Author's note: This is a sequel to the alternate ending (i.e. the "bad" ending) of my other fic titled Disparaged, so if you've read that already, great! Please enjoy this continuation. And if you have not read it, you probably want to at least skim through it.

But for those of you who really want to read this without reading the first fic (or those of you who just want a recap), here's a quick summary of Disparaged:

While out on patrol one night, Danny is apprehended in ghost form by his mother, who disables his powers using an injected solution of her creation. He manages to escape, but not without feeling very shaken by the ordeal. He tries to suppress the memory and ignore what it made him feel, but he is terrible at hiding it. Maddie at first believes he is struggling with a painkiller and narcotic addiction arising from severe depression and anxiety and tries to get him help, including therapy. Danny goes along with this story, hoping it'll prevent her from figuring out what is actually troubling him, especially as he notices her obsession with capturing Phantom has reached unhealthy levels. Maddie shortly realizes that there is something else more serious going on with Danny, but when she tries to force him to talk to her in the middle of the night, he runs out of the house. Maddie goes out to look for him but ends up finding him in ghost form. Not recognizing him, she proceeds to disable his powers again, chase him down, and corner him with no escape.

Dissembled

You were there.

No more wondering how long he could continue to outrun her.

...

"How did you find me?"

"Even God wants me to have you."

Are you just as excited as I am?

Ahead. In a hallway of the unfinished building he had run into in a futile attempt to lose her. Surrounded by walls he could not pass through without the powers she had stripped from him. With his back to her, Phantom stared straight ahead at the dead end he had run into. He remained motionless as she approached, did not even acknowledge her presence.

She walked close enough so he could hear the droning of her ecto-gun trained on him.

She had him. He was hers.

"Get on your knees, Phantom," she commanded coolly.

He shot a scowl at her over his shoulder, turned fully before she could reprimand him. Facing her squarely, he stared her down with arms out and palms toward her. A desperate final act of rebellion even in surrender.

Maddie gripped her gun tighter. "Phantom, I'm warning you—"

"If you want to shoot me, then do it," yelled Phantom. "But you'll have to do it facing me."

"Don't think I won't, Phantom. But you're much more valuable to me alive."

"Then just take me already. If having me means so much to you."

Maddie frowned and lowered her gun slightly. She studied him intently, his submissive yielding stance that was somehow still as cocky as ever.

"No fight at all?" she finally asked him.

His glare softened into something so sad, an expression she had seen many times before but never on him. Maddie sharply focused and tried to make sense of it.

"I just recognize that what I did was…"

His eyes clouded over and lowered.

"Irresponsible."

His tone was tapping against her heart, begging to break it in the most peculiar way. But also in a way she was certain she had felt before. But when? The recollection wasn't forming.

No, this was just what Phantom did. This was what ghosts did. He was trying to imitate something familiar to trick her. She couldn't let him.

"So just take me already," he rasped out with whispery cadence. "Because I can't do this anymore."

Maddie studied him for only a moment longer before detaching the Fenton Thermos from her belt and aiming it right at him. He raised his eyes just as she activated the device. A beam of light, a cyclone of sound. He stretched and narrowed and then disappeared. The hallway fell dark, his glow no longer present to illuminate its walls.

Maddie dropped her gun and held the Thermos in both hands, pressed it to her chest.

No more chasing. No more plotting. No more dreaming.

Phantom was trapped in this device she carried.

Phantom belonged to her now.

Outside. Back in the misty spring air lit by blinking stars. She walked away from the building, climbed over the fence warning against trespassing. Dressed in her night shirt and pants, utility belt slung around her waist, goggles perched on her head. Her car was parked quite a distance from here; Phantom had given her such a thrilling chase. But she didn't mind the walk at all. She hummed to herself, caressed the Thermos in her hands, leisurely ambled. The most relaxing stroll along the mostly empty streets of Amity Park.

Her car at last. She buckled herself in, carefully set her ecto-gun and Thermos on the passenger seat. She switched on the engine, shifted the car into drive.

But where could she go?

She stared out the front window, then down at the Thermos.

She had always planned on taking him home to the Fenton Works basement lab. But that would mean sharing Phantom with her husband. And Phantom was her property.

Plus, Jack seemed to think she had an unhealthy obsession with the ghost boy. What would he think if she told him she had gone out alone in the middle of the night without telling him and finally succeeded in capturing Phantom?

She had only left the house in the first place to run after Danny—

Danny! Oh, God, where was he!

She looked out either side of her car frantically, as if he'd just appear all of a sudden, as if she'd surely just happen to catch a glimpse of him running down the street.

How long ago? When had she last seen him? It was under two hours, right? They had been in the kitchen together. He was hiding something from her, had refused to unlock the secret texting app on his phone.

His secrets were hurting him. She had to know what his secrets were. It was her responsibility as his mother.

And what makes you think my secrets are hurting me? What if you're the one hurting me?

His last words to her.

And then he ran out of the house in an emotional tantrum, and by the time she was out the front door, Danny was gone.

She had to find him. She had to bring him home. She had to keep him safe with her.

She glanced at the Thermos.

But she also needed to secure Phantom. Somewhere she could do what she wanted to him without the Guys in White trying to take him from her. Somewhere without judgment from her husband.

She knew the perfect place.

Far past the other side of town, outside of any city limits at all, she pulled onto a desolate stretch of road and parked before an isolated steely building. She climbed out of her car and stared up at it, Thermos in hand.

A private lab belonging to Vlad. He had kindly allowed her to use it once for her own purposes, and since then, he continued to grant her access to the facility any time she had something she wanted to work on that she wanted to keep completely top secret, even from her husband.

And in this case, especially from her husband.

She tapped in a code on the keypad next to the door, hoping Vlad hadn't changed it. It beeped an affirmation and buzzed the steel door open. Of course he hadn't changed it yet. Why would he when he knew it made her happy to have access to this isolated lab? He liked making her happy. He had to cling to the hope that continually making her happy would bring her into his waiting arms.

She hated taking advantage of his desperate affection like this. But the asshole deserved to be used considering his own skeevy agendas. And what other choice did she have anyway? She couldn't take Phantom to Fenton Works, not when Jack would insist that she share him. Phantom was hers. She put in all the hours and labor to capture him. She deserved to have him all to herself.

Inside the building, she flipped on a light and looked around. It was exactly as she had last left it. Did Vlad ever use this lab at all?

Perhaps all of the things she had left were still here, then.

She took off her utility belt and set it down on the main operating table in the room, placing the Thermos beside it. She couldn't let him out just yet, had to plan, had to get everything ready first. Once she released him from the Thermos, she'd only have ten minutes before he regained consciousness. She had in the past always planned for what to do with Phantom at Fenton Works and so had to figure out something new for this location.

Different place, yes, but that never really mattered. What mattered was that he was here with her.

She giddily steadied herself on the table. This was it. This was real. Phantom was in her possession, and he would soon be awake and know it himself.

Around the lab she went in an almost dreamlike state, reacquainting herself with all of the tools and solutions belonging to Vlad, the gadgets and materials that she had brought over herself months ago.

She had everything she needed here.

She picked up the Thermos with shaking hands, finger hovering over the release button. This was a beginning, an ending, the start of her greatest scientific pursuit and the conclusion of her relentless hunt for this boy who had been gnawing at her nerves and infesting her dreams for far too long now.

This just didn't feel real. After all this time, all her failures, did she really think she had succeeded, that she didn't just hallucinate cornering and capturing him? Would anything even happen when she pressed this release button?

Only one way to find out.

She uncapped the Thermos, aimed its opening at the operating table, held her breath, and pressed the release button. A reversal of sound, a burst of ectoplasmic light, and a spectral figure fizzling into view, a ghost sporting glitzy locks and stylish monochrome threads, a boy of indiscernible age who was usually so sprightly and poised with playful cockiness but now lay limp and unconscious before her.

