Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lights swirled before his eyes, tipping his worldview into a sea of smeared colors and flashes of scenery that seemed to appear seconds too late. His ears rang, sounds fading in and out, and his thoughts tumbled against his brain. He forced himself to continue on, not knowing where he was going or how long it would take to get there. His core pulsed, acting as a GPS, and Danny knew that now he just needed to trust his instincts.

He tipped over, and he felt himself fall for a second too long before his adrenalin spiked and he righted himself again.

Just keep moving forward. Keep pushing on. Just a little farther…

He jerked forward, and pain blossomed in his side. He pressed a shaking hand to his chest, only to feel a sickening wet sensation slipping between his gloved fingers. 

Don’t think, don’t think.

He heard a shout below him, and his brain was too slow to realize what was happening until he’d already crashed onto the pavement. Hands invaded his body, pushing his shoulders, and turning him over so he stared into the tilting sky. He tried to look up, but the sun beamed down on him and it was too harsh, too bright. He squinted, and faces appeared in his vision, blocking the sun. But the world was still spinning and the faces were too foggy.

“Hos…hos…” he tried to tell the smudged faces, not quite sure what he wanted. 

The face above him spoke back, but Danny couldn’t understand what she said. He was too tired, anyway. 

He felt someone tap his cheek. He flinched, his eyes opening and squinting up at the woman standing above him.

She spoke again, but Danny wasn’t listening. His eyes had focused just enough for him to notice the scrubs she was wearing. Relief washed over him, and he felt his body relax.

It was okay. He’d made it. He was going to be okay.

“…Phantom…” the woman said, pressing her hand against his chest.

Danny couldn’t make out the rest of the sentence. He shook his head, raising a now-green glove to grip her arm. 

She spoke again, but the words sounded like they were coming through a bad phone reception, and Danny couldn’t even start to piece together what they all meant. “...okay?” she asked.

Danny gurgled in response.

There were more faces around him now, more hands touching him, more voices clouding the air, more faces in scrubs and masks, more blue gloves flittering around.

He felt his body being hoisted up onto a bed, and then he was propelled forward, or backward, he couldn’t tell. The mattress was too inviting, and the world around him was growing softer, and softer.

His shoulders relaxed, and his eyes finally shut.

— — —

William Lancer had been a teacher for twenty years. He considered himself as someone who had “seen it all,” so to speak. Teenage pregnancies, drugs, fights, ghost attacks—there really wasn’t anything that could surprise him at this point.

Except, apparently, he hadn’t seen it all.

“Phantom?” William asked into the receiver, his voice tinged with surprise. 

“That’s correct, he requested you specifically as his emergency contact,” the nurse on the other line said.

Every so often, William wondered if it were possible that he had taught Phantom at one point before he died. But then, Phantom was awfully young. Wouldn’t William have heard about a child so young passing away? Especially if it were one of his students?

So it was unlikely that Phantom had been one of William’s students then. At least, that’s what he always told himself. But perhaps that vague reassurance was just a lie he said to avoid admitting that one of his students slipped through the cracks.

“If you’re unavailable, we can ask for someone else.”

“No, no.” William hurried out of his chair, grabbing his coat. “That’s no problem at all. I apologize, I just wasn’t expecting this phone call. Amity Park General, you said?”

“That’s right. There’s a parking garage next to the main entrance.”

“Alright, thank you. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Sounds good, William. We’ll see you soon.”

“Goodbye.” William hung up his phone and shoved it in his back pocket. He threw his coat over his shoulders, grabbed his keys, and paused.

Was he really about to hurry over to the hospital for a ghost?

What did a ghost even need a hospital for in the first place?

And once again, why him? Why did Phantom choose him? Surely the ghost child had friends he could contact in Amity Park? Heavens knows he’d been here long enough to meet a few people.

So why did he request the one adult that William was sure that he’d never had a conversation with?

Regardless, it was too late to ask questions now. He already agreed to be Phantom’s emergency contact, so now he had to fulfill those duties.

Resolved in what he had to do next, he snapped himself out of his funk and walked out of his office door.

Fortunately, traffic was light, giving him only limited time to overanalyze the absurdity of the situation. In the end, a young teenager was in a situation where they needed an adult. Dead, alive, he was just a teenager.

He turned on the radio, needing to distract himself with anything else. The quiet hum of the anchors was soothing, and he felt himself relax, if just slightly.

“...an explosion today at the Fentonworks residence…”

William chuckled under his breath. It must have been a slow news day if they were reporting on one of Jack Fenton’s many shenanigans.

He zoned out, letting the drone of the voices blend in with his thoughts. Before he knew it, he was pulling into the parking garage next to the hospital.

He walked through the front doors of the hospital, blinking as people bustled on by him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a child clutching her swollen arm, her tears streaked with red as her mother gently wrapped her hand around the child’s shoulder.

Quirking a lip at that gentle, parental affection, William approached the receptionist's desk where a tired woman with poofy hair was hanging up her phone.

“How can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

“I’m here for a…uh…” William hesitated, not knowing how under-the-table Phantom’s stay was. “I mean, I’m William Lancer? I’m here to visit…”

The receptionist’s eyes doubled in size, and she surveyed him over, clearly looking for any sort of connection between him and the ghost currently residing in their building.

William wished he could tell her just how confused he was too.

“Of—of course,” she squeaked, fumbling with the phone as she grabbed it again. It clattered against the desk, and pink dusted her cheeks. “One second, let me just—go take a seat, someone will be with you shortly.”

William nodded graciously and turned to the waiting area. But moments after he sat down, the receptionist was calling his name once more. He stood, turning to see a tall, thin man with neatly cut black hair standing in the door, his white coat and blue scrubs an instant tell as to what his position was. Next to the doctor was a shorter woman in a lavender blouse and blue pants.

“Doctor Adu,” the doctor said, sticking his hand out.

William met him halfway, unsurprised by the man’s firm grip. “Hello, I’m William Lancer.”

“And I’m Melissa Peters, the social worker,” the woman said giving him a handshake as well.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“I assume you were informed of the situation?”

“I was told which patient has requested my presence. But otherwise, I do not know any details.”

Dr. Adu nodded, his face unreadable. “Why don’t we go talk somewhere else.”

William followed the two through a wide set of double doors and up an elevator. They weaved the hallways until the colors of the walls changed from teal to red. Just as William was about to pipe up, Dr. Adu stopped before a door.

“We can speak freely here.” He pulled open the door and flipped on the light switch. 

William stepped through, half expecting to find Phantom laid out on a bed, but to his surprise, all he saw was a plain-looking consulting room with a few chairs and a green plastic bed against the wall.

Dr. Adu and Melissa each pulled over a chair to sit on, and they gestured for William to do the same. Once the three were sitting, Dr. Adu clasped his hands. “Well, I think we can cut to the chase. I have to say, in my fifteen years working in this hospital, this is a first for me. I’ve treated many different patients from all walks of life, but a ghost is new.”

Melissa leaned forward, regarding William in earnest. “I have to ask, what is your connection to Phantom? Familial?”

“No,” William said. “I honestly have hardly had a conversation with him. The only connection is that I’m a high school teacher at Caspar High. I could have once been his teacher, but I don’t know if I buy that. I’ve had a few students who have died young, but none matched Phantom’s description and none were named Danny. Though it’s plausible that Danny is an alias, and he’s changed his appearance as a ghost to make him unrecognizable. With the white hair, I assume it would be possible.”

“And you don’t remember any relatives who died young? Cousins, nephews?”

“No, none that I’ve ever met at least.”

“Interesting.” Melissa leaned back in her chair. “The fact that he requested you specifically is fascinating. I know the topic of what ghosts can retain from their human lives is highly debated within the ectosciences, but this is a clear indication that he must have remembered you as someone he could trust.”

William would have been touched if it weren’t for the stakes at play. “But no family or relatives…”

“It would explain a lot about his attention-seeking personality,” Melissa said. “Many children from unstable homes struggle with this as well.”

“Regardless, this is all a legal gray area for the hospital. Having spent the past year watching Phantom protect our city, we feel that it would be morally wrong for us to turn him away. We would prefer to keep him here, but this isn’t entirely a black-and-white situation. Technically, we have to report him to the US Ghost Investigation Ward, as ghosts caught on US soil are a violation of the Anti-Ecto Control Act. So legally, we have to report this.” 

“I’m also in a bit of a legal gray area,” Melissa said. “Technically, Phantom isn’t within my legal jurisdiction since he’s not a human. Social services and CPS don’t apply to him.”

“You are not a known relative, so technically you have no responsibility over Phantom. If you wish to leave, you may do so. Otherwise, we will put you as the adult responsible for Phantom in the short term. Since you would be acting as the child’s medical advocate, we could possibly delay turning him over.”

“And if I leave?” William asked, his mouth drying. “If I leave, what happens to him?”

Dr. Adu didn’t break eye contact. “Honestly? If you take responsibility for Phantom right now, we can just report it as a regular ecto-related injury and keep his anonymity as related to the emergency treatment. We get so many ecto-related injuries a week, that the likelihood of the GIW showing up is null. Unfortunately, when he’s healed, we will have to officially report him as being an ecto-entity himself or I risk losing my license. But if you leave today, we’ll have no choice, he’ll be turned over to the government.”

William swallowed, but that did little to wet his parched throat. This was what he was afraid of. He may have not been completely knowledgable of all things ecto like the Fentons, but with the federal government as loud and split as it was, even he knew what would happen to Phantom if the Ghost Investigation Ward got their hands on him. 

So this was it then. William was between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand, helping children was in his blood. It was his entire bread and butter, his purpose in life. But on the other hand, Phantom was a ghost. He was a stranger, he was powerful, he had a foreign psyche and different rules and laws he followed. It was a risk, a massive risk.

“This is a huge ask,” Dr. Adu said. “So far, only a select few people have even seen Phantom since he arrived, and it is only people that I personally have hand-picked. The goal is to keep this away from the federal government for as long as possible. If we are caught, the hospital could be under serious fines. If they find out that you are keeping Phantom under your direct supervision, you will be targeted as well. We need to be extremely explicit with you about this.”

He always pictured himself living a quiet life in a small house, reading books with his cat nestled beside him. He always pictured himself going to work in a normal classroom and going home to his normal house.

But then, nothing in Amity Park was normal.

And if he were being honest with himself, William already knew what his answer would be from the moment he picked up that phone.

“I understand,” he said. “I will act as the adult contact for Phantom.”

“You’re sure about this?” Dr. Adu said, looking at William through his raised brows. 

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright,” Melissa clasped her hands together. “In that case, I actually have a case meeting elsewhere in the hospital that I’m running late for. William, I will catch up with you after and we can go over the paperwork. Dr. Adu, you as well.”

William stood and shook her hand. “Of course, thank you.”

“William.” Dr. Adu opened the door for the three of them. “I will bring you Phantom’s room where the PA assigned to Phantom’s case will fill you in. His injuries were incredibly peculiar, which is a large part of why we felt it was necessary to hold him here. She’ll go over that with you.”

— — —

“Cut open?” William felt faint. “What do you mean he was cut open?”

“That’s what it appears to be,” the blonde physician’s assistant, Burgess, said. “There are actually several injuries we can’t explain that are too inconsistent to have been the typical ghost fight. It doesn’t line up. We’re not entirely sure what happened to him, but whatever it was, it nearly ended him.”

“But he’s a ghost,” William insisted. “Ghosts can’t exactly die, can they?”

“Maybe not the way you and I can, but they can certainly…cease.” 

The duo turned a corner. This wing of the hospital was removed from the rest, only filled with quiet, private rooms. Supposedly, it was typically used for celebrities and politicians, or people wealthy enough to afford it, but Phantom was famous enough to count.

Burgess opened the door. “He woke up a bit ago.”

William stepped forward, holding his breath. The room was bright and sterile, with white tiles and white walls contrasted by a soft, blue curtain framing the large window in the room. Inside, Phantom lay down in his bed hooked to an IV drip. William’s first reaction was that given Phantom’s injuries, his bed looked unreasonably bare, but without human functions like a heartbeat and a pulse, there was simply no need for much of the machinery. 

It hit him in the gut that this was a ghost laying on the bed, not a human. Which said ghost had perked up as soon as William had stepped in the room and was currently giving him a goofy wave, one that William was sure he’d seen before, but couldn’t quite place.

But through the smile, William noticed how his lips trembled, the bags under his eyes, how his skin looked so pale it was nearly translucent.

“Heya, teach! Wassup?” 

“We have him on some strong painkillers,” the PA explained.

Phantom grinned and gave them a clumsy thumbs up. “Yeah, you gotta try this stuff. It’s insane. Like listen, I’ve been hurt loads of times and I’ve never been able to sleep after getting mauled or anything before!”

“You were mauled?” William asked, his voice a little more than panicked.

“I don’t know!” Phantom giggled, and then his face fell. 

