned the knob.

As soon as she entered the room she wished that she hadn't. On the floor the liquid had pooled around a shadow. As she got closer she was able to make out more of its features. It looked mostly black but bits of white could be seen. It was covered in the blood and ectoplasm so she had to assume they had come from it. Finally she noticed its snow white hair and memories of fights she and Jack had had with this ghost came back to her. "Phantom..." she hissed.

A soft groan came from the creature and she aimed her gun at it. This would be the perfect opportunity to end the ghost's after life but suddenly... "Mom...?" her arm her arm drooped a bit. What did it just say? Each time it breathed its body shook with a fit of coughing.

She watched as it tried to sit up but it only caused itself more pain and fell back onto the ground. It let out a cry that it tried to cover with the crook of its elbow. Maddie noticed that every time it coughed that ectoplasm would spill from its mouth. But... there was blood too... could this ghost be more than just that... a ghost?

She sighed. Jack wouldn't be happy with her decision later but there was something inside her that made her want to help it. No... him... She saw now that this being in front of her was a person even if it was a ghost. She decided she had to call a truce. Maddie put her gun away and walked closer to him. "Ph-Phantom?"

His eyes lazily opened and suddenly filled with fear when he saw who was in front of him. He tried to scoot away from her but fell back against the floor letting out a cry of pain. The sight almost broke Maddie's heart. This boy had once been alive. He couldn't have been more than 14, just like her Danny. This poor boy had died before his time and inevitably left a mother just like her broken. She couldn't help herself. She had to help him in his time of need. For his mother's sake...

"Calm down... I promise I'm not going to hurt you... I-I want to help you..." he looked at her skeptically but he knew that he had no other choice than to trust her. He gave her a nod to continue and tried his best to shift his body towards her. "Ph- um do you mind if I call you Phantom?"

"You can call me... Danny..." his just barley choked out the words before he started coughing again.

She helped him sit up so he could breathe easier. "That's funny... my son's name is Danny to..."

She wasn't sure why but he started to chuckle a bit "I'm sure it is..." he coughed again and this time even more ectoplasm spilled from his mouth.

"Danny..." it felt so weird calling him that "I need you to tell me what happened so I can help you. Where are you injured and how?"

He started counting on his fingers "I fought Ember, Young Blood, Johnny 13, Skulker, Vla- um Plasmius, and the GIW."

"Um that doesn't really help me could you..." his head slumped to the side and she had to keep him sitting up on her own. "Hey stay with me!" his eyes opened again but she noticed that they had started to glaze over. "I'm going to carry you downstairs to get you cleaned up so don't panic." She took off her mask and goggles so she looked a bit less intimidating.

She gently picked him up and carried him down the stairs. He shifted in her arms so that his head leaned against her chest. She surprised that he was so light. It must have been from the blood loss...

Once she got down to the lab she laid him down on the table. Gently, she undid the top of his suit; she was horrified to see what was underneath. The top half of his body looked like it had been torn to shreds. His skin hung off him in pieces and burn marks covered the other parts. Even more past scars covered the rest. She felt like she was going to gag as a tear came to her eyes. How could she have ever hated this poor boy? "I'm so sorry..."

It was slow going but she was eventually able to clean all of the blood away. She still couldn't figure out why he had both ectoplasm and blood. Right now he was in and out of consciousness as she tried to stitch him up. "I'm afraid that's the best I can do..." his body was covered in stitches and she still didn't know if she had gotten them all. She looked back down and saw that his eyes weren't open. "Danny?"

She shook him gently at first but when he wouldn't wake up it became more frantic. Somehow she had become attached to him. "Danny wake up!!!" He blinked his eyes a couple times but he tried to go back to sleep. "Danny you need to stay awake!"

"How?" he asked lazily.

"Just... start talking!" she pleaded.

"About what?" he blinked his eyes close again.

"Anything!" she yelled "Tell me... how... how you became a ghost!"

"You mean how I died?" she nodded "Well I didn't actually die..." she was convinced he was delirious now. "My friends... dared me to go into this... machine. When I did... I was electrocuted. It changed me on the inside though... I got ghost powers and looked like a ghost... but I could also look human too..."

"So then what did you do?" she had to keep him talking as long as she could.

"I decided to help people..." he coughed but she gently started running her fingers through his hair. This seemed to calm him down "I fought the ghosts that did bad things to the people of Amity Park. No one liked me but I did it anyway... I wanted to protect my family... I just... hope they forgive me..." his eyes closed and now matter how hard she tried to wake him up it was to no avail.

She quietly sobbed for the boy she had really only met for the first time. "I'm sure they forgave you..." just about when she had given up hope two white rings formed around his waist. They split apart and changed his appearance as they went. When they had finished she wanted to cry even more "Danny?!"

She frantically inspected him and confirmed that it really was her son. However what interested her more was the fact that she could still hear his heart beating. "Oh Danny... I'm so sorry..." Her son was going to live. She didn't care that he was apparently half ghost! All that mattered was that her baby boy was going to live. "Of course I forgive you Danny... I love you..." she waited there the whole night until the morning when he would wake up and she could apologize for everything she had done. It really had been an unspoken truce...

(A/N - Hey guys! :) Well guys that's the end. I hope you liked this story! :) Thanks for reading!)