Please reread the chapter before this, I've changed it slightly to make more sense because I didn't like the first version very well. Thanks.

The three spent the next hour discussing the wedding plans, along with p'Maddie recounting recent events from her time to remind the future mother and daughter what their lives had been like seven years ago. However, their conversation was cut short by the arrival of Jack who had been out grocery shopping and doing various errands. When he first saw the two versions of Maddie side by side he was first stricken by the same assumption Jazz and f'Maddie had been under at first: that she was a ghost. Though to p'Maddie's complete and utter surprise, rather than shouting "Ghost!" and attempting to shoot her, Jack was calm at first and was only mildly threatening.

Jazz eventually explained the situation to him, leaving Jack completely floored.

"So let me get this straight," he asked, looking between the two versions of his wife. "Your past self is here, because seven years ago you fell into a portal... and the only way back is to wait for a past version of Danny to bring her back. And if she finds out that Danno's a – oh, right, I can't say that – if she finds out the secret, her memory will be erased, but if she doesn't find out her memory won't have to be erased?"

"Pretty much," Jazz confirmed. Jack, Jazz, p'Maddie, and f'Maddie were all seated in the living room, explaining the current scenario to the eldest Fenton.

"Then why don't we just tell her the secret now to get it out of the way?" Jack asked. "That seems way simpler."

"It is simpler," Jazz said, "but she doesn't want her memory tampered with, and the only way to guarantee that, is for her not to learn the secret. I know this is going to be hard for you Dad, because you tend to speak your mind-"

"That's an understatement," f'Maddie muttered.

"-but you're going to have to be careful what you say while she's here." Jazz finished.

"I'll try my best, Jazzy," Jack said. "I'm a man of science, but time-travel confuses the ever-loving fudge out of me."

"Me as well," both future and past Maddie groaned in sync.

"So, now that we've got that out of the way," Jazz said, "I was wondering where she would sleep tonight? At the moment it's not like we have that many options for any additional sleeping arrangements..."

"I'll be fine in the guest bedroom," p'Maddie answered.

"Well about that..." f'Maddie said, "the guest bedroom's sort of out of commission at the moment."

p'Maddie raised an eyebrow, "How so? Did something happen to the room itself?"

"Well, no..." f'Maddie said. "Since we're trying to avoid information that could harm the timeline, I think it's best not to explain."

"That, and I'm pretty sure Elle wouldn't be comfortable with you sleeping in her room," Jack slipped up.

"Dad! What did we just talk about? Avoid spoilers, alright?" Jazz said, annoyed.

"I assume I'm not supposed to ask who Elle is, correct?" p'Maddie asked.

"Yes, please forget about it," Jazz answered for her parents.

"You're right Jazzy, avoiding spoilers is difficult. I'm sorry for screwing up," Jack admitted.

"It's fine, Dad."

"So... do we still have that old air-mattress, or will I have to sleep on the couch?"

For p'Maddie, dinner at the Fenton household was usually hectic, but she couldn't remember a time when it had gotten this crazy. With protests, from Jazz, Jack, and f'Maddie, p'Maddie had accidentally been introduced to Elle, a tall black-haired girl around the age eighteen or nineteen who she discovered lived with the Fentons. Nobody had explained who exactly Elle was, but p'Maddie knew it wasn't her place to ask. After all, it had been her wish to avoid learning any time-threatening information so she could avoid a memory wipe.

Around the dinner table that night was a total of eight people: Jack, the two Maddies, Jazz, Danny, Sam, Elle, and her girlfriend Valerie (a girl she was certain had almost dated Danny a while back).

"-so Lancer made me completely re-do the assignment!" Elle said darkly. "I swear, that man is just trying to push me to see when I'll crack."

Danny snorted, "I doubt it. At least he hasn't abducted you and physically forced you to study."

"One time, he made me memorize two entire textbook chapters to prove that I had the 'capability for success' or something ridiculously 'motivating'," Valerie chimed in.

Sam grinned, "Lancer left me alone as long as I didn't change the lunch menu."

"Well, yeah, you're terrifying, or at least your food is," Elle said.

"Tell that to what you're eating," Sam said, pointing to the organic pasta salad she had contributed to the dinner. "It's 100% vegan, all grown in my personal garden, and completely ultra recyclo-vegetarian."

"And... you just ruined it," Elle said, putting her fork down and moving to eat what remained of pork-chop on her plate.

The rest of the dinner comprised of Jazz filling Danny and Sam in about what the plans were for their wedding. Accordingly, all they had left for the general planning was to complete the seating arrangements, after that Danny and Sam were ready to wed in October (Sam wanted a summer wedding and Danny wanted a winter wedding, so they compromised).

However, near the end of the dinner p'Maddie noticed something very odd. Danny and Elle had both suddenly seemed startled, and Valerie's watch had gone off, and with no explanation all three of them had left the room in a fleeting manner. Nobody else seemed concerned, so p'Maddie figured that she shouldn't ask about it, so she remained silently curious.

"So Jazz..." Sam started, "How's the book coming along?"

"Pretty good so far," Jazz replied, "though I haven't written in a few days because I've been distracted by the wedding plans. You know me, I usually like to stick to one thing at a time so I can focus more on it."

"You're writing a book?" p'Maddie asked.

"Yes," Jazz said shortly, brushing a hand through her hair. "It's about the psychological aspects of ghosts and inter-relations between ghosts and humans."

"It sounds interesting... but what inter-relations are there besides malevolence?" p'Maddie found herself asking, thoroughly invested and equally puzzled.

p'Maddie might not have the sharpest social sensory, but she noticed when the atmosphere around the room grew very tense. It was as if she had just offhandedly said she had murdered somebody's puppy, rather than posing an innocent question.