William couldn’t help but notice the bandages wrapped around his torso and arm. The PA’s words from earlier echoed in his brain, that he was cut open with clean incisions. His bones were broken as if they had been cut by a bone-saw rather than broken by blunt trauma. His skin had markings that someone had drawn on with a sharpie. 

This wasn’t a mauling, this was torture. 

Phantom, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice William’s internal struggle and began babbling about a ghost dog that he knew who could change sizes.

And William took the time to study him. Really study him.

William had seen him plenty of times on TV, but never up close like this. Under the soft glow encasing the ghost, he could see every skin detail, every pore on Phantom’s face. He could see his white eyelashes lazily flutter as his eyelids drooped, the green tinge to his cheeks, and—to William’s mild surprise—the freckles that dotted his skin.

Even injured, William could tell instinctively that Phantom was a powerful ghost. The aura around him was dim compared to how William remembered it looking, but the chill that hovered close to Phantom was still just as biting as ever. 

But above all, he couldn’t help but notice how young Phantom was. The child’s voice was high, cracking every so often like a teenager just beginning the throes of puberty. His cheeks were round with the hallmarks of baby fat, and his eyes, though dazed, still were wide with that childhood innocence. Though a quip from his enemies and journalists alike, William couldn’t help but agree with the “ghost child” nickname that Phantom had acquired. 

He truly was just a kid.

And in this bed with a fluffy pillow under him, William felt the pang in his chest as he was reminded that ultimately, Phantom was not just a kid, but a dead one. Someone who never got the chance to grow up. Someone who had taken way too much responsibility at too young of an age.

William wondered what events lead to this kid spending his time playing superhero rather than playing with the other child children and teens that he sadly presumed were also in the Ghost Zone. Why was Phantom here? Why did he cross over? 

Why was he so alone?

“Phantom,” he said, curiosity burning at his fingertips. “I’m glad you called me and I’m more than happy to assist you, but do you not have any living relatives that are available as well?”

Phantom’s eyes darkened as his aura dimmed before he blinked and his aura sparkled once again. He cocked his head, grinning. “I have a sister!”

“Oh, wonderful,” William said. “Would you like me to call her?”

The wispy aura evaporated once again. “No! No, don’t do that! You can’t!”

Phantom looked a little too panicked, and once again William wondered just what the hell happened to this kid. 

He raised his hands in a universal surrender. “Okay, I won’t call. Can you tell me why I can’t call her though?”

“Can’t call who?”

“Your sister.”

“Why do you wanna call my sister?” 

“So she can come here to assist you while you recover.”

Phantom’s eyebrows furrowed. “But you can’t call her.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Phantom’s voice trailed off as he began fiddling with the sheets. 

When it was clear that Phantom either had no intention of continuing or had simply forgotten about the conversation entirely, William sighed. “Well, I will be your guardian for the time being.”

Phantom nodded, his gaze unfocused. “The time being, huh.”

“Well, yes.”

“Mm,” Phantom nodded. “Until the Guys in White pick me up.”

William’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” Phantom sighed, looking back down at his lap. “I don’t have any living family, by the way. Oh! Except I think Frostbite thinks he’s adopted me. Well not really, he’s a ghost. He lives on an island. Have you heard of him?”

William had taught teenagers long enough to know when they were lying, but he didn’t press on the living family matter further.

At the very least, he wanted to assure Phantom that he wouldn’t let the government take him, but he was just an English teacher. If the government wanted him, what could William do?

It was all just a race of time.

Phantom’s head bobbed and once again that goofy smile pulled at his lips. 

Even though his eyes looked blank.

“Lighten up, teach,” he said. “It’s all good. Everything’s fine.”

William didn’t believe him, but he was inclined to let the ghost have his way regardless.

Phantom’s attention turned to the door, and a second later William heard the crescendo of muffled voices slowly unmask from the hallway.

“...he eats?” the first voice said.

A raspier, accented voice snapped back. “Eh? He’s dead! Why would the dead need to eat?”

“I saw a Tiktok—”

“You can’t believe everything you see online!”

Phantom’s grin turned impish. “I eat!” he called out.

The voices halted in the hall. “Did he…?”

“I eat food!”

The door swung open. 

“That was you?” the older, Asian woman said.

Phantom’s aura brightened. “Yup!”

“I told you!” the younger, blonde nurse said. “I told you I’d seen a video before.”

“Whatever,” the older nurse waved her off. “You eat regular food? No special dietary requirement?”

“Sometimes I put ectoplasm in my food. The best is tater tots dipped in hot ectoplasm, which I usually don’t eat that hot but sometimes it’s nice. It’s almost like Ranch but like…a doppelganger of Ranch. Actually, it doesn’t taste anything like Ranch, I don’t know why I said that. It just sort of came over me, I’m sorry.”

The nurses openly stared.

Phantom blinked, seemingly coming back to reality. “I eat human food too.”

“Thank goodness.”

— — —

William watched Phantom sleep. The boy’s chest moved up and down like he was breathing. Though, William knew that it was likely just an innate reflex from when the boy was alive. Not for the first time, he couldn’t help but consider the possibility that Phantom had died recently.

“The new stitches are holding for now,” Dr. Adu explained. “But this set phases out of his skin again, there’s really not much we can do. We don’t have the facilities to treat an ecto-entity here.”

William nodded passively. He had seen the photographs of the boy’s chest at this point, and even the mere thought of those injuries made him feel faint.

There was a laceration—shaped like a Y—on his chest, reminiscent of a cadaver. His ribs had been sliced clean through, muscles and skin on his arm split open with an object far too smooth for William’s liking, and electrical scarring danced around his body, some old and some new.

It was, without a doubt, the most nauseating set of injuries that William Lancer had ever seen outside of a TV show.

But the TV was fake. This was real.

“I don’t understand how this could happen to him,” William said. “Who could have done this?”

“He had a lot of enemies.” Dr. Adu turned the boy’s arm over in his hand, checking the wrappings. 

“But to this degree?”

Dr. Adu sighed, putting down the arm. “I’m just a surgeon, not an ecto-behavioral psychologist. I don’t know who could have done this or why, I can only treat what’s in front of me.”

“Someone was toying with him, though,” William continued. “Like…like he was some sort of sick experiment.”

“It would be unethical of me to jump to conclusions.”

William heard the undertone in his voice. “But you believe it too, don’t you?”

“It…” Dr. Adu’s voice trailed off, and he frowned at the boy before him. “It would appear that way.”

Despite his typically calm demeanor, he felt hot anger flash through him. His stomach turned. How could someone do this to an innocent child? Even if he was a ghost, how could anyone look him in the eyes while they…while they…

William shook his head, unwilling to even entertain the thought.

“We gave him some more pain medication since he seems to respond to it nearly compatible with humans.”

“Nearly?”

“Well, it would appear that his metabolism burns through the pain medication faster than our typical patients. But since he’s not technically our patient nor is he actually here, I was able to bend the rules slightly. Not as much as he might have liked, but just a bit.”

William got the undertones of his wording a second delayed. He blinked, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “Is that not dangerous? He is just a child, after all.”

Dr. Adu shrugged. “He’s a ghost.”

“But he’s still a kid.”

“Sure, a kid who’s a ghost. Semantics aside, his body doesn’t function the same as ours. And besides,” Dr. Adu’s passive face pulled into a frown as he stared down at the glowing figure below him. “I may as well give him as much comfort as I can while he can still enjoy it.”

“Comfort? What?”

The surgeon turned away from the bed. “The hospital is going to have to file a report of our patient tomorrow.”

“I thought you were only going to file for ecto-contamination?”

“I was.”

William rose from his chair. “Then why change it now? What changed?”

“The admins weren’t happy. They had a meeting this morning and informed me that I had until Phantom was stable before they would inform the federal government of our visitor. And if these sutures stay in, at the rate of his body’s natural healing ability, I think he’ll be stable enough to leave in the next day or so.”

William’s eyes flickered over to the sleeping boy, looking for even a flicker of a sign that he was awake, but the boy’s chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. “So what, his body starts to heal, and then we just hand him over to the government to die?”

“According to the law, he’s the government’s property.”

“That’s barbaric. Surely there’s something that can be done.”

“My hands are tied.”

“It’s not right.” William felt frustration bubble up in his chest. “He’s just a child.”

Dr. Adu gave him a curious look.

“What?” William asked, failing to keep the hopeless irritation from his tone.

“I can see why Phantom chose you. Your empathy is admirable.”

“Well,” William said. “I am a teacher.”

“Still. Phantom is quite lucky to have you here for him.”

William scoffed. “I doubt he’ll share your sentiment when he’s whisked off to his imprisonment with the Ghost Investigation Ward, but I appreciate your words nonetheless. Perhaps the administration can take a leaf out of my book if they’d be so interested in listening to me.”

Dr. Adu sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s all I ask.”

— — —

William was there when Phantom finally reawakened, though this time far more subdued than before. He didn’t know if it was the pain medication wearing off, if Phantom just didn’t have the energy to keep on the mask any longer, or a mixture of both, but Phantom seemed far too complacent to sit there dutifully staring off into the walls with a glazed expression.

Thankfully for William, he had thought to bring a file of essays that needed to be graded anyway. 

So the duo sat there in silence as the television prattled on in the background. Every so often, William would see Phantom’s eyes twitch over to him for a brief moment before settling either on the wall or the screen before him, but the ghost made no attempt to converse.

And William didn’t pressure him. 

After all, he’d worked with enough troubled teens to know that the best way to get them to talk was to create an environment where they felt comfortable enough to speak freely.

Step one of that was just being there.

Fortunately for William, it didn’t take too long before Phantom finally cracked.

“You know,” he said, his voice cracking from disuse. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”

William halted his movements, and his pen hovered above the essay. “Of course I worry about you. I worry about all my students. Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t absolve you from this.”

“Yeah but…I mean, you don’t have to worry about what’s gonna happen next. You know, with the GIW.”

William set his pen down on his paper. 

“I don’t know what they’ve told you, but I’m not exactly going to hang around here much longer. I’ll be gone long before the Guys in White get me.”

“You know I can’t encourage you to hatch any sort of escape plan. Your body is still in an incredibly fragile state. Attempting anything would surely rip your stitches out, and then we’d be right back where we started.”

Phantom broke eye contact and scoffed. “You’re talking as if I have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” William said softly.

“What, to become their pet plaything? Their own personal experimental cadaver?” Phantom raised his bandaged arm. “I’ve already been through that once, thanks.”

William’s stomach leaped to his throat. If nothing else, this was a confirmation of his increasingly rising suspicions. “You need to be smart about this.”

“I don’t know what you don’t understand about I don’t have a fucking choice, ” Phantom snapped, his aura flaring. He flinched, his face knitting in pain, and his aura pulled back in. “Sorry, I’m just frustrated.”

“I understand, and you have every right to be angry about your situation. It’s…it’s not right.” William felt his professional demeanor crack. “It’s not right what happened to you, and what is facing you once more, but I implore you to wait just a little longer.”

“Why, you planning on smuggling me out or something? Gonna set me up in your guest bedroom?”

A metaphorical lightbulb flickered above William’s head.

At the lack of response, Phantom’s anger melted into shock. “Wait, really?”

(Comic by @asyl-ym on Tumblr!)

— — —

As it turned out, smuggling Phantom out of the hospital was shockingly easy.

Well, it wasn’t like William was truly smuggling the boy. It was a matter of a simple phone call to the social service worker, who seemed almost relieved to hear the proposal from William. His fostering license was still in effect from his last emergency placement—it didn’t expire for another few months—and since Phantom still technically wasn’t a patient at Amity Park General, the social worker was able to arrange everything between him, Dr. Adu, and the administration with the grace of a true experienced professional.

Though, William suspected that it had something to do with the administration being thankful that Phantom was no longer their problem.

Part of the deal also included keeping William’s name out of the report. So according to the final submitted write-up, Phantom appeared at the hospital, received stitches, an IV, and pain medication, and then disappeared shortly after.

The federal government could complain all they wanted, but officially, no one at the hospital would be liable for Phantom’s disappearance. 

Officially, that was.

The move had been tough. Perhaps it had been because he’d been witness to Phantom bouncing back from all manner of events, but to watch the ghost unable to get himself out of bed without help and then nearly pass out getting into the car was a sight he hoped to never have to see again.

But then he remembered the images from his injuries. Those damn pictures would be forever burned into his brain.

“It’s ok, let us do the work,” the social worker had said, her arm wrapped around Phantom’s body.

“The stitches…” Phantom groaned. His eyes were squeezed shut and sweat beaded across his forehead. 

“I know, sweetie. You’re doing great, just a little further.”

But eventually, miraculously without attracting any attention, they managed to get Phantom buckled into the car.

The ghost sat in the seat, his head pressed against the window, panting at the small transfer. “Okay,” he gasped, his eyes squeezed shut. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” William asked.

“Just start…just start the car. I’m fine.”

