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Madeline Fenton, once, had also been a little girl. She and her sister would run through weed-infested fields, their childish laughter echoing through the green and yellow meadows, the sun shining down on them, cooking the two girls skin pink and red, brightening up their already obnoxiously ginger hair, coloring them in hot shades of sunburn and dotting their cheeks with freckles.
Maddie would shriek as she launched herself at her sister, pretending to be a panther, or a lioness — a big cat, with big claws and big teeth. She'd dig her blunt nails into her sisters arms and laugh as the two stumbled downward, kicking and giggling as they scuffled.
Mom would always come down, separate them exhaustedly. Maddie and Alicia would be forced to sit in the living room, lectured for hours on end over how to behave, how to treat one another, and be forced to hug it out.
Madeline always complained about those times. She never noticed when they stopped, when Madeline could no longer mindlessly go out to play, when the sun no longer chased after her amongst the fields of grass, when the shadows of the green blades no longer covered her like a shoddy umbrella.
One day, she was taller than the fields. Her boots crushed through the greenery, just as her mother's had when she would have to chase the two little girls down every time she caught them out.
They weren't as close now, her and Alicia. They saw each other every year to celebrate Alicia's divorce. They messaged, and called, as often as the two sisters could. Their lives had just gone so differently.
Maddie went off to Wisconsin, met the love of her life (who she matched in costume (bodysuits) for all of their combined careers — his orange, hers teal), gained and lost a best friend, and finished with a dual degree in biochemistry and engineering.
Alicia met a man who promised her the world, and while Alicia had confided in Maddie, even back then, that she wasn't sure if she loved her suitor, she didn't know how to say no.
It's not something their parents ever taught either of them. They taught their daughters to defend each other and themselves, taught them how to be tough as nails, strong and impossible to push down.
But not how to say no.
When Maddie first had Jasmine, her world turned inside out. If she hadn't agreed to let her husband, her soulmate — Jack — name the girl, Maddie would have honored the ginger haired baby with her sisters name. She looked just like her.
"I'll name the next one after you." Maddie had promised Alicia over the phone, watching as Jack played with their little baby, carrying the girl up high in his arms. Baby, toddler, kid. Time slipped by in seconds, and Maddie was so afraid that one day she'd blink and her baby would already be gone.
"You best, sister." Alicia laughed. Maddie had been so sure, so sure that her next baby would be a girl, just as little Jazz had been.
Then, Daniel came. The boy was a copy and paste of his father, with the starts of dark black hair and his wide eyes, and when Maddie called her sister to playfully apologize, Alicia had smacked her lips.
"Shoulda stuck with just the first." Alicia joked, and Maddie smiled, cradling her little boy.
He stared up at her, baby blue eyes searching her face, as if it were the most interesting and spectacular thing in the world. She pulled him closer, and it was like his little body melted to fit next to hers.
"One's never enough." Maddie replied, voice soft, yet still playful. Alicia snorted on the other end of the call, and that was that.
Danny and Jazz were so different from one another. Before the teenage angst, before... before it all. Danny was always a timid boy, always keeping his head down, despite obviously wanting more. Jasmine never shied away from attention, keeping her chin up and marching forward shamelessly. Eyes on the prize, as she claimed.
Jasmine walked at only eight months old, and said her first word ("Da-da!") only a week afterward. She wasn't an easy toddler, fussing and crying constantly, refusing to wear the clothes the little girl had picked out herself just the day before no matter how Maddie or Jack coaxed her. It was little Jasmines way or no way.
Danny developed at a more average pace. Walked at twelve months old, said his first word ("Ma-ma!") at thirteen months. He wore anything he was given, though he'd become grumpy and annoyed when he deemed the clothes not 'cool enough'. It was as funny as it was exhausting, trying to figure out what a little toddler deemed as cool.
As far as babies, and life after, went, Danny was never really a crier — just like his mother. The two were more familiar with frustration, and the older Danny got, the more of these habits he picked up. Tapping his foot impatiently, giving unimpressed looks to whoever it was that was giving him a particularly annoying time. Jack, sometimes, would have to leave the room as not to laugh.
In contrast, Jasmine was pure waterworks for the first four years of her life, and some after. "She takes it after her father." Maddie had teased Jack, who scrunched his nose as he curled into a ball, digging back into his fudge with a dorky pout. The two, funnily enough, were also both sore losers.
Maddie and Jack knew Jasmine wanted to study psychology before the girl herself did. Bookshelves filled with self help guidebooks, texts about illnesses and children care, the abled and disabled. Most of it was jargon to the two ecto-scientists, but with how reverently and excitedly Jasmine chattered on about the topic, the two Dr. Fentons could only cheer her on.
Daniel's hobbies were more focused on what was beyond his reach. Space, the stars. He wasn't nearly as much of a bookworm as Jasmine was, but when it came to the topic of the infinite cosmos, it was as if he'd been overshadowed, stuck to the book or screen like a mindless puppet, entrapped by the fancy words and never ending discoveries.
Jasmine would shriek with glee every time they passed a museum, taking every moment she could to stall their guide and bombard the poor worker with questions. Danny would beg and beg for them to go to the planetarium, spending his time there more often on Jack's shoulders, reaching upwards towards the stars, than actually looking through the telescopes.
All in all, both of her babies were drawn to knowledge, even if Jasmines attitude and aptitude exceeded Danny's by the length of several galaxies.
Madeline remembered watching as Jazz hopped up the steps of her elementary school on her first day, grinning so wide her cheeks blazed red with the strain, eyes twinkling excitedly. She dressed formally up until her last year in middle school, deeming herself too cool for that, at her big age of thirteen. She studied relentlessly, wracked her brain for information that was beyond even Jack or Madeline's comprehension.
"She's a smart nut, just like her mother!" Jack said, clapping Jasmine on the shoulder as she proudly showed off her newest A+.
"Oh, but you're just as determined as your father too, sweetie!" Maddie added, gently taking her daughter face in her hands and squishing her cheeks together, the baby fat making her cheeks look redder and softer.
"Eww!" She whined, and her parents laughed with her playfully. Jasmine was the top student of any school she went to — she exceeded Amity Park by endless miles.
Danny was much less excited for school, but nowhere near whiny or unhappy. He clambered up the steps unsurely, peