The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

- James A. Garfield

The clank of the tether activating jerks me out of sleep. I groan, knowing it will take me ages to fall asleep again. I let it pull me across the floor; it takes too much energy to stand up. Maybe I can't now. I haven't tried in a while. I'm so freakin' tired.

I feel the table rise under me like the world's slowest and scariest elevator. I wait for the cuffs to constrict around my wrists, trapping me flat on my back. I can't even work up the energy to get nervous. It doesn't matter what Mom does. I'm probably dead anyway. Can't she just let me sleep?

But nothing happens. That's weird enough to break me out of the nice unthinking haze I've been in all day. I hear the hiss of the glass wall sinking into the floor, feel the cool air from the lab-inside it's always stifling-wash over me, but no cuffs on my hands. Just my legs are pinned. Is it broken?

I start and realize Mom's already right next to me. She's wearing her hazmat suit again, but not the lab coat. Her arm's finally out of the sling, that's good at least. I still feel a twinge of guilt remembering. Seeing her lying on the floor bloody and unconscious, that scared me more than anything else that's happened in this messed-up place.

"Can you sit up?"

The soft question makes me nervous. Something's off. This isn't the usual Maddie Fenton, that's for sure. There's a glaring lack of weapons of ghostly destruction for a start. She keeps glancing up at me, and then looking away when she sees I'm looking back.

"Yeah," I say finally, and to my own surprise I'm right. I can sit up, barely. It wears me out, though, and I have to rest against my knees and fight the dizziness I get from just that much effort. But I'm up. Danny Phantom, hero. Major accomplishment of the day: Sitting upright.

"What's going on?" Most of the surprises I've had lately ended in lots of painful pain, so I stay suspicious.

"We're going to have a talk."

"A talk?" I almost find that funny. What, did she find out I broke curfew the night before I got caught? I'd give anything for this to be one of those boring lectures back home.

"Today there will be no experiments, no tests. I'm going to ask questions, and you're going to answer them...but only if you feel like it. I won't force you."

Now that? That's funny. "I thought you didn't believe ghosts could feel."

"I don't. But Phantom...you're not a ghost, are you?"

I actually laugh at that one, but my stomach drops to the floor. "What makes you say that?"

"You've said from the beginning that you were different."

"Not different enough, apparently." I can't help saying that bitterly. I thought maybe at first that I could get through to her somehow, even keeping my secret. I change looks, yeah, but not that much. The inside doesn't go away; I'm still the same person. Turns out she hates ghosts too much to even give me a chance. Not a fun thing to find out about your mom, that you're only a species change away from being on her hit list. Start glowing and floating and taking out baddies, and bam! No mercy.

"Do you remember how you died?"

"Yeah. Painful." Case in point. What a jerk thing to ask a ghost, you know? Nobody becomes a ghost who dies nicely. What did she think I'd say?

I glare at her, but she only nods thoughtfully, as if I'd confirmed some theory of hers. "Tell me."

Heck no. I was miserable enough without adding to my nightmares.

"What, tearing me up isn't good enough anymore? Now you want me to live through old trauma, too? You really are cruel."

But hey, why not? I'm just a ghost to her. I close my eyes. Maybe if I fall asleep I'd get away with not answering. Sleep would be easy. I'm so tired that most the time my eyelids feel like they have superglue holding them shut.

"You...may be right."

I'm right? That doesn't sound like Maddie Fenton.

The stomach-dropping feeling comes back; I sit up and really look at her. There's shadows under her eyes, and she's sitting ramrod straight with her feet close together, the way she does whenever she's uncomfortable. Mom's got her lower lip between her teeth and she's biting it hard enough to leave little teeth marks as she stares holes in the lab floor. Something's up. Still, she's too calm. If Mom knew, she'd be freaking out. But maybe...could she be hiding it? The thought sends cold stabs of fear into my mind.

"I may not deserve to hear it, but this is important. Please, tell me."

Please? Mom never uses please. Not with strangers. Definitely not with ghosts. Part of me wants to say no just to spite her; she really doesn't deserve it. But I need to know what she's thinking.

"I got zapped...electrocuted, I guess." Calling I don't know how many billions of volts deep-frying my entire body "electrocution" was like saying it got a little chilly in the Far Frozen, but that was more detail than I felt like getting into. "Worse than anything I've ever felt. Even..."

I can't finish the thought. Yeah, the lab accident hurt a lot, but at least I came out of it in one piece. At least I had no one to blame but myself. I shake myself out of that thought, rushing to get the memory over with.