It really was him. He really was here.

She combed her fingers through his hair. Chilled and gossamery strands twisting in tangle-free succession around her skin, just as she remembered it feeling only a week before when she had him trapped at gunpoint.

She worked quickly. She had to get everything done before he woke. The solution still coursing through him, the Fenton Ghost Solidifier, would continue to prevent him from turning invisible or intangible and discharging any ectoplasmic rays. But his most devastating power, his ghostly wail, required no spectral change in his molecules and could still be used in defense. She could easily muffle it with a gag, but that would just impede her research. She wanted him to answer her questions, wanted to get an accurate read of his reactions during procedures.

Her hand moved to the zipper of his suit. She latched on it for longer than she meant to, precious time ticking away, then pulled it down just low enough to expose the side of his neck. The pulses beneath his glowing skin looked so human, so healthy, throbbing with ectoplasm she could claw at right now. There was nothing to stop her.

She affixed an electrical appliance to his neck right up against his larynx, calibrated it and switched on its maximum setting to partially numb his vocal folds. No destructive wailing without adequate vocal power to support it.

The solidifying serum in his ectoplasm would last a few more hours, but she was not sure how long she'd be leaving him alone here. She of course planned on shackling him with anti-ghost material that would prevent him from breaking free, but it was always better to play it safe, especially when it came to him. She could take no chances with Phantom, not when it took her this long to finally capture him.

She examined the compressor she had thrown around his ankle to neutralize his anti-gravity and flight abilities. Probably best to keep it on to prevent him from hovering.

Her eyes moved to his other ankle. She nodded to herself before grabbing a pair of heavy-duty scissors designed to cut through spectral material.

She bunched up the fabric around his left leg and poked a blade through it, taking great care not to nick him. There'd be plenty of time for that later, plenty of time while he was awake. She cut through the suit right at the divide between the black and white sections, sliced it all the way. She slid the white section a fair way toward his ankle, stroked the pearly hair standing on end all along his leg, admired the glowing vessels spidering under his skin.

She wanted to knife them all open now, watch his ectoplasm drip across him and pool onto the table.

But instead, she placed another device against his skin, inserted its needle into a vein to release a steady flow of the solidifying solution into his bloodstream. Now it didn't matter how long she was gone. He'd remain powerless.

She pulled the fabric of his suit back over the device and checked him over one final time. He was ready to be torn into. And she was so ready to tear him up. But she had to wait. It wasn't time just yet.

She pulled his zipper all the way up his neck, hiding the paralyzing device on his neck.

She'd pull it in the other direction soon enough. She had waited this long. What was just another few hours?

She hauled him off the table over her shoulder and brought him to one of the lab walls, propping him against it with a grunt. She had considered keeping him in a containment chamber, but something about that wasn't degrading enough. She wanted Phantom to feel like a prisoner, not just a specimen.

This idea was so much better.

She secured his wrists and legs into anti-ghost shackles fixed into the wall behind him. She adjusted the length of each, too little for him to relax on the floor, not enough for him to ever lower his arms. He could either stand or kneel. That was all the range of movement she'd grant him.

It was more than he deserved. He should be grateful she was allowing him this much range at all.

She stepped back to take in the full sight. A dangling marionette, arms hanging limp and chin dropped to his chest.

His hand twitched. Maddie quickly stepped out of sight. For now. She'd let him wake up alone, watch him react to his isolation and confinement. And then she'd make her presence known.

He remained lifeless for several more minutes, twinges jolting various limbs every now and then. His head then lifted, his eyes partly open as he scanned the lab. He winced, swallowed, attempted to move his arms, looked back at the restraints keeping his arms above him.

That look in his eyes, numbed stupor, dazed fatigue. Maddie smiled to herself, imagined just what was going through that dizzy head of his. Wondering where he was? Wondering where she was?

He'd find out soon enough. She certainly didn't plan on keeping him all alone in the dark for long.