William hesitated only a moment longer before finally conceding to the ghost’s wishes.

And then they were off. Ghost and human, together in a Toyota Carolla, on the way to William’s home. 

Even though William had been in the same hospital room as the ghost for the past few days, it was incredible how awkward the atmosphere was now. Outside of the hospital, he half expected the ghost to pop up and fly away, even though he knew how illogical that was.

But still, he’d never seen Phantom like this before. He’d never seen him so defeated. Injured. Sickly.

He’d never seen him so human. 

Just a teenager in pain, seeking the cool windowpane for solace.

He kept having to remind himself that this was Phantom, this was a ghost. This wasn’t one of his students, nor was this his previous foster placement. This was the ecto-infused tangible spirit of a previously living boy.

Somehow, analyzing him so literally made his thoughts just that much worse.

Finally, they pulled into the garage, and William shut the car off.

Then it was just the two of them. Alone. Having to make the trek to his ghost bedroom.

“I can carry you this time,” William said.

Phantom mumbled something incoherent. 

William waited for him to elaborate, but the ghost just went quiet. He sighed and slipped out of the driver’s seat, pulling up next to the passenger’s side and opening the door.

“Can you unbuckle? Or do you need help?” William asked.

Phantom’s eyes cracked open, and the acid green of his irises seemed to glow more intensely under the dim light from his garage.

He lifted his good arm and—though it took a minute of fumbling—he managed to unclasp his seatbelt with a soft click. 

William slid his arms under the ghost and, careful not to jostle him, slid him out of the seat bridal-style.

“Sorry,” Phantom mumbled, the last of his strength seemingly used to stay conscious.

“Don’t apologize.”

He ducked his head down. “S’embarassing.”

“It’s nothing,” William said, carrying the child up the stairs and trying not to think about how light the ghost was. He somehow managed to open his door, carrying the Phantom through the threshold to his house.

The hallway was dark, with the only light emitting from Phantom himself, who was nodding off as he fought against sleep.

It seemed so strange to William, Phantom inside his home. Sure he’d seen the ghost in his classroom more times than he wanted to remember, but his home was his sanctuary. It was his peaceful utopia covered in succulents and bookshelves where the Sunday paper sat on his coffee table with a partially finished crossword and an old Literary Digest splayed open on his countertop. It was supposed to be his , untouched by any child—well, aside from his niece, who honestly counted as at least three children, with the ungodly surplus of energy she possessed. 

And yet, here he was once again bringing a teenager in need to his home.

But that was just like him, wasn’t it? To latch onto the teens that needed the most help? Sure, he had his star pupils like Jasmine Fenton who he delighted in teaching, but he’d always been more drawn to the other side of the spectrum, to the students like Dash Baxter or Daniel Fenton, the ones who were a bit rough around the edges, the ones who needed more attention.

That was how he kept ending up in these situations, wasn’t it?

William pushed open the door to the guest bedroom and gently laid Phantom down on the covers. As soon as Phantom’s head hit the pillow, he lost his battle with consciousness.

“There you go,” William whispered, gently pulling a folded throw blanket over the ghost. He stood back and stared down at Phantom, who seemed only worse for wear after the trek home. His face was paler, and the green tinge shone more strongly through his skin. His aura was dim, albeit stronger than it was when William had first seen the ghost in the hospital.

It was a good sign, William remembered Phantom saying. It meant his core was healing, whatever that meant.

He stepped back, and his stomach growled. He racked his brain, but he couldn’t remember eating since that morning. Absentmindedly, he wondered if Phantom would be hungry when he awoke, or what kinds of foods the teen preferred.

Well, he was healing from what appeared to be horrific torture on his chest. Soup it was.

Typically, William was one to make the broth himself, like his mother used to. Canned soup had come a long way since William was a broke college student living with a mini-fridge and a microwave, but homemade broth just tasted so much better.

But it was much too late in the day to start that whole process. As much as William would prefer to give Phantom as much of a warm welcome into his home as possible, canned soup would have to do.

William grabbed two cans out of his pantry and poured them into a pot. He leaned against the counter absentmindedly checking his emails for the standard set of disgruntled parents when he felt something brush against his leg.

“Well, hello to you too, Poe,” William said, reaching down to pet the black cat.

Poe nuzzled against his hand and purred. 

“Sorry I’ve been ignoring you for the past few days. But you’ve been a good boy, haven’t you?”

Poe let out a small meow of agreement.

“But I’m home now, I promise. No more coming home just to ditch you a few minutes later. And we have a guest! You’ll be nice to him, won’t you?”

Peo was too busy ramming his face into William’s leg to give an adequate response to that.

“Of course you will!” William stood and yawned, stretching his back as he did so. It was hardly the evening, and yet he felt as though a week had passed in a single day. Exhaustion crept behind his eyes, and the thought of his bed seemed like a faraway dream.

Still, his evening wasn’t over yet. Phantom had just arrived, and William didn’t exactly trust him to stay. At least, not with Phantom’s famous disappearing act he pulled after every ghost fight. 

A large part of him was convinced that in the morning, the guest room would be empty.

He strolled over to the cabinet and grabbed the cat food out. Immediately, Poe perked up, letting out a much more forceful meow and hopping over to his food bowl. 

William followed his cat, though with far less haste. Judging by the deep glare the cat was giving him as he circled his food bowl, if William didn’t hurry up post-haste, then there was going to be a coup soon.

“You would think I starve you,” William chuckled.

Poe pawed at his food bowl.

“You’re so spoiled.” He bent down to fill the cat’s bowl. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

But Poe wasn’t listening anymore, having pounced at the bowl from the moment the first kibble hit the surface.

William closed his eyes and leaned back against the counter, exhaustion hitting him at once. He ran through the events from the last few days in his head.

He had a ghost in his house. An injured, overpowered teenage ghost.

A ghost who had been tortured, who had been cut open. A ghost with stitches that would eventually need to be removed, bandages that would need to be changed, injures that would need constant supervision.

A ghost that clearly needed help.

And although William had no idea what tomorrow would bring, he did know one thing for certain: if Phantom stayed through the night, then tomorrow William would be there to help.

— — —

Miraculously, Phantom was still in the guest room that morning. Though Willian presumed it was because he simply hadn’t woken up yet since they arrived home yesterday, minus when William had forced him to wake up to take a few bites of food and his medication. 

That was, if he could even call that being awake. William had seen pieces of cardboard more lively than Phantom was at supper.

“Thank you, Ishiyama,” William said. “Yes, I’ll keep you updated. Have a good day.”

William clicked the phone off, placing it back on its charger. His brother had always poked fun at him for still having a landline, but William was a big advocate for separating his work life and personal life into two different phone numbers.

Not that it really mattered much anymore, as involved as he was in Casper High. Hell, he probably spent more time at school than he did at home at this point. 

It was likely for this reason that no one gave him flak for calling out citing a family emergency this morning. He did have a moment of contemplation about going to work for at least the morning, but ultimately his reason won out in the end. Phantom was near helpless in the state that he was in. God forbid his stitches fell out again, William needed to be there just in case.

He rubbed his temples with his fingers. It was only Monday, and Phantom wasn’t going to heal overnight. He could use a sick day today, but he couldn’t miss an entire week of classes. He would need to leave Phantom home alone at some point. 

Hopefully, the child healed fast.

The thought of leaving this sick teenager to fend for himself in his home sent a pang of anxiety into his stomach. Not to mention, this wasn’t just any teenager, this was a ghost.

Phantom. Danny Phantom. Sleeping in his guest room.

William shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee. If he thought about this any longer about how absurd this situation was, he was going to give himself a migraine. 

Instead, he pulled out his cell and called an old friend of his.

“Will?” the gruff voice said after a few agonizing rings.

“Laura,” William couldn’t hide the relief in his tone. Laura Tetslaff and he had started teaching in this district in the same year and quickly grew from just coworkers to genuine friends. The gym teacher and her wife were frequent fliers at William’s for their Saturday cooking nights. And in recent years, their daughters had also become regular guests as well.

“And what do I owe this early call for? Everything alright?”

“I won’t be in school today, unfortunately.” William glanced over to the cracked door. “I had a rather…eventful weekend.”

“What happened?”

“First, you need to trust me when I say that everything I tell you cannot be repeated to anyone. Please, it’s imperative that this stay between us.”

“Jeez, you’re scaring me.”

“Just humor me.”

“Alright, the hell happened to you?”

“I have a houseguest I picked up from Amity Park General who’s sleeping in my guest room at the moment.”

“Do I know them?”

William tore his eyes away from Phantom’s door and sipped his coffee. “Not on a personal level, but you’ve seen him around.”

“Who is it, a student? Do you have another foster placement?”

“Not officially, but yes. I have…Phantom. Phantom is sleeping in my home.”

The line went dead silent. For a moment, William was worried that the call dropped.

But then Laura’s low voice picked back up on the other end of the line. “Are you pulling my leg?”

“Not at all. On Friday I got a call from the hospital saying that Phantom had collapsed in the parking lot and when he woke up, he asked for me specifically to be his parental advocate. So I arrived. When things legally got dicey, I convinced the hospital to discharge him to me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Will.”

“Well, convinced is a rather strong word. They didn’t seem to want him in their care for too much longer. Something about needing to hand him over to the Ghost Investigation Ward. I honestly just couldn’t let him get taken away.”

There was a pause again. “So now you have him? Phantom?”

“That I do.”

“Jesus.”

“Oh, trust me, I know how insane this sounds.”

“Is he…? I mean, you took him from the hospital .”

Despite her fumbling, William could hear the underlying question. He sat down at his kitchen table, staring unseeing at the window facing his yard where outside, baby birds chirped, eager for their morning breakfast. 

“Will?”

William flinched. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “He was so severely injured, Laura. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I don’t understand who could have done this.”

“A bad ghost fight I assume?”

William shook his head, his tone darkening. “Not this time.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. He was…he’s all cut open. Like someone took a knife and—and just…I don’t know. It’s almost methodical in a way. It’s twisted. Sick, Laura. It’s sick, that’s what it is.”

“Jesus, Will, that’s horrible. I know the kid has enemies, but still.”

“I don’t know. He won’t say who did it to him. I’ve gotten a few things like he confirmed that…god, I don’t even think I should be saying this. He implied that—that he was experimented on. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but it’s what he said.”

“Fucking hell.”

“I know. He’s really a mess. I couldn’t leave him there. The government would have finished him off. I know ghosts can’t truly die, but still, I couldn’t just abandon him.”

“I understand, Will. I get it. You don’t have to remind me.”

“But I don’t know what to do. I can’t just keep him here, can I? And I have work and classes I need to teach.”

“Well, you tell me. Do you really think you can quit him now?”

William sighed and tapped the ceramic of his cooling mug. “No,” he responded. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Well then, it seems like you have your answer. Listen, I have your back. I always do. You need anything at work or at home, you let me know, okay?”

He exhaled a long breath, feeling a knot of anxiety releasing in his stomach. “Thank you, Laura. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ll make sure your classes are all set for today. I assumed you already called in?”

“I did.”

“Okay, then don’t worry. I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

“Thank you.”

William hung up and set his phone on the kitchen table. During the conversation, his fingers had begun trembling, but he hadn’t noticed until now.

He shook out his hands as if dispelling the last of the nerves from his body, stood tall, and collected himself.

He could do this. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in an emergency foster situation, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. Phantom was a ghost, he would heal quickly. William just had to follow the instructions given to him by Dr. Adu and everything would be okay.

— — —

The news prattled on in the background, filling the empty air with its stories. Not for the first time this afternoon, William was thankful he’d kept his old box television installed in the guest room. Though it was typically used for his niece when she came over to watch cartoons while the adults chatted in the living room, the old hunk of dated technology had served many other purposes over the years.

Including now, apparently, saving William from the dreaded awkward silence.

It was noon, and Phantom had just woken up for the first time since entering the residence. He was groggy, and clearly in pain. Unfortunately for him, William couldn’t give him any more pain medication on an empty stomach. 

And so the ghost was unhappily eating mashed potatoes while William sat to the side catching up on grading, trying not to steal too many glances at the glowing ghost before him.

Not for the first time, he couldn’t help but recognize that tired expression on Phantom’s face. But from where? Maybe Phantom really had been his student after all. 

But no, there were only a few Dannys that he’d taught over the years, and as far as he was aware, they were all still very much alive. And of his students that had unfortunately met an early end, none of them looked like Phantom.

So why did Phantom seem so familiar?

“...after the explosion at the Fenton residence last Friday,” the news anchor said. 

William’s head snapped over to the television, where an image was currently propped up next to the anchor showing a house with a massive crater along the side.

Another image then showed a zoomed-in glimpse of the damage. Black soot painted the home, and wood and metal littered the yard. Inside the home, which was all too visible from the street, a hole covered the floor.

William felt his eyes grow wide. 

“Madeline Fenton has been released from critical care, and Jack Fenton is set to be released from the hospital later this week. Investigators are still looking into the source of the explosion, though Jack Fenton alleges that it was an experiment gone wrong in their lab. Debate has gone underway as to whether or not the Fentonworks license should be revoked or suspended from residential neighborhoods, and the delegation for that is expected to take place in the coming weeks.”

William’s head was spinning. He pulled out his phone and opened his messaging app. “I have two students from that residence.”

Phantom set his plate down on the side table next to him.

“The news didn’t even mention them. Oh, I don’t know how I didn’t hear about this! Laura didn’t mention anything this morning, so I assume that the children are okay.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Phantom’s quiet voice said.

“I’m sure you’re right but I just need to…” William’s voice trailed off as he fired off a text to Laura. “She doesn’t have any classes right now, so hopefully she sees it.”

“They’re probably with the mayor.”

“The mayor?” 

Phantom lifted his head to stare at the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was stiff. “Yeah, he’s…taken care of them before.”

“You know them?” William asked. “Well, of course you do. They’re the most prominent ghost hunters in the city. It makes sense that you keep tabs on their whereabouts.”

“I don’t,” Phantom snapped. “I don’t keep tabs on them.”

William blinked, unsure what the sudden tonal shift signaled. But when Phantom didn’t elaborate further, he decided not to pry. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. My head is spinning.”

“The kids are fine.”

William paused. There was something personal here that was making Phantom so touchy, but clearly, William wasn’t welcome to whatever it was.

His eyes searched the room, desperate for a conversational change. At last, he spotted the half-eaten potatoes sitting on the side table. “Phantom, you’re not done eating.”

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

“I need to give you the medication and change your dressings.”

Phantom glared at his bedding. “I’ve eaten enough. I’m a ghost, I have a tough stomach.”

“I’m sure you do, but—”

“I’ll be fine. Just give me the medication.” He pulled the blanket back over his body. “Or don’t, I don’t care. I’ve dealt with worse.”

William felt a pang in his heart. He knew that Phantom wasn’t exaggerating, he had dealt with worse. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

But that didn’t make this right. “At least let me change the dressings.”

“Can’t we do it later? I’m tired.”

“You’ll be asleep later. Let’s just do it now while you’re up.”

Phantom buried his face into the blanket in response.

“Come now, let’s get it over with. You’ll be thankful later.”

“Whatever,” he sulked, though he still complied with William’s wishes, throwing the blanket back off his body.

Seeing his chest without his jumpsuit was odd. William had given him sweatpants he’d fished out of the extra gym clothes at the school over the weekend while he was getting work from his desk, but Phantom’s chest was bare. William had a few loose t-shirts folded on top of the dresser for Phantom when he was well enough to wear them, but for now, the ghost lay in the bed with his chest covered by gauze and ace wrappings. 

Though much of his skin was covered, the visible skin was oddly human. William didn’t know what he had been expecting from Phantom, the humanoid ghost that baffled ecto-researchers alike. But to see skin so ordinary was a strange experience. 

He had seen a few ghosts up close and personal before, much to his unfortunate reality of teaching at a school full of teenagers with wild hormones and extreme emotions that attracted ghosts, but he’d never seen something so normal from any of those ghosts before. Phantom had pores, he had freckles, hell, he had little arm hairs and discoloration from scarring. The glowing aura aside, he looked just like a normal kid.

And he breathed like one too.

At first, William thought that the breathing was just an unconscious reflex, but Phantom seemed to be, at least on some level, unbothered by it. At least, William assumed he was. He had no plans of asking about it—it felt taboo to ask a ghost something like that—but he couldn’t help but burn with curiosity as to why the hell Phantom breathed. 

The doctors had noted that Phantom had a complete copy of the human anatomy, inside and out. Hell, William had seen some of the photographs and x-rays. He knew that Phantom had lungs, he had a heart, he had muscles and connective tissue—all things he never even imagined that a ghost could have.

But it was all just mimicry, wasn’t it? Because next to his heart was a ghost core, according to Dr. Adu. And while William didn’t know much about ghost anatomy, even he knew what the ghost core did. How it was the ghost’s very existence. 

So why both a heart and a core?

He was so strange, Phantom was. So powerful for a ghost, and nearly a perfect copy of a human boy. Unless Phantom was somehow an anatomy and biology expert when he was alive, William wondered how he’d managed to concoct such an extravagant ghost form.

Though, maybe that’s how he ended up this way. Maybe someone unsavory figured out how advanced for a ghost he was. Maybe that’s why someone had sliced him open…

William’s mood darkened, and he turned away from Phantom to pull open his hastily made first aid kit he had put together that morning. He slowly went through the box, pulling out the materials he needed, and checking his list taped to the lid to ensure he had everything correct.

“I can’t exactly say I’ve done this before,” William said. “Well, unless you count my niece falling off her bike and scraping her knee. But this is a bit more complicated than putting a space-themed band-aid on a child’s knee.”

“Your niece has good taste,” Phantom remarked. “I love stargazing. Always have wanted a telescope.”

“Oh?” William tried not to sound too interested. Frankly, he had no idea that a ghost could be interested in anything outside of its own Obsession.

Though, from the way Phantom was talking, maybe he was reminiscing about when he was alive.

“Yeah. Was saving for one too.”

William gently sat Phantom up and began removing the gauze from his torso. He kept his eyes on the task at hand, noting that Phantom was pointedly looking up at the ceiling.

Right, keep him talking. “Have you been to the observatory?”

“A few times.”

“What did you think?”

Phantom winced as William pulled the gauze pads off his skin. “It was nice. I’ve never…never really been able to see Saturn’s rings like that before.”

“I don’t know much about astronomy, I’ll admit.”

“Well, you’re an English teacher so that makes sense. You know boring stuff like Shakespeare.”

William chuckled. “Shakespeare isn’t what I would call boring, but I know he isn’t exactly to everyone’s literature tastes.”

“I don’t get how anyone likes him. I mean, his plays were dumb.”

“Dumb how?” 

Phantom closed his eyes, tilting his head back to rest against the wall. “ Romeo and Juliet was the worst. Stupid kids just fell in love after like five minutes of knowing each other? And then they killed themselves without even checking if the other person was okay?”

“Well, I never said his plays were realistic— ”

“There’s realistic, and then there’s just idiotic.”

William dabbed the remnants of green decorating his skin with clean gauze as gently as he could. Even so, he could see Phantom’s jaw tightening. “Some of his other plays are better.”

“Yeah, I’ll just trust you on that one.”

Once he was sure that the wound was clean and the sutures were all still in place, he began lining new gauze pads over the Y on his chest.

It was thankful that Phantom was refusing to look. That way, he couldn’t see the pained facial expression that William was surely making right now.

“You’d get along with Ghostwriter,” Phantom said. “I should set you two up or something. Love at first sight probably.”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“He’s this annoying ghost who’s obsessed with writing and classic literature. He has this whole library—that’s his haunt—and I think he has like every book ever written or something. I don’t really know how it all works.”

“He sounds like a fascinating fellow to me.”

Phantom coughed and doubled over. William’s hands flew to his shoulders at once, supporting the boy as his face twisted and his body trembled.

“Just breathe, I got you.”

Phantom nodded, letting out a few shaky and forced breaths. The gauze on his chest had slid down to his lap, but that was okay. William would just replace it.

It took a few moments of shaky breathing before Phantom was finally able to relax against the pillows again. He finally cracked his eyes open, blinking up at the ceiling. A watery tear slipped out of the corner of his eye, but William kept his mouth shut.

“You can keep going,” the ghost finally said.

William made quick work wrapping Phantom’s torso back up before starting on his arm, which thankfully was healing quickly compared to how it looked a few days before.

He worked in silence this time, not wanting to disturb Phantom’s body any more than he already was. Phantom had put on a brave face, but those injuries would have killed a regular human. It was honestly miraculous that the ghost hadn’t melted into a pile of green goo.

When the last wrapping was clasped into place, William let a sigh of relief. “There, all done. See? Not so bad. Let me get you the proper medications before I go.” 

Phantom just nodded numbly, looking considerably more exhausted than before.

William handed him a white pill and a glass of water, which the teen took robotically. A pang hit William’s heart, but he didn’t let it show. Instead, he helped Phantom lay back down and drew the blanket back over his body. 

“I’ll come back to check on you in a few hours, alright? Get some rest. Your body needs it.”

Phantom didn’t respond, but William didn’t expect him to. He went to the door, flicked off the lights, and left the teen alone.

It was easy to forget what was on Phantom’s chest when it was all wrapped up. It was easy to turn his head away and pretend it didn’t exist.

But it did exist. It was branded onto his skin. And sooner or later, both William and Phantom were going to have to confront the matter directly.

But not yet. Not today. For now, Phantom just needed to sleep.

And William needed coffee.

— — —

“Someone’s in a hurry,” a gruff voice said from behind him.

William turned around to see Laura in her signature white polo offering a cheeky grin. He pulled open the door, holding it out for her. “Don’t want to leave my houseguest alone for too long.”

“How’s the kid?”

“Oh, you know, he’s getting there,” William said, stepping outside to feel the warm spring sun cloak his face. “He’s a bit more lucid now, so that’s good. But he’s just…”

“Just what?”

William felt his eyebrows scrunch together. How could he describe this? “He’s not what I expected him to be,” he said slowly. “It’s like the personality we see in public and the boy in my guest room are two completely different people.”

“Like what, he’s quiet?” Laura asked. “Doesn’t have that reckless ego?”

“It’s more than that though. I can’t…I can’t really put my finger on it, but I feel like I know this kid from somewhere. Something about him just seems so familiar.”

“Well, he is a teenager. You probably taught him, right?”

“See, that’s what I thought initially, but none of my students’ deaths match him at all.”

“The ones you know about, you mean,” Laura corrected.

“Unfortunately, that’s the other working theory.”

Laura put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a student making bug eyes at them.

He didn’t blame them. Ms. Tetslaff wasn’t particularly known for her warm and cuddly nature.

“Even if you don’t know who he was, he’s lucky he has you now,” Laura said. “Now get home! I don’t wanna hold you up, and I have to pick up a few things for the misses. Call me if you need anything, Will. Seriously, I’ll have my phone on me.”

William sighed. “Thank you, Laura. That means a lot.”

Laura stepped back and began walking to her car. “See you tomorrow!”

William gave her a final wave before walking to his own vehicle, and that’s when the little bits of anxiety started to creep back in.

Phantom could walk to the bathroom if need be—though barely. William had left a lunch box on his side table with a sandwich bag of a dose of pain relievers and a sticky note saying when to take them. Hopefully, Phantom was okay. 

In an ideal world, he would have taken the week off to care for Phantom, but he’d already taken Monday and Tuesday off. He couldn’t afford to take any more time.

If all was well, then this was going to be okay. Every day passed meant one more day of Phantom healing. He just needed to get through the next few days, and then everything would be okay.

William started up his car engine and tried not to peel out of the parking lot. Students could be unobservant in the best of situations, and freedom from the school bell signaled a severe uptick in their lack of situational awareness.

When he finally made it to his neighborhood, he couldn’t help but glance at the mirrors to ensure he wasn’t being followed. As expected, no one was behind him, but even that did little to quell the paranoia bubbling in his chest.

Just how long could he get away with this ruse? How much longer until one of Phantom’s enemies came sniffing around?

Presumably, Phantom had an ectosignature—that thing that Dr. Madeline and Jack Fenton rambled about when setting up the emergency protection equipment for the school. So it was only a matter of time before someone realized that there was a rather strong ectosignature coming from William’s home, right?

Or, maybe not. Phantom only really appeared during ghost fights. Part of the mystery surrounding him was that it was unknown where he went after that. 

So maybe he could hide his ectosignature when he wanted to. In which case, William would be fine. 

If he believed in that theory.

He pulled into his garage and made sure the door had lowered to the ground completely before he dared open the door inside his home—just in case, of course. And then he opened the door.

“Phantom?” he called, slipping off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright flash emitting from the guest bedroom.

“Phantom!” William threw his bag down and made for the guest room. “Are you alright?” 

“Sorry! I’m here!” A strangled voice responded.

William rounded the corner to see a very fatigued ghost child tucked into his duvet with the cat curled up on his lap. He noted that Phantom’s eyes looked puffy and tinged with green, and his alarm only grew. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine.” Phantom’s voice shook. He absentmindedly reached out and stroked the cat’s back.

William looked down at the boy’s outstretched arm and gasped. “Your suit!”

Phantom’s eyes grew wide.

“It’s back! It’s—how? What the—is—is that what the lights were about?”

“Lights?” Phantom’s voice was breathless.

“I could have sworn…” William’s brows tightened. “How is your suit back?”

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

William’s eyes swiveled between the black material of the suit under his T-shirt and the ever-growing anxiety streaming from the boy’s face.