"Nothing really compares to it. It was like getting burned and frozen and crushed and ripped apart all at the same time. I think I kind of blanked out at some point. I just remember being glad my friends weren't in there with me." I smile at her, though the expression feels pasted on my face. "Dying sucks. I don't recommend it. But it happened, and here I am."

"Here you are. But Phantom..." Mom pauses, studying me. "Ghosts don't feel their deaths."

Wasn't she listening just now? But no, here we go again. Mom trying to convince me that everything I feel is fake. Me bashing my head against her giant brick wall of stupid. I must be stupid too, because I find myself trying anyway.

"How do you know? How many ghosts have you talked to?"

"I don't have to, Phantom. It's pure science. When a human dies, the electrical signal generated by the brain resonates in the ectoplasmic matrix of the ghost zone and creates a new independent entity. That pattern is psychic, not physical. All that can be transferred is emotion and basic thought. That's why ghosts don't really understand pain. It's why you can never truly harm a ghost."

There she goes, technobabbling away any argument I have. I don't have a PhD; heck, I'm barely making it through high school. I have no idea how much she's saying is "backed by science" or whatever. I just know that she's wrong.

"Yeah, post-human consciousness, ectoplasm doesn't have nerve endings, I know already," I retort, irritated as much by my own complete failure to argue as her stubbornness. "Doesn't make it any better for me." That's the best I can come up with, and I know it's pathetic.

"But that doesn't apply to you, Phantom."

Just like that, I'm right back in that feeling between mortal terror and excitement. I see that look in her eye. Mom gets it in the lab just before she makes some kind of breakthrough in inventing. She knows something; she's just checking off facts now.

I swallow hard and focus on my knees, trying to stay casual. "Why do you say that?"

"You didn't describe to me why you died, what you were doing, but how. That's a physical context. Ghosts may know that they died horribly, but their account will invariably focus on the emotional significance."

She has me there. I never really thought about it, but it makes sense. I don't think I've ever heard a ghost tell me how they died without harping on the injustice of it all. I just thought it was an obsession thing.

"So...so what?" As usual my comeback is brilliant.

"What is a halfa?"

That gets my attention. Even Madeline Fenton can't miss such an obvious clue. Did I screw up somewhere? I must have said it. Why would I do something so stupid? "Where'd you hear that?"

Mom fingers the paper in her lap. "Your fight with the first ghost from the Fenton Containment Cube."

"Oh. Right." I feel like laughing again. It's that stupid no-name goon's fault. How did it take her so long to pick up on it? Not so obvious after all, I guess.

Mom pounces on my answer, leaning forward. "So you do know what it is."

She looks less nervous, more…eager. Whatever worried her is getting lost in solving the puzzle. Is that what I am? A puzzle? She can't really know then. Mom wouldn't be that…that cold, right?

"It's..." a lot of things. Figuring out exactly how I feel about that word would take more therapy than even Jazz could give me. I finally settle on "an insult."

"But it applies to you specifically," Mom said, looking even more excited.

So she's found out my zoological classification? Joy. "That's me. Practically unique. I have my own special slur."

"Halfa. Half of. Half-formed. You're not a completely ectoplasmic being, are you?"

I freeze, fingers tightening around my knees. She knows. She has to know. But something's weird. She should be scared, or sad, or even really mad like she got before, not this…this kinda uncomfortable satisfaction. She looks like a dog that's just dragged the turkey off the table and swallowed it whole. Ashamed, but still licking its chops.

Mom's waiting for an answer. Come on, genius. Stall her at least. "You said...I wouldn't have to answer if I didn't want to."

"I did. But I think I already know."

I knew it. I hold my breath, hoping I'm wrong, but I can see the gears turning in her head. Mom's smarter than I'll ever be. It had to happen sooner or later…and now it's sooner. I was kidding myself; how could I keep it secret from her?

"You have a body. A real, human one." If I had a heartbeat in this form it would be off the charts right now. I wipe my sweaty palm against my knee, watching as she twists the heck out of a scrap of paper. "You're not a ghost at all, are you? Danny."

It's the first time she's said my name—my real name—in weeks. Somehow I hadn't imagined it this terrifying. This is it. Holy crap, this is it. I'm so screwed. "So...so you know?"

Mom sighs; she's not looking at me. "I know."

tbc...

A/N:

Probably a no-brainer, but this is a companion piece/former bonus chapter for Phantom of Truth. It's a retelling of the fifteenth chapter from Danny's perspective. I did this initially as an exercise for characterization, but since people liked it I'm posting it here as a twoshot. Why not a oneshot? Because I like it better in two parts. Enjoy!

-Hj