His head fell forward with a drugged heaviness. He stayed completely still, as unmoving as before when he was unconscious. Some sort of ploy? Or was he simply resigned to his fate?

She stepped into his line of sight at last, slowly approaching him with even steps. He wearily lifted his head once she stopped walking. She studied him intently with crossed arms. He only stared back at her with a somber poker face, his eyes shifting in and out of focus.

"You had this coming, Phantom," she told him darkly. "You may have everyone else fooled, but you're still only a ghost."

His muscular definition ebbed and knotted beneath his suit.

"And you're mine now."

Phantom blinked once, slowly. "Congratulations," he said in a voice so thick and hoarse that he choked on the final syllable, coughing and swallowing, his neck noticeably straining. A perfectly delightful thrum of discomfort that indicated everything was still in her control.

She smugly tightened her arms against herself. "How's your throat? A little sore?"

He said nothing, didn't even move.

"That device on your neck partially paralyzes your vocal folds," Maddie explained to him though he continued to not react. "Can't have you using that ghostly wail of yours."

She moved closer to him, looked down at him on his knees, gently cupped his cold face with one hand. She imagined him stretched out on a table with barely room to even flinch.

"I expect you'll be screaming a lot, after all."

He remained unresponsive and motionless, his expression void, his focus diverged. He showed no indication that he was even aware she was touching him.

But he knew. And she was sure his powerlessness was breaking him up inside.

She gripped his chin and lifted his head so she could see him more fully. His brilliant eyes stayed lidded and directed into the distance, not looking at her at all.

Right in her grasp, right at her fingertips. Close enough to touch, to grope, to molest.

Anytime and anywhere she wanted.

And all he could ever do was just take it.

She caressed his jaw, his cheek, passed a thumb over his brow. But still he didn't react.

No matter. He knew what their arrangement was. He'd be responsive soon enough.

But for now, she had to leave him alone. Perhaps the totality of his defeat and capture would sink in during her absence.

"Well," she said quietly, wistfully. "As much as I'd love to stay here and begin working on you, I have to find my son." She broke contact with his skin and immediately missed the cool feel of him. She walked to the main operating table and picked up her utility belt, reattaching it to her hips. "But I'll be back."

Don't you worry, Phantom. I won't ever leave you.

She took her goggles off her head to clean them and smooth back her hair. She picked up her gun and inspected it, checked that it was still adequately charged.

"Your son."

His voice was raspy and stressed. Maddie turned to him with a frown. If she had wanted to predict what his next words to her would be, she would've never guessed those.

"Yes," she said carefully, not sure why this would be the topic he chose to finally engage in. "My son."

She watched in baffled bewilderment as he raised himself from off his knees to a standing position, first one leg, then the other. His legs shook but otherwise held him up. His elbows lowered until they were just below his shoulder line, but his restraints kept his hands aligned with his ears.

"You say you have to find him," said Phantom. "Is he missing?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes at him fiercely. How dare he talk about her son with such casual intonation, as if he was merely curious. How dare he talk about her son at all.

But she had to keep control of her temper. Last time she had let her anger take over, she became careless and allowed him to escape. She wouldn't let that happen this time.

"Do you know something, Phantom?" she asked sternly.

His face finally changed to show expression. His lips tugged into the most infuriating smirk, irritatingly small and cocky. "I know you're not going to find him."

Maddie pursed her lips, exhaled through flaring nostrils.

"He's gone. And you'll never find him."

She recalled how Phantom had insisted he had interacted with Danny before, just a week ago when she had him cornered in that alley. Her blood rippled with the memory, convincing her brain that he once again had something to do with Danny's disappearance.

She stomped up to him with such speed and intensity that he reflexively pressed himself to the wall behind him, his arrogance temporarily vanishing into mild surprise.

"What do you know, Phantom?" she spat. "Tell me now. Tell me where he is."

"I have no idea where he is," said Phantom, his expression once again void. "But he ran away, didn't he?"

Maddie's balance faltered.