Now wasn’t the time to distress Phantom further. Whatever was going on with him wasn’t something he wanted William to know, clearly. He just needed to diffuse the thick wad of tension draping the air.

William forced his eyes away from Phantom, if only to give him the semblance of privacy. He studied the sleeping cat for a moment. “That’s Poe.”

“Sorry?”

“Poe,” he repeated, nodding toward the cat. “That’s my cat. He got his name after I took him home and he fell asleep on top of one of my Edgar Allan Poe books.”

“Oh.” Phantom looked at the cat with an unreadable expression, continuing to stroke his back with delicate fingers as Poe drifted off to sleep. “He’s nice.”

“He is. It seems he’s taken a liking to you too.”

“Usually animals don’t like ghosts. I think they can smell death. They get scared.”

Poe hadn’t seemed particularly scared of Phantom, but maybe spending a day wrapped in William’s duvet had eased Poe’s senses.

That, or, maybe he could tell that Phantom needed some comfort. Cats, though stubborn, were comforting creatures when they wanted to be.

“How are you feeling? Any better than yesterday?”

“Yeah.” Phantom looked away and wiped his eyes. “I feel better.”

William walked over to the side table and swiped the lunchbox up. Not to his surprise, it still felt a bit heavy. “Did you eat?” 

“I wasn’t that hungry, but I tried.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” William assured, offering him what he hoped was a comforting smile. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No. I’m fine.”

William turned to leave when he glanced back at the teen. He looked downright pitiful sitting up on the bed, his hair hung low over his face, eyes glassy and downtrodden. In all his times of seeing Phantom, either on the news or in person, he had never seen the ghost look so defeated before. It was as if someone had died.

And he knew that he wouldn’t be fulfilling his duty as a teacher if he didn’t take care of all his students.

“If there’s anything you want to talk about,” William said. “ Anything at all, know that my ears are always open.”

But Phantom didn’t express any wants or needs for the rest of the afternoon. Or the evening. Just like he hadn’t done all week. William had to all but force him to eat some of the soup he had heated up for them again, and he had also been the one to suggest they quickly clean Phantom, which the teen had looked more than a little relieved at, even if the current hygiene regimen only involved baby wipes.

Aside from William proposing things, Phantom hadn’t actually asked for anything. At all.

And that was a problem. Because it indicated something deeper, it indicated that something was holding Phantom back. That despite the cocky public persona he liked to put on, when it actually came down to it, Phantom simply couldn’t ask for help.

Maybe it was a trauma response. Maybe it was a ghost thing. Maybe Phantom had always been like this. William certainly didn’t know, but that didn’t really matter.

Because he needed to help Phantom, and he wasn’t sure how to do it.

Not to mention, Phantom still refused to acknowledge the giant, towering husk of an elephant in the room called, ‘the big Y-shaped bone-saw wound on his chest.’

But no, William couldn’t bring it up yet. Phantom had only been at William’s house for a few days. Maybe he just needed more time to warm up to the teacher. He was just scared, William needed to be patient.

Thankfully, his entire career was one giant game of patience. If anyone could do this, he could.

And yet, that didn’t make him feel as good as he thought he would. Because when he finally crawled into bed that night, he couldn’t fall asleep.

He was still thinking about it. The wounds, the ghost in his guest room, how desperately he wanted to help but he just didn’t know where to start.

Phantom was getting stronger, that much was clear. The teen could now stand for short periods, he could walk to the bathroom by himself, and he could sit up and lay down on his own. He was getting better.

And with his strength increasing, now William was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He was waiting for the day when he woke up, and Phantom was gone.

William didn’t know when that day would come, just that it would. After all, Phantom couldn’t stay here forever. This was just an emergency situation. It wasn’t like the ghost really knew who William was outside of school.

Goodness, even thinking about this was going to drive him crazy!

William rose from his bed. It was unlike Poe to not have made his way to William’s mattress by this hour. The door was cracked open just in case, but it didn’t seem the cat had any intentions of slipping through the door.

He probably just fell asleep on his cat tree again. The lazy thing.

William slipped his feet into his slippers and made for the door. He was thirsty, anyway. He could get a glass of water, find his cat, and then finally go to sleep.

Easy enough.

He slipped out into the living room and quietly stepped toward the kitchen. Phantom was asleep and he didn’t want to—

Or not?

William halted, his head swiveling toward the quiet sniffles he heard coming from the hall leading to the guest bedroom, where a dim light shone through the crack in the door.

He slowly, as silently as he could, moved closer to the hall until he was standing just around the corner. He froze, refusing to even breathe, as he extended his hearing to the best of his limits.

“I don’t know…I don’t know what to do,” Phantom’s muffled voice came from the room.

William’s heart stopped.

“I can’t go home. I don’t know what to do. I don’t…they know what I am, I can’t—” Phantom’s voice dissolved into sobs.

He heard the sound of sheets shifting, and for a second William thought he’d been caught before Phantom’s voice came back.

“Sorry, Poe, I just…they’ll kill me, and I just can’t…I don’t know. I didn’t think they’d actually do that. I thought once they—they realized it was me they’d…I don’t know. I’m sorry, go back to sleep, I just…” Phantom let out a choked sob. “I’m sorry, you can’t even understand me. This is so pathetic, I just don’t have anyone else I can—I can talk to.”

William wanted to pop out around the corner and yell that he was there, Phantom could talk to him and he wouldn’t judge, but he didn’t.

Whatever he was going through, this was clearly personal. 

“This is so messed up, and now I’m—I’m here. And I don’t know where to go from here.”

William stood behind the corner for longer, but Phantom didn’t speak again after that. He sobbed quietly to the cat until his sobs wore out into what William hoped was a deep sleep.  Though, with the silence, it was hard to tell.

William crept back to his bedroom, his glass of water long forgotten. He left his door cracked open—just in case—and lay on his bed, staring up into the darkness.

So Phantom was staying with someone, he had a home, and then…

Something happened. Something related to how he had acquired his debilitating injuries. Something related to people that he cared about, people that he had a connection to.

Theories circled through William’s head, each more gruesome than the last. Thoughts of one of his friends selling him out to the government, someone attacking him in his sleep, a ghost fight gone horrifically wrong…

The longer he pondered his theories, the more he felt resolved to take care of the boy for as long as he needed. Because whatever happened to him, ghost or not, was inhumane. Disgusting. Unconditionally merciless.

Forget his anxieties, forget his fears, his worries. There was a terrified teenager in the room next to him.

Oh Pride and Prejudice, there was no way in hell that he was going to let Phantom return to that torture anytime soon.

Chapter Text

William had heard rumors of Phantom’s “healing factor,” as his students called it. Whispers of Phantom being quite literally impaled one day only to show up a few days later right as rain were hard to miss, and debate had spread far and wide. William had even seen conversations in the chat room in Doomed.

Phantom’s legendary healing ability was somewhat established in the mystery that was Danny Phantom. Though, when Phantom was asked a few times on the news, all he gave was a cheeky grin and a, “I bounce back quicker than most.”

Which, as far as the internet was concerned, was basically a confirmation of his healing abilities.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when in just a few short days, William came home to see Phantom rummaging around the fridge on his own.

“Oh, hello,” William said, knowingly failing to hide his shock.

Seeming to have the wrong idea, Phantom blinked owlishly between the fridge and William standing before him, before slowly shutting the fridge with a sheepish, “Sorry, I should have asked.”

“No! No, heavens, it’s fine. I just…wasn’t expecting to see you up and about so soon.”

“Oh.” Phantom shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I am a ghost.”

William set his jaw. “Of course.”

Phantom nodded and moved past William, his shoulders curled in and torso slightly hunched. He made his way over to the couch and gently settled down, flipping up his phone from his pocket and tapping away on the screen as if William weren’t studying him from across the room.

No, William really shouldn’t have been so surprised by all of this. By the healing factor, by the fact that he was reminded that once again, Phantom was a teenage ghost.

But for what seemed like the hundredth time this past week, he was.

Sighing, William put his bag and jacket down on a chair and poured himself a glass of wine. 

It was Friday, he had been secretly caring for an injured ghost all week, he had more than earned this.

“So, um…” William made his way to the living room, sitting down on an astray chair and taking a sip of his wine. “I take it you’re feeling a bit better?”

Phantom didn’t look up from his phone. “Yeah.”

“That’s good!” William said, though Phantom’s expression didn’t seem to match his enthusiasm. “Well, in a week Dr. Adu wanted the stitches to come out, but maybe we can call him tomorrow and see if we should check in on anything earlier.”

“Kay.”

William drummed his fingers on the table, looking for a conversation starter. “I didn’t know you had a phone.”

“I’m dead, not stupid.”

It took immense strength to refrain from slapping his forehead at his own inept wording. “Right! Apologies, I didn’t mean to imply anything. I am just surprised. I didn’t think ghosts used human objects.”

“Oh. I…guess most of us don’t.”

“But you do.”

“Right.”

Phantom’s uneasiness was palpable, but William was too curious to resist. “Do you…have friends you text?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do they know where you are right now? These friends of yours?”

Phantom stood abruptly, and William noticed a stronger glow around his eyes and how his aura brightened just a little. On instinct, William’s hands shot up, a clear surrender.

But Phantom didn’t appear to notice, setting his uneaten apple down on the coffee table. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine, we don’t have to.”

“If you want me gone I can leave. I know I’m overstaying my welcome, I’m sorry. I can just go.”

Alarm bells—no, alarm foghorns were wailing in William’s mind. He recalled Phantom’s conversation with Poe, how it had been someone close to him who had carved him out like a pumpkin, and William couldn’t help the bit of panic that seeped through his pores. “No! No. Please, stay as long as you’d like.”

“It’s fine I know it’s weird to have a ghost in your home.”

The way he said ghost just then…

“I assure you, it’s not strange at all. And even if it was, I am a high school teacher. I am used to a bit of strange here and there.”

“Yeah but—” Phantom huffed, glaring at the ground.

“Mr. Phantom, please trust me when I say that if I were not prepared to take you into my care, I would not have suggested you be released to me at the hospital. I only inquired about your friends because I want those of you who care about you to know that you are under my protection, it’s not because I want you gone. I enjoy having you around, and Poe enjoys your company too. If you wish to go, then you can. But if you want to stay, that bedroom is yours now. Okay?”

He hoped that Phantom took his words to heart because he did truly mean them. Sure Phantom was a ghost, but if he wanted a warm bed to sleep in every night, then Little Women was William going to provide that for him.

“I just…” Phantom glared at the apple, his eyes bitter in a way William had never seen on the ghost’s face before. “They know I’m safe now. That’s all they need to know.”

“Of course.”

Phantom jerked his head in what William presumed was a stiff nod, before limping into the hallway and disappearing into his bedroom.

William listened for a moment, but all he heard was the sound of Poe slipping past Phantom’s door followed by silence. He took a deep breath, and then sipped his wine. 

Yes, he had definitely earned this glass.

He waited just a few minutes longer until he was absolutely sure that Phantom didn’t need his immediate intervention, before trudging up and over to his bag. While Phantom cooled down from…whatever that was, he may as well get a head start on grading papers.

He gave a side glance to the thick red manila folder sitting on his table. Sometimes, he really wondered why he assigned so much writing. It only meant more work for him at home. But then he shook that off, knowing that his students were always thankful for the practice when CAT season rolled around and suddenly the ability to write a quick essay was of the utmost importance.

Sitting down, he swiped the first paper from the pile and uncapped his red pen, his fingers slowly marking the page. Grading was always dependent on the student, as some students needed more help with certain grammatical and analytical concepts than others. If the entire paper was flooded with red, then it would discourage his students from trying in the future. No, it was best to only highlight the most egregious errors for each student.

Like Mikey, for example. For as brilliant as he was with analysis, his use of run-on sentences tended to be his downfall. Sometimes, it was okay to let the minor grammatical errors slide in favor of the more pressing ones. So if William “missed” a spelling error or an unnecessary comma here or there?

Well, that was between him and the Writing Gods.

Time quickly slipped by as he made his way through several papers until the golden rays of the setting sun peaked in through the window, decorating the white pages of his current paper in flakes of gold. He raised his glass and sipped the last of the wine.

“Grading?” 

William turned to see Phantom awkwardly hovering in the hallway, his gloved fingers wrung together as if he was unsure about leaving the safety of his room.

“That I am,” William said, standing to fetch a glass of water. He stretched, his spine popping before he made his way into the kitchen.

Phantom hesitated for a moment longer before following William into the kitchen and grabbing some water for himself. “What’s the essay on?”

“This month’s book, Fahrenheit 451 . Have you ever read it?” 

“I read the Sparknotes.”

William raised his brow.

“Well, some of them at least,” Phantom slid into a chair. “What? I’m not a big reader.”

“It’s an interesting read if you ever develop the inclination. A bit like Black Mirror, if you’ve seen that.”

Phantom shrugged, sipping on his water. “Books aren’t really my thing.”

“Then what is?”

Phantom looked at him like he had three heads, to which William carried on as if he didn’t notice. “I’m assuming you don’t spend all day hunting down rogue ghosts. So what do you like to do, if not read the administration’s list of literary classics?”

It was an attempt at a joke, but Phantom looked too nervous for William to be able to tell if it landed or not. The child sat there looking down at the floor, his lips moving in just a wisp as if he were afraid to say, as if daring to utter anything personal would compromise his identity from when he was alive.

Or maybe the Fentons were right, maybe ghosts truly didn’t have anything else going on in their brains aside from their Obsessions.

But even as that thought passed through William’s head, he knew he didn’t actually believe it. After all, Phantom had expressed his preferences before.

Finally, pale lips uttered, “I really like stargazing.”

Right, William remembered this from a few days ago during Phantom’s pained distraction.

Part of him wondered if the teen didn’t remember admitting this factoid before, if his insecure expression was anything to go by. “I see.”

“I…wanted to be an astronaut.”

William could remember hearing that before from one of his students…somewhere…but where? Who had said it?

Maybe Phantom really had been one of his students.

“That’s a great ambition,” he responded.

Phantom shook his head, suddenly looking sullen again. “I was never good enough at math. And besides, it’s over now.”

“Says who?” William asked. “You?”

“The government would never let a ghost on a rocket.”

The tone Phantom used to describe himself was just a little too biting for William’s tastes. “Why not?”

“Because…” Phantom floundered, offering his raised hand in explanation. “You know, they hate us. They think we’re nothing but sentient blobs of post-human consciousness or whatever it is they write.”

William was quick to pick up on the subtext. “But you don’t believe that.”

“Of course not!” His tone was positively affronted, but then his eyes darted up to William and his expression shifted, suddenly looking nervous. “Why, do you?”

“Well, no, not exactly. I’m no expert of course, I’m just a high school teacher, but I think it would be silly of me after all my interactions with ghosts to sit here and say that they have no measure of intelligence at all.”

The relief was evident. “Right, that’s what I’ve been saying! But the so-called experts aren’t like you, they don’t actually interact with any of us. They just shoot first and ask questions never. And if you come up to anyone guns blazing, human or ghost, of course the first instinct will be a fight or flight response! Like, how has no one realized that? How do those papers keep getting published?”

William watched as throughout the rant, Phantom’s body quite literally lifted off his chair until he was hovering eye-level with the teacher. His aura was bright, and his eyes blazed green. 

It was the first pure ghostly display that Phantom had produced since his short tenure at William’s abode. Yet another reminder that the child truly wasn’t human. 

Still, he held his composure. “I imagine that’s very frustrating for you.”

“You have no idea. I’d like to go out for just one day without worrying about the government or the—or anyone else trying to strap me down to a table, but apparently that’s too much to ask!”

Alarm bells went off in William’s head, and the flashes of Phantom’s injuries appeared behind his eyes.

But…no, that couldn’t have been what happened. The government didn’t even know about Phantom’s injuries or they would have snapped at the opportunity to grab him from the hospital from the moment the report of an ecto-based injury was dumped onto their desk. 

It wasn’t them, it was someone else. But who?

The Fentons?

That was impossible. They’d been dealing with their own issues.

No, it must have been someone else. 

When the silence between them stretched on just too long, William finally managed out, “Well, I hope you know that I’d never turn you over to the Ghost Investigation Ward. I protect all my students, no matter if they have a pulse or not.”

Phantom’s cheeks tinged green, and he ducked his head. “Yeah, alright.”

“I’m serious. You have a home here as long as you need.”

“Sure.” Phantom rolled his eyes despite the shy expression adorning his face. He leaned over the table and looked at the essay littered with red. “Jeez, who pissed you off so much?”

“None of my student's essays could ever ‘piss me off,’ as you put it so eloquently, but this particular essay was written by a Sophomore of mine.”

Phantom seemed to perk up at that. “Oh? Who is it?”

William gave him a curious look, to which Phantom shrugged and added, “I hang around the school a lot, I know a lot of people.”

“In that case, this essay was written by a Tucker Foley. Do you know him?”

Green eyes lit up like lightbulbs, and an impish smile adorned Phantom’s face. William took that signal as a yes. 

“He’s a brilliant student, truly. He’s passionate and driven about the subjects that he has a personal interest in, but unfortunately, classical literature is not one of them. I know he can do better, but I must work with what he turned in.”

“So, in essence, his essay sucks?”

“It does not suck, it just needs a bit of—oh, what do they call it? TLC.”

Phantom slapped a hand over his mouth, clearly suppressing a giggle, to which William pretended not to notice. After the disaster that was prying into Phantom’s human contacts just a few hours ago, William presumed that it was better to let certain subjects slide.

At least, for now.

But it didn’t take long for his giggle to turn into a wince, and his hand to cup his abdomen.

William waited for him to compose himself before continuing. “His analysis of the material is actually quite good, he just tends to repeat the same sentences again and use flowery language to fill the word count rather than delving that level deeper. But that’s alright, that’s why he’s in my class. If my students were all perfect writers right off the bat, then there would be no need for me to teach them. So I enjoy having essays like these.”

“Really? But they give you more work.”

“That may be true, but the reward is greater when those students improve.”

“Not all your students are improving though.”

There was that undertone again, the hidden message that William was attempting to piece together. The missing missing reasons as to what was Phantom’s life and how he ended up here.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he tried to counter.

“No? What about students like Dash Baxter, or…or Danny Fenton.”

The air seemed to have been sucked out of the room at that sentence, but William didn’t know why. He felt his brows crease together as he rebuilt the memories in his mind as to why Phantom would feel any sort of way against those students.

Was it because of Fenton? 

But why? His parents disliked ghosts, but their child seemed rather indifferent to them. In fact, young Daniel didn’t appear to want to get involved in them at all. During debates at school, he’d always remain quiet. And whenever a ghost entered the classroom, he was almost always the first one to dart away.

“Mr. Fenton didn’t submit an essay this week.”

“Oh?”

“I’m actually rather concerned for him,” William admitted. “He hasn’t attended my class since last week. I emailed his parents, but I haven’t received a response. I assume it’s due to their…current situation. But the interesting thing is that Jasmine has been in school all week.”

“She has?” Phantom’s tone sounded a tad too curious.

“Yes. I spoke with her, but I didn’t get any substantial information about her brother. She just said that he was recovering.” William tapped his pen on the table. “I’m sure everything will come to light soon enough. It’s unlike the Fentons to ignore my emails. They’re typically quite responsive. But even so, it is concerning for me to have a student miss an entire week like this with no communication.”

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Phantom said quickly.

William placed the graded essay back in the folder and stood.“I certainly hope so. Now, enough about school. Are you hungry?” 

— — —

William absolutely adored routines.

They were the backbone of adulthood, in his mind. Wake up, go to work, come home, grade papers, make dinner, watch TV, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

But every so often, having something—or some one —to shake that up was a good thing. It kept him on his toes, it kept him feeling young and alert. And adding a rogue teenage ghost to his household was certainly one way to shake up his routine.

Suddenly instead of cooking for one person, he was cooking for two. Instead of grading in silence, he had the pleasure of Phantom’s sparse commentary and conversation thrown in the mix. Instead of watching the nightly news every single night, he got to mix it up with cheesy horror movies from the eighties—Phantom’s favorites.

“Oh, this is truly terrible,” Phantom said, grinning at the screen.

William stared at the television, unsure as to what he was actually seeing. “Is that supposed to be ectoplasm?”

Phantom cackled. “Lancer, didn’t you know that ghosts bleed green foam?”

“At least they got the color somewhat right, I suppose.”

“In their defense, back then there weren't too many videos of ghosts, and the ones that did exist people thought were all fake. I bet their only knowledge of what ectoplasm looked like was just word of mouth.”

“That’s true.” William watched as one of the side characters fell into the goo in a spectacular, overacted splat that had her arms flailing above her head. “How did you even get into this genre anyway? You’re a bit young for this decade.”

“Maybe I’m from the eighties. How would you know?”

“Call it a teacher’s intuition.”

For a moment, there was a tension under Phantom’s eyes that made William’s lips tighten, but then Phantom relaxed, shooting William a devilish grin. “Yeah, I guess it’s pretty obvious.”

“There’s no shame in that,” William said. “Oh, before I forget…I wanted to ask something of you.”

“Shoot.”

“I usually have dinner with a close friend of mine and her family every Saturday. Obviously, for the last few Saturdays now I have put our dinners on a hiatus. But I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind if she came over this weekend. Just her, not her children.”

“Oh,” Phantom hesitated. He shifted awkwardly. “I mean, it’s your house. I can just…go on patrol or something.”

“Well, you see, you wouldn’t have to do that as she already knows you’re here with me.”

Phantom didn’t hesitate to spring off the couch with speeds William hadn’t seen from him since before his hospital stay. He rounded on William, his eyes wide with fright and his glow burning to his pupils. “What do you mean she knows? Are you crazy?”

“Please don’t light my room on fire,” William said, keeping his tone light. “She’s my closest friend, nearly like a sister to me. She’s known since the first phone call and helped me at work while I was preoccupied.”

Phantom still didn’t look convinced. “What if she told someone?”

“She wouldn’t. She’s worked with children far too long to make that kind of error.”

William could see the gears turning in Phantom’s brain. “You mean…she works at the school?”

“As a matter of fact, she does.”

“Oh…” Phantom mumbled, sinking back down onto the couch. “So I…know her?”

If that didn’t confirm William’s theory that Phantom was a student at the school before his untimely death, William didn’t know what would. 

“I presume so.”

“Okay…” 

There was a beat of silence between the two. William took his time sipping his water glass, but when insecurity was beginning to blanket every inch of Phantom’s skin, he decided to step in. “If you would rather stay in your room or go out on patrol during dinner, she will be more than understanding, I promise. But if you would like to join us, we would love to have you.”

“Yeah, okay. Um, if you don’t mind me asking, who is it?” 

Another day, William would chuckle at how timid and squeaky the voice of the all-powerful Danny Phantom could sound. 

“Laura, but you might remember her as Ms. Tetslaff.”

“Oh…oh! Wait, what? That Tetslaff?”

“As far as I know, for the last twenty years there’s only been one Tetslaff teaching at the school.”

“Yeah, but—” Phantom gestured to the air. “ You and her hang out?”

“It may be shocking, but teachers do have lives outside of school.”

The light teasing went over Phantom’s head. “No, it’s not that—just her and you? Like Tetslaff and you?”

“Yes.” William allowed his amusement to slip onto his features. “It may come as a surprise to you, but we happen to have a lot in common.”

“No freaking shot!” Phantom was back out of his seat now, pacing the floor in a way only a ghost could manage. “Oh, wait till I tell—they’re gonna freak! ”

“Who do you plan on revealing our deep dark secret to exactly?”

Phantom’s head swiveled up, and his cheeks flushed bright green. “Pretend you didn’t hear that!”

“Didn’t hear what?”

It took a second too long for that joke to register. And when the realization hit Phantom, William bursted into laughter. 

“Hey! You have to be nice to me, my entire perception of life as we know it just exploded!”

“Oh come now, it’s not that ludicrous.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say”

William didn’t respond, instead standing up and walking over to the kitchen to set his empty glass in the sink, chuckling all the way.

“I can’t believe I never knew,” Phantom muttered. “What other dastardly secrets could you be hiding?”

“Many, many secrets. All of which will not be revealed tonight, as it is past my bedtime.”

“Bullshit, you’re an adult and it’s a Friday. You don’t have a bedtime.”

Oh, to be young and naive once again.

“Hmm, very interesting observation. Well, on that note, it’s off to bed for me.”

Phantom turned his attention back to the television where a previously empty room was now swimming in green foam. “Whatever, old man. I’m gonna stay up for a bit.”

“Don’t stay up too late,” William said, turning for his bedroom door. “Ms. Tetslaff is a kind woman but she is quite energetic.”

“Oh, don’t I know,” Phantom said in a tone that could only suggest that he had once fallen victim to the nationwide mile test.

William shuffled into his bedroom, gently shutting his door behind him. He stepped into his bathroom to brush his teeth, noting the clear skies and full moon shining in through the window. It was so big, so bright. William wondered just how often Phantom sat perched on a rooftop looking at the moon, connecting the constellations throughout the skies, watching satellites and meteors fly by.

As William settled into bed, for the first time since he’d received the phone call from the hospital, he knew that everything was going to be just fine. 

He closed his eyes, letting his mind drift off into the aether. Just as darkness was beginning to coat his vision, he heard a strangled, “WAIT!” from the living room followed by a pounding on his door.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE HAS KIDS?”

— — —

“Really? Again?” Phantom said.

“Yes, we need to make sure the dough won’t crack.”

Phantom held up his sheet of misshapen pasta dough. “Why? Isn’t this soft enough? Look, no cracks!”

William raised an eyebrow, putting down the fork he had been using to stir the spinach into his ricotta cheese and egg mixture. He leaned over and pinched the dough with his fingers. “Fold it in one more time and then you can adjust the setting on the pasta machine.”

“Yes, Chef Lancer!” Phantom rolled his eyes but nonetheless complied with William’s harsh demands.

“What’s wrong?” William teased. “I thought you said you knew how to cook.”

“Yeah, like, regular pasta! You know, the kind that comes in a box!” 

“Fresh pasta is always better.”

“And more annoying.”

“Oh, come now, it’s not that hard.”

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have just used the box stuff.”

William would never admit that he had spent the morning scrolling through adoptive and foster parent forums looking for bonding activities he could do with Phantom now that the child had healed enough to walk around freely.

“I’ve found success in cooking with new foster kids. Especially more hands-on dishes like homemade pasta. It allows us some time to get comfortable with each other, it’s fun, and it gives us a tasty reward!”

Well, if VioletsRed432 said it worked for her, then of course William immediately went to the grocery store for the necessary ingredients. 

“It builds character. And it tastes good. You’ll see.”

Phantom turned the dial on the pasta machine, narrowing the opening for the dough to travel through. 

“So, other than boxed pasta, what sorts of things do you like to cook?” William asked.

“I don’t know. It was always sort of a necessity for us. My um—my parents weren’t very good cooks. My…sister was the one who cooked for us most of the time.”

William kept his gaze fixed on the mixture in his bowl. It was the first time Phantom had offered any sort of information about his past, and like Dante’s Inferno was he going to ruin it.

“Well, in that case, what sorts of things did she make you?”

“Um…easy stuff. You know, like pasta, chicken, rice. That sort of thing. She…she was always really into ‘healthy adolescent development,’ or whatever you call it. She wanted to make sure I got all my nutrients.” The corner of Phantom’s lip quirked up. “Not that it really mattered. But she was nice like that.”

William wondered if she had also died along with his parents. Maybe their family had been in an accident of some nature? 

Why else would Phantom avoid them? Why have William come to the hospital instead of his sister?

Although…now that he thought of it, it wasn’t like there were many people who reported corporal, deceased relatives visiting after the funeral. Maybe it was somewhat of a taboo for ghosts higher on the ectoplasmic scale to go back to living relatives, then?

Not for the first time, William wished there were some more prominent ghost experts on the field who had more amicable one-on-one interaction with the ghosts outside of their captivity. Though he had been digging through papers since the beginning of Phantom’s tenure at his residence, he had hardly gathered any useful information. Maybe he would just have to begrudgingly accept his role as the new pioneer in ectoplasmic adolescent psychology.

Him, Mr. Lancer. A high school literature teacher.

Wasn’t that a depressing thought?

“Your sister sounded like a very kind person,” he said, attempting his venture into uncharted waters.

Fortunately, unlike what the “expert” papers suggested, Phantom didn’t explode into a violent light-show at the mere prod into his past. 

“She was…is, I don’t know.”

William knew he failed to hide his reaction at that. But just as he had opened his mouth to say more, Phantom’s head jerked up.

“Car.” Phantom pointed to the window where a black Chevy had pulled into the driveway. “You sure it’s ok that I’m out here?”

“Absolutely. As I’ve said before, Laura already knows that you’re staying here with me. If she wanted to turn you over to the government, she would have done it two weeks ago.”

“Okay.” Phantom exhaled a long breath. “Okay, got it.”

William set his fork down and made for the door. As always, he could hear Laura before he could see her.

“Jesus, Will, you feeding your chrysanthemums steroids or something?” Laura yelled from his walkway.

William opened the door, a smile involuntarily adorning his lips. “Laura, always a pleasure.”

She stepped through the threshold and peeled off her jean jacket to reveal a plaid shirt underneath. “Seriously though, how the hell are you getting your flowers to look like that? Mine keep dying on me.”

“Irrigation is a marvelous work of science.”

“Maybe I’ll try that next year.” She set her jacket on a coat hanger in the closet and kicked off her shoes as if she were in her own home. And well, she may as well have been. For the past twenty years, she had been a constant in William’s life. Their friendship may have begun with fast food and movie nights in William’s first dingy apartment, but through the years they had grown thicker than thieves, as Laura’s wife Cassandra put it.

“So…” She started in an attempt to lower her voice. Although, even she had once admitted that the skill of an ‘indoor voice’ was something she may never master.

“He’s in the kitchen,” William finished quickly. 

“Got it!” Laura welcomed herself into the house. “Something smells good in here!”

There was a clatter from the kitchen, and William hurried over to see a flustered Danny Phantom hurriedly picking up a few utensils from the floor.

“Sorry! Sorry,” he said. “I—uh—my bad.”

Laura, who was no stranger to nervous teens, didn’t hesitate to move over to the mixing bowl. “Wow, you're making fresh ravioli? Gourmet cooking!”

Phantom stood back up, awkwardly straightening out his oversized hoodie. He glanced between William and Laura as if they’d each grown a second head. “Yeah. Uh, glad to impress?”

“I hope Will isn’t giving you too hard of a time in the kitchen. He can be such a tyrant!”

“Oh please.” William plucked the now-dirty utensils out of Phantom’s hand and plopped them in the sink. “You can hardly say that with a straight face.”

“Ha! You know I love to tease.”

“Well, I believe introductions are in order. Laura, this is Phantom. Phantom, Laura. Although, you may know her better as Ms. Tetslaff.”

“Oh, he needs no introduction.” Turning to Phantom, she said, “I see you enough meandering in our halls!”

If it was even possible, Phantom’s cheeks burned an even brighter shade of green. “Oh—uh—” he spluttered.

Laura tilted her head back and laughed, her voice booming in William’s quiet home. “Will, I like this one!”

“Glad to hear as much. As you can see, we’re not quite done here. Would you like to help us fill the pasta?”

“Happily!” Laura grabbed the sheet of dough from the table. “Nice and soft! Perfectly done.”

Like a spell, the awkwardness snapped from Phantom’s face, replaced with his teenage indignation. “That’s what I’ve been saying! But no , Lancer said it needed to be worked more!”

“Did I not give you the okay to roll it thin?”

“Yeah but that was after like twenty thousand other times folding and cranking it through your rusted machine!”

“Oh, and which one of us has cooked pasta before?” William asked. “You? No? That’s what I thought.”

Phantom rolled his eyes so hard, William thought they would disappear straight into his skull.

Laura barked another laugh. “Teenagers! Always in a hurry, huh?”

“You’re telling me.”

As if to prove William’s point, Phantom threw his hands in the air and huffed, “Whatever!” 

Even with Phantom’s outward indifference, when it came time to fill and seal the raviolis, William couldn’t help but notice Phantom’s eyebrows knitting in concentration as he perfectly spaced out his fork imprints around the edges. When he and Laura held a competition to see who could make the most immaculate ravioli, William noted the way Phantom’s eyes lit up with pride as he presented his pasta, the way he flashed his teeth in a wide smile when he won, the way his aura brightened and his feet left the ground.

Phantom was finally setting in. And all it took was a dinner night with his old gym teacher. 

“Alright now cooking them is actually quite fast. The tricky part is being gentle with them so they don’t burst. Would you like to try it for me?” William hovered in front of the pot of boiling water, offering Phantom the ladle.

It was fascinating how the same teenager who jumped straight into battle against ghosts twice his stature was so quick to cower away from a mere ladle. 

“No, it’s fine. You can do it.”

“Suit yourself.” 

“So Phantom, or should I call you by your first name?” Laura asked, leaning against the counter.

Phantom rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh—um, you can call me Danny.”

“Alright, Danny. So what do you do for fun around here? You know, when you’re not out catching ghosts?” 

“Um…” Phantom’s eyes flickered over to Lancer. “I don’t know. Normal things I think. Like watching movies and playing video games.”

“Another gamer? You know, Will here is a bit of a gamer too!”

William’s cheeks heated up. “Laura, I’m hardly—”

“He’s lying. He plays Doomed like every weekend.”

Phantom’s eyes bugged out. “Seriously?”

William sighed. “Yes, although I know it is hard to believe, teachers do in fact have hobbies too.”

Laura failed to stifle her chuckle. That conniving little…

“I love that game.”

William nearly dropped his ladle into the pot of boiling pasta.

“My friends and I play it all the time. I’ve been stuck on level nine forever. One of my friends is really good at the game. She apparently joined just to troll me and this other guy—she’s crazy good at video games—and then ended up getting hooked on it.”

“Great, now I’ve got two nerds in my vicinity!” 

But William could hardly pay attention to Laura’s friendly moaning because something tight in his gut had begun to unravel. And then he realized what it was.

It was that little barrier separating William from Phantom. That thick wall Phantom had constructed so perfectly to give others the semblance of his personality without actually revealing anything.

But here it was: another facet of Phantom’s true interests outside of ghost hunting. A taste as to what was behind that glowing aura. 

And William was ecstatic. 

Phantom had mentioned enjoying space and astronomy. And while William had secretly checked out a book on his Libby app regarding the history of NASA and was planning on getting to it this weekend when he had downtime, this was perfect. This was an interest he knew about, something he could hold a conversation in.

And so he couldn’t help himself. “I have six of the seven keys.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the way Phantom’s jaw dropped.

“I’m sorry, you what? ” Phantom exclaimed.

“It’s true,” William said, spooning the ravioli out of the water. “I’m on level thirteen. Just need to beat this to get the seventh key and then I can beat the game.”

“You what?!” 

“Oh no, Will, you’ve broken the kid!”

And William stood there, his facial skills acquired from years of working in education fully invoked as he gazed innocently over to the boy who’s shock was still mounting. His eyes sparkled as he stared at William with awe and wonder. And maybe this was a trick of the light, but William could have sworn his aura was glowing just a little bit brighter.

Phantom’s mouth moved soundlessly before finally letting out a, “But how?”

“As I said, teachers have hobbies outside of school.”

“Yeah but Doomed?” Phantom’s legs formed a tail as he snapped over to William, hovering behind as he finished putting the cooked pasta in a bowl. “I figured you’d be into something like knitting or whatever English teachers do when they’re not reading.”

“Kid, you are too funny!” Laura said.

“I don’t know!” Phantom’s face flushed green. “I just never figured you’d play video games!”

“Phantom, I assure you that I’ve been playing video games since before you were born.”

“Clearly! Freaking level thirteen—dude!” 

William didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing that boyish wonder in the child’s face. “We can play together sometime. I’ll show you all my tricks.”

If possible, Phantom’s eyes grew even wider at that. 

“I don’t think he wants to,” Laura quipped. “Sounds like he’d rather spend the day with my class reliving his teenage memories of running the mile—”

“Gross, don’t even joke about that!” Phantom said, although his words had little bite to them. He grabbed an empty plate and began serving himself. 

It was nice to see, for once, the boy acting comfortable enough to get food in William’s home without a second thought.

“Coming from a dead person, those tests are torture.”

Laura followed Phantom’s lead, taking her own plate and scooping pasta and salad onto it. “Not much of a runner, are you?”

“Flying’s a lot more fun.” 

“How does that all work?” Laura asked.

William hadn’t breached into too much of the ghost-biology territory so as not to scare Phantom off, but he had to admit he was curious as well.

Phantom’s tail morphed back into legs and he settled down in his seat. “What do you mean?”

“Well, that, for one. Flying and everything. How does that work?” Laura asked.

“Oh…” Phantom tilted his head. “Flying? I don’t really know. I just sort of do it. I think it’s an ectoplasm thing. I don’t know enough about science or ectobiology to know for sure. But I’m sure there’s some paper or something out there that explains it.”

“I wonder if the Fentons have something,” Laura mused.

William couldn’t help but notice the way Phantom stiffened at the mention of their name.

“Probably,” he said, forcing his eyes away from Phantom as he sat down in his own chair. “But there must also be scientists in the Ghost Zone, right?”

Phantom relaxed once again. “Yeah! Actually, I’m friends with one. This guy Frostbite? You wouldn’t have heard of him. He stays in the Zone.”

The name Frostbite rang a bell, but William couldn’t place where he’d heard it from. 

“He’s a scientist ghost?” Laura asked.

Phantom took a bite out of his pasta, and his eyes immediately lit up. He took his time swallowing before he answered, “Sort of. He’s the leader of one of the Zone’s ghost civilization islands—I don’t really know what to call them. It’s a bunch of yetis, basically. Their whole thing is science, though. They’re really cool. I stay with them a lot when I’m in the Zone.”

Now that was curious wording. Based on how happily Phantom spoke of this ghost, it didn’t seem like he was the source of Phantom’s lacerations.

So then why hadn’t Phantom gone to him? If he wasn’t home—a place where Phantom could no longer go—then why had Phantom stayed with William instead? 

Unless…

Unless this Frostbite character was too far. Unless Phantom’s home was on Earth. Unless Phantom didn’t have a home in the Ghost Zone.