"You'd be very surprised." Jazz said in a cold tone of voice, as if she was almost offended.

p'Maddie was on the verge of questioning her daughter's peculiar reaction, when she decided that another inquisitive question might make the tension in the room even worse. Instead, she nodded and kept her lips sewn shut.

Not long after that, Danny, Elle, and Valerie returned to the table, looking more or less the same. p'Maddie normally wouldn't have suspected anything out of the ordinary had happened if it wasn't for the small cut Elle wore above her cheek... Something truly was going on here... and if p'Maddie wanted to keep her memory, she had to do everything she could to ignore it completely, no matter how much it pained her to deprive her growing curiosity.

That night, p'Maddie slept on the couch, thought after thought swirling in her head. She had so many questions, and the only way to get the answers was to forget she ever learned the answer – a paradox within itself. What was the secret her family was keeping from her? Why did Danny, Elle, and Valerie leave dinner? Who was Elle in the first place? Why did Danny have a ghost emergency transmitter? Why was the media interested in Danny and Sam's wedding? How was the Danny from her time associated with a ghost named Clockwork? And speaking of ghosts, why had Phantom appeared in the kitchen earlier, and what was that Disasteroid thing that Brandon had told her about?

Even though she was dead-set on avoiding learning timeline threatening information, she needed something. She needed some clarity on something that was bothering her, after all, some might say curiosity is her fatal flaw. That's why Maddie found herself leaving the couch, sneaking into the lab, and sitting in front of the family computer. Even though the computer itself had been replaced over the years by a newer model, her account password remained the same.

She knew she shouldn't be doing this, but not knowing was driving her crazy. That's why in the middle of the night, Maddie typed into the Google search bar: "Disasteroid"

Wikipedia was the first web page that appeared, and Maddie clicked on it immediately.

The Disasteroid Incident was a worldwide global crisis coordinated by ghost-hybrid, Vlad Plasmius/Masters, who attempted to use a fatal asteroid composed of ecto-ranium to secure himself as absolute ruler of the Earth over the week of July 8th-15th, 2007. The threat of the asteroid was resolved by Danny Phantom, who following the crisis, also revealed his status as a ghost-hybrid as famed ghost hunters' son, Daniel Fenton. The Disasteroid has been marked as a milestone in furthering the progress in human and ghost inter-relations in more ways than one and is viewed as the single event that has caused study in paranormal science to skyrocket.

Maddie stared at the computer screen blankly, what was there couldn't be correct. '… Danny Phantom ... revealed his status as a ghost-hybrid ... Daniel Fenton.' Her Danny, was not a ghost. Her Danny, was not that ghost. Ghost-hybrids were not possible, ghosts were malevolent, evil, and not human. Ectoplasm and living tissue couldn't bond together, and even if they did, the result would be disastrous! And yet... the evidence laid before her, not to mention, everything slowly made sense.

It made sense how earlier in the kitchen, Danny Phantom had left moments before Danny Fenton arrived. It made sense why the media would be interested in Danny's wedding, he was world famous now. It made sense that Danny had a ghost emergency transmitter because... he fought ghosts. Danny Phantom had never been the evil spirit that she and Jack had assumed, he had been genuinely trying to help Amity Park. Her baby boy was a hero.

More occurrences sprung up from her mind, things that she had noticed about the Danny from her time period. For instance, her Danny's aversion of ghosts, how he always appeared uncomfortable when they talked about Phantom – she had always assumed that was because he was afraid of ghosts, not because he was one! How Danny's grades had been slipping as a result of him skipping school more often and not doing his homework. How every once in a while, she would swear he had some sort of cut or limp, but when she looked back, he was perfectly normal. How often was her son injured because he was out fighting other ghosts? How often... was he injured because of her? Maddie suddenly felt sick, she had accepted the fact that her son was a ghost, and with that revelation came another: that she had personally hurt her child.

This was what she wasn't supposed to discover, this was the reason she needed to have her memory erased. This was the family secret that they had been keeping from her, to secure the timeline. So did that mean, she was supposed to just go back to her own time and forget the knowledge she had just learned until the Disasteroid? Was she supposed to keep hunting her son, keep hurting him? The thought killed her inside, knowing now that as soon as this was over that she would merely return to causing her son more and more pain.

p'Maddie was startled out of her own thoughts when there was a loud noise behind her from the portal doors opening. She turned and saw Danny Phantom himself floating in front of the portal, holding what she assumed was an improved Fenton Thermos. "In you go, Skulker, still haven't learned, have you?" he said boredly. "You're lucky I didn't destroy the suit this time, otherwise you'll be rebuilding it for weeks."

"You, my prey, will-"

"Go to bed because it's one a.m., okay? Goodnight, Skulker," he said, promptly closing the portal. Phantom – no, Danny turned around and noticed p'Maddie staring at him while sitting at the lab's computer desk. "What're you...?" He flew forward and scanned the computer screen, realizing what she had done, what she had learned. "You didn't."

"I did," p'Maddie said, hoarsely.

There was an apprehensive silence between the two of them before Danny started to laugh. He let his feet touch the ground and p'Maddie was taken aback as a white halo formed around his waist and split into two to change his specter appearance into human. "I'm sorry," he said, still chuckling, "but it's so much like you to just let your curiosity get the best of you."

"Danny... how-"

"I'm sure you have questions," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "but do you think that they can wait until the morning? We'll have more time that way too."

"I – I... sure," she stuttered.

Honestly, Maddie knew that she wouldn't get much sleep that night.

Happy 2018! I hope it will be a fulfilling year for all of you!