All she wanted to do was help Danny. All she wanted was for him to tell her what was wrong so she could help him.

God damn it! He had shouted at her just hours ago in their kitchen. I am not one of your research experiments! I am not something for you to study and hypothesize and test!

Danny didn't really think she saw him that way, did he? It's just he wasn't talking to her on his own, so she had to figure him out somehow.

Can't you just leave me alone?

How could he ask such a thing of her? He was her child! She could never just leave him all alone to fend for himself, not when he was so obviously struggling and troubled.

Can't you just let me have my secrets?

Letting him have his secrets had brought them to this point. Now Danny was gone, had run off with who knew how many secrets torturing him and keeping him away from her.

"He did," confirmed Phantom coolly. "But he didn't just run away. He ran away from you."

Her lips curled, tears bristling at the edges of her eyes.

What if you're the one hurting me?

Did he think she was hurting him?

He would so often pull away from her over the past week, didn't seem to want her touching him at all, wouldn't tell her he loved her when she expressed her love for him.

And when she had moved toward him, he backed away and bolted out of sight, out of the house.

Away from her.

She turned her head. She couldn't let Phantom see her cry, couldn't let him see any weakness.

"You'll never find him," Phantom asserted. "Because he doesn't want you to find him."

A snap, a flare. She raised a hand to strike him, smack him right across his face as hard as she possibly could. His eyes screwed shut in a vain attempt to brace himself.

She imagined hitting him so hard his skin broke, spectral capillaries in his nose shattering, ectoplasm speckling her hand and trailing down his neck.

But she couldn't ruin him now. She couldn't break her toy just yet. She wanted him unharmed and whole for later. It wasn't the time to wreck that pretty face of his.

She lowered her arm, her whole body quivering.

"I'm going out to look for him," she said definitively, her voice shaking just as much as the rest of her. "I'll be back to deal with you later." She pointed an aggressive finger at him. "And for your sake, you better pray that I find him."

She turned to leave, but he once again insisted on pissing her off.

He chuckled. Phantom actually decided to deliberately mock her by chuckling.

"Pray to who?" he asked with such an impertinent sparkle in his radioactive leer. "God? The same God who wanted you to have me?" He looked up at the ceiling with a mirthless grin. "I'm pretty sure God doesn't give a fuck about me."

If he seriously thought she was going to let him have the last word, he was gravely mistaken. There was no winning for him. There was no small victory he could gain over her.

She was his captor and owner. And she'd see to it that he learned to fear her.

She grabbed his suit collar and yanked him as far forward as she could against his restraints. His neck snapped back in response, his self-assured smirk disappearing immediately. She snarled in his face, stared right into his eyes framed by long silvery lashes, eyes so bright they blistered her own. When their intense luminosity started raising tears in her vision, she focused on the lower part of his face: the shimmery green flush painted across his nose and cheeks, the paling texture of his lips, lips so close to hers she could pick up on their oscillating tremors.

"As you'll soon find out," she said evenly, her words passing directly into his slightly open mouth, "I give even less of one."

She shoved the ghost into the wall behind him and stormed off before he could possibly muster the nerve to say anything more. She turned off all the lights, darkened the entire room, exited and slammed the heavy door leading into the lab shut.

Outside, her breathing was scratching and raw. She leaned back against the closed door and gazed up at the stars.

Was Danny looking at the stars, too?

She straightened up and turned her head slightly back toward the locked lab.

Was Phantom still standing? Or was he back on his knees?

It didn't matter. He would be waiting for her when she returned. Right now, she had to find her son.

You'll never find him.

She walked to her car, allowed her tears to freely trickle down her face and under her chin.

Because he doesn't want you to find him.

No. Phantom didn't know a thing about her son. He just wanted to hurt her.

Maybe Danny was already home. Maybe he was waiting for her to return.

And if he wasn't, she would never stop looking for him.

(If you want to read this chapter from Danny's point of view, check out chapter 20 of the original fic, Disparaged.)