And the realization hit William like a train because now it seemed only too obvious how often Phantom was spotted in the human world, why he was so protective over Amity Park, how he ended up in Amity General Hospital at all.

It was because Phantom lived here. In Amity Park.

His home was in Amity.

So then where the hell was Phantom living? Who was he with? Were they humans? Were they other ghosts?

How did he get so hurt? 

Thankfully, it didn’t seem that Phantom nor Laura had picked up on the whirlwind of thoughts running through Wiliam’s brain. They both sat at the table now talking animatedly about other facets of the Ghost Zone, seemingly oblivious to William’s existence. And this was perfect because William suddenly felt faint.

He tried to think back to the few articles about ghost sociology and psychology he’d stumbled across over the years, but he couldn’t remember anything about powerful ghosts habiting the Earth. He remembered reading about weaker ones—usually, they were so weak that they could only be detected via ectoplasmic scanners. 

So to hear Phantom imply that he, a stronger ghost who could easily have his own nook in the Ghost Zone, actually resided in Amity Park? Well, that was unprecedented.

He wondered if that was part of the reason why Phantom seemed to tense whenever the Fentons were mentioned. Maybe they suspected so much and had been trying to track down Phantom’s home? Maybe they had already found it?

William wished he had a way of asking. Although with the current state of that family and the CPS calls that he was going to place if he didn’t get a response to his latest email, he didn’t think he would be in their good graces for too much longer.

Well, maybe at the rate he and Phantom’s friendship had been blooming, he might get an answer from the source himself.

But not today. Not right now. 

“...so that’s why Amity’s such a hotspot for ecto-activity?” Laura was asking, a piece of ravioli dangling off her fork. 

Phantom nodded, his face sunnier than William had seen him in a long time. His freckles glowed, dotting his skin like constellations, and a small fang poked out of his grin.

“Will it move? The point where the two dimensions touch?” 

“I don’t know,” Phantom said. “I don’t think it’s always entirely linear, either. The GZ’s made of ectoplasm, and I don’t understand the physics behind it at all. I grew up on human physics, not ghost physics. Like, Frostbite’s people are also time travelers. They usually don’t take other ghosts along with them, but I went with them once and learned that Ancient Greece used to be a hotspot for ecto-activity.”

“Maybe the humans need to start teaching about ecto-physics,” William mused, rejoining the conversation.

“Well, you should tell some of your academic people to get on that!” Phantom said.

“Maybe the Fentons should do that lecture on ectology,” Laura said. “I know the administration’s been talking about it for a while.”

William tried to make his glance over to Phantom not seem too obvious. “Considering their assembly on ghost safety ended up with a student drenched in ectoplasm and the fire alarm pulled, I don’t think the PTA will approve of that so soon. But others in the field are experts too. We might be able to pull one of them in.”

“I can vet them!” Phantom cut in. Then sheepishly, he rubbed his neck and added, “You know, if you want.” 

William could have sworn he recognized that little shy quirk from somewhere. But whatever was on the tip of his tongue refused to come out.

“There’s no better vet for a qualified ectologist than a ghost.” William offered him a thumbs up. 

Phantom beamed then turned his attention back to his nearly finished plate of food, eating with more gusto than William had seen from him. 

And thank goodness for that. He may not have been an expert on ghost biology, but it was plainly obvious that Phantom needed the calories.

“There’s plenty more if you’d like. Help yourself.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Laura grabbed her now-empty plate and stood. “This meal is delicious! Who knew you would make such a good sous-chef, Phantom?”

Phantom blushed that adorable bright green. He ducked his head before peering up at William, a soft smile on his lips. “Thanks. You know…for everything.”

“Of course.” William wasn’t sure if he failed to hide the warmth that overtook him to his core. “My home is yours, okay?”

“Yeah.” Phantom’s eyes turned glassy, and he hid under his bangs. “Still, thanks.”

— — —

The telltale sound of crackling ectoplasm came first. Danny sprang up, hairs on his neck commanding attention before the shuddering breath of his ghost sense left his lungs.

“Hiding, are we?” a sultry sweet voice said, stepping out from the portal.

Despite the burning in his chest, Danny whipped into a snarling defensive stance without a flinch.

Plasmius’ eyes swept over him, his lips curling into a signature smirk. “Or are you ever planning on leaving this dreadful place?”

Danny wanted to snap at Vlad, tell him to shut the hell up and get out. But his mind was moving a hundred miles a minute and all he could blurt out was, “How did you know?”

“You’re going to have to be slightly more specific, Little Badger,” Plasmius purred.

“How did you know I was here? Do—do my parents know?”

“Your parents seem to be rather…occupied at the moment, dear.” Plasmius tutted, then made a grandiose show of floating over to one of Lancer’s many bookcases and leafing through the titles.

Danny's hands dropped to his side and curled into a fist. He so badly yearned to punch Vlad in his stupid, ugly face, but he resisted.

“Their poor son was so viciously killed by a ghost who then took his place, you see. How dreadful! What a horrible, horrible creature that ghost must be, hmm?”

His fists tightened. “Shut up, Vlad. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Oh, you don’t?” Vlad turned back to face Danny, his expression morphing into faux sympathy that melted back into amusement a second later. “But I haven’t even gotten to the good part, where they strapped that horrible ghost down to a table and—”

The blast left Danny’s hand before he could stop himself.

Fortunately, Vlad had the reaction time to absorb it with a shield before it could scorch any of Lancer’s books. 

“Careful! We wouldn’t want to hurt this gracious teacher’s home, not after he’s been so kind to nurse you back to health! After all, what do you think the man would do if you dared hurt his…” Vlad plucked a book out of the shelf. “His signed copy of The Kite Runner! Daniel, you savage creature!”

“Shut UP!” Ice crawled up his sleeve. “If you just came here to be a dick, then you can fucking leave already. You have no idea what happened, so just fuck off, Plamius.”

“Oh Daniel, I may not have been there, but it doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to know how dear Maddie and that bumbling idiot ended up in the emergency room. Nor you, actually. How’s the chest?”

Rage shook through his body, and on instinct, he hugged his arms into his torso. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“Oh trust me, my dear boy, I know everything.” Vlad gave him a scalding grin before turning back to the bookshelf. “My, my! This is certainly an impressive collection. An original printing of Crime and Punishment ? That’s quite impressive indeed.”

“Did you really just come here to make fun of me?”

“No, though that’s always such a delectable treat. No wonder Miss Spectra loves you so much.”

A wave of nausea rolled over Danny, and he shrunk in on himself. “Stop feeding off me, you creep.”

Vlad snapped the book shut. “Then stop being such a blaring beacon of a restless spirit, child. Do you even understand how easy it was to find you? I’ve known you’ve been here for days now.”

“Because you’re a fucking creep who tracks me!”

“I was hardly trying! You, on the other hand, obviously have no regard for your own personal safety, even after that little stunt you pulled in your parents’ lab. Sending them both to the hospital with third-degree burns might have been a bit excessive if I do say so myself. Well, for Maddie, anyway. The oaf can burn in hell for all I care.”

“Shut up, they’re my parents!”

“ Were your parents. They stopped being your parents the moment you stupidly revealed yourself to them.”

“You have to be a total moron if you think even for a second that I was trying to reveal myself to them on purpose!” Danny bit back. He raised a glowing fist, and a part of him deep inside that he loathed cheered at how much light was emitting from the concentrated ball of ectoplasm. “Besides, what I do is none of your fucking business.”

Vlad responded in kind, leaving the bookshelf to float high above Danny’s head. He flashed his fangs and heightened his own aura. “On the contrary, my dear boy, the reveal was as much of a threat to your own safety as it was to mine. Even if they don’t know that half ghosts exist, they’ve connected the dots between your portal accident and the disgusting creature that you’ve become. Now they know that ghosts can fully disguise themselves as regular humans. It’s only a matter of time before they start snooping around me.”

“Then that sounds like your fucking problem.”

“And what of you, then? Your core acted in self-defense, decimating your lab and turning the rest of your home to rubble. Have you even seen what’s left of your parents’ greatest creations?”

The light in his fist sputtered out.

Vlad hovered closer to Danny, and his smile widened. “It’s all gone, thanks to you.”

Guilt clawed through his stomach. “I didn’t mean to hurt them.”

“Too little too late, I’m afraid. Though thankfully, Maddie looks just as radiant as always, even with the scarring on her forehead.”

“I fucked up.” Danny lowered his feet to the ground and pulled at his hair with his gloves. At once, everything he’d been holding in for the past two weeks came splitting to the surface. “I can’t—I fucked up, Vlad. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Please, you have to understand, they caught me by surprise. I didn’t see them waiting in my room when I detransformed after patrol. I had—I had no idea. ”

Danny remembered the sickening inhale of breath from his mother. He remembered turning around, he remembered seeing their horrified faces.

He remembered his mother whispering, “Danny?”

He remembered the flash of light that followed.

Danny squeezed his eyes shut. “I never wanted this to happen.”

“Well, it did.” Vlad’s tone shifted to one uncharacteristically soft. “Jasmine is worried about you.”

“Jazz?” Danny croaked.

“She was staying with me in my mansion. Her parents and I felt it was the best arrangement until she was able to return to them.”

Her parents, echoed in Danny’s mind. Her parents, not your parents. Her parents.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s unharmed if that’s what you mean. But she’s worried. About you, Little Badger.”

Danny jerked his head away. “Well, tell her I’m fine.”

“Ah yes, because I’m sure a simple ‘Danny says he’s fine’ from me   will really do so much to ease her worries.”

“Shut up,” Danny said, but the fight had already left his voice. Though he refused to look, Danny could feel Plasmius slowly creeping toward him. His aura crackled in warning, but he knew his efforts were futile.

“Daniel, come home with me.” 

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an order. It was a simple statement of fact.

Still, old habits died hard. Danny couldn’t help the reflexive growl and the “no” that escaped his lips.

A hand fell heavily onto his shoulder.

Plasmius’ hand. But for once, it didn’t claw into him. 

“Come with me.”

“I’ll never do that. You know I’ll never do that.”

“Please, child. You’re not safe here.”

“I can protect myself just fine.”

Vlad scoffed, and Danny couldn’t blame him. The bandages on his chest suddenly felt tight, and he was all too aware of how feeble his stance was, how his shoulders curled in to offset the pain of the wound on his chest. 

“You know that’s not true. Especially now that dear Maddie knows who you are. You think you’re safe here? With a high school literature teacher?” A stream of snark began returning in Vlad’s tone, and he pulled his hand off Danny’s shoulder, brandishing it high like an overzealous quill ready to strike the paper with all its theatrical might. “Because when Maddie returns with her bazooka, I’m sure all these books will provide such an excellent shield!

“I don’t care, I’m not going with you.”

“Yes, you are, Daniel, because you never think. And that’s your greatest downfall.”

Danny whipped around. “I am thinking! I—I’m finally happy. I’m with someone who likes Phantom. I can protect us from my parents. They got me because I was surprised, but they won’t get me again.”

Vlad simply tilted back his head and laughed. “Oh, that’s rich. And let’s actually think this through for once, hmm? Because I doubt dear Lancer truly wants a ghost permanently haunting his guest bedroom.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Oh, I think I know more than most. Tell me, child, do you truly think that your high school teacher wants you here? Last I checked, you were failing his class. What is your plan, just hide out as Phantom forever? What do you think will happen if you accidentally slip back into human form in front of him? Your own parents didn’t accept you, what makes you think he will?”

“Because…because…” Danny tried, but he could feel his own voice failing.

Because Vlad was right. His parents didn’t accept him, they tried to kill him in the most brutal way possible. There was no way a virtual stranger by comparison would accept him when his own flesh and blood hadn’t.

“That’s right, child. He won’t. Being both dead and alive is an abomination, a taboo of science. Normal humans can’t wrap their heads around it. So of course, he won’t be able to accept you; he won’t be able to truly care about you.”

Tears pricked behind his eyes.

“Just come with me. You can’t stay here, you know this. I’m the only one who truly understands, child.”

Danny hung his head, whispering, “Okay.”

Because what other choice did he have? 

A heavy hand fell onto his shoulder, and he looked up to see the faux compassion in Vlad’s face overshadowed by his smug grin. But he didn’t have it in him to be angry at seeing Vlad so triumphant. He didn’t care anymore.

He had no one left. His parents wanted him dead, his sister was too young to do anything about it, and he couldn’t hide forever with his English teacher who definitely hated his human half’s guts.

“Good boy,” Vlad said. He raised a hand, and another portal was created. “After you, my child.”

Danny took a shuddering breath and looked around the cozy room with its high bookshelves one last time. He tried to find Poe—just to say goodbye—but the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Not that Danny blamed him for hiding.

His bottom lip trembled and his hands shook, but still, he stepped forward.

The swirling mass of green accepted him, and then he was gone.

— — —

(Comic by @ravenatural-art on Tumblr!)