Other Side of the Glass - PoT Bonus Chapter: 2/2

I don't know what I expected when she finally found out, but this...this wasn't it. The knots in my stomach twist painfully. She looks sad. Uncomfortable. Disappointed. But that's all.

"Okay, I...wow." Breathe, hero. I drag my fingers through my tangled hair, as if that would sort out the mess in my head. "Okay."

"You didn't want me to know?" Mom sounds almost hurt, like she thinks I've been holding out on her. Like I've been hoarding all these secrets just for the thrill of it. I feel a flash of irritation. There were reasons. Good reasons. I wasn't being selfish. I've been protecting her and Dad, I was protecting everybody... Just keep telling yourself that, Fenturd.

"No! That's not, I-well, yeah, I did. Eventually."

Eventually meaning probably never…but it wasn't like I hadn't planned on telling them. I just never got around to it. Stupid. I waited way too long. Now the whole freakin' GIW was sitting back and watching. I bet they were popping popcorn.

"Just…not here. Not with them." I look at my hand, which is stick-thin and grimy with my own ectoplasm. I screwed up for real this time. "Not like this."

"I'm so sorry, Danny."

I close my eyes, suddenly not caring quite so much that she's mad at me. It just feels good to hear her say it. Not ghost, not Phantom. It's a small, stupid thing, but it just washes over me like cold water. Danny. Just plain old, ordinary Danny. That's me. "I should have told you back then."

She shakes her head, sounding forlorn. "I should have seen it."

"That I'm half-ghost? How crazy is that, right? Nobody could just guess something like that, not even you."

"It was the portal, wasn't it?"

Maybe she would ground me; the thought makes me smile even at the bad memories. After this, I was ready to sleep in my room for the rest of time. "Yeah. I somehow made it work. From the inside."

"You mean you actually activated-" I nod, and Mom pales, tapping her fingers on her thigh like she does when she's thinking hard. I expect her to freak, again, but she just gets all thin-lipped that little furrow between her eyebrows gets deeper.

"This is all my fault."

What, that her stupid teenage son ignored all her warnings and lectures about the dangers of the technology in the basement just to show off? That by some random chance she and Dad had invented something that actually worked—the first thing in forever that did? That it happened to be the only device that would let me walk back out in one piece?

"It was a total accident."

Mom just shakes her head. "What were we thinking, building something so dangerous into our home?"

That's an easy one. We talked about it dozens of times. Mom and Dad lived and breathed inventing…doing that away from home would mean never being home. Jazz complained that this just meant they could "rationalize their workaholism", but I knew she liked it, too. It was nice to have them close. We never had to wait for them to come home.

"That it was worth it to be near your family?"

"Was it worth this?"

I'm startled by the tone of her voice. It's like I'm the worst case scenario. I guess that's true. What could be worse for a ghost hunter than having a half-ghost freak as a  son? Even so, the rejection surprises me, and it stings.

"I-I don't know."

I stare at the floor, wishing I was anywhere else in the world but here. Where's Desiree when you actually need her? I could be a million miles away.

The silence builds, awkward and awful. Say something, genius.

"I..."

What am I going to say to that? I'm sorry that I'm not the son you wanted? I'm sorry I'm a ghost? Because I'm not. I'm really not, nd I won't say it, even if that's what she wants.
I'm glad I got to be this way…even if I was stupid. Being a halfa, that's been a good thing. I just have to make her see that. I take a breath and try again.

"I may not have been the best kind of hero. I messed up a lot. I did some stupid immature stuff, too. But...I did help. I saved people who needed it. People who wouldn't have had anybody otherwise. Me, some random loser, I made a difference."

It's made a difference for me, too. I'm not some random loser anymore. I'm Danny Phantom…I'm even kinda cool, sometimes.

Mom's looking at me with a strange expression. I blush, rubbing my shoulder with my hand self-consciously. "That sounds kinda stupid now that I say it, but...I don't regret it. I'm not sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry. It...it wasn't your fault." Those words should make me relieved, but her tone is strange. It just makes me more uneasy. Mom tries to laugh, but the smile seems stretched across her face. "You couldn't have found a better model for your psyche. My Danny's the sweetest, most responsible kid I know."

…model? Psyche?

"What?" I say blankly, stupidly.

"There...there have never been good methods for dealing with ectoplasmic waste. Experiments that have failed are usually reintroduced to the sub-dimension where they are expected to dissolve. Artificial specimens rarely have the stability to exist independent of the lab that created them. But in your case, you had a physiological structure that prevented that degradation. Long enough for you to resonate with the portal and return to the real world. Long enough for you to imprint from my son, and-"

"Wait, imprint?" I interrupt as what she's saying actually registers. Is she saying…is she wrong? Again?

"Yes," she says impatiently. "A cadaver would lack the psychic element, that specific electric pattern that allows for sentience in an ectoplasmic entity. It wouldn't matter how much electricity was introduced, it could only have created a blank, an inanimate doll. Your form was incomplete without an ectosignature. The raw ectoplasm in your system was drawn to the first psychic signature it encountered, to the person who was in the lab when the portal activated. To...to my son. Your imprint. Danny Fenton."

I'm still playing catchup, my mind reeling. Mom's sent me scrambling for coherence again as I try to puzzle out what's going through her head. Imprint? Ectosignature? She's almost talking like I'm...like...then it hits me.

"A cadaver? You mean...like a corpse?" This is incredible. It sucks. It's awesome. The Fenton family clueless disease strikes again. Tears sting in my eyes. She doesn't recognize me. At the same time a huge wave of relief washes over me. She doesn't recognize me. It's the most awful and wonderful thing all at once.

I don't even know what to do anymore. I want her to know. It's been so long since I've been anything but a ghost. It may be a stupid, little thing, but I just want her to call me Danny, and know it's me. But after all this...I never, ever want her to know. Just thinking about it, it's…that would be bad. I don't even want to imagine it. I'd rather bury my secret under a mountain of rock.

But that's the thing. I don't get to keep my secret anyway. She'll find out. I'm not waiting at home. I won't be there. But Jazz, or Tuck and Sam, they will. They'll know. Ghost hunter goes out of town, ghost vanishes. It doesn't take a PhD to put those two together. It'll all come out, one way or another. And then…then what?

I'm so freakin' tired.

"Phantom..." the name catches my attention, and I look up at her. She's looking at me with the gentlest face I've seen in a while. I see the dark circles under her eyes, how she slouches in the chair, clenching her hands in her lap. She really is sorry. Even if she has it wrong, even if this is all she knows. I have to give her that much. "You know you're not my son, right?"

This is it. She's listening, waiting. All I have to do is spit it out. Surely it won't be as bad coming from me…better than finding out afterward anyway. The way things are, she'll be leaving me. Here. Alone. An experiment forever...or until this ghost body gives up. The terror of that idea drives me to speak.

"Mom, I..." Her expression stops me cold.

It was just for a moment, but I saw it. Mom…she winced. She looked disgusted. She hated that I used that name; she really hated it.

I shut my mouth with a snap. No matter how nice Mom's been today, she still sees me as someone...something else. A fake. Still, after everything, a ghost. And she's still, after all this crap, a ghost hunter.

I can't prove it. If I change back now, I'd probably die. Even if I did take the chance, she might just come up with another crazy theory. She'd call it an illusion. A trick. Another lie. It's kinda funny that most of the lies Mom believe she's told herself. All I've ever had to do is agree with her.

But she won't believe the truth. Not from this me, a ghost. It's never gonna happen.

I look away from her and hope she doesn't catch how much my voice is shaking. "I...of course not, Dr. Fenton. I know that."

Liar. Coward. Idiot.

I can't stop the terrible feeling that this is wrong and I'm just making it worse. But I'm not brave enough to do it. And I'm so freaking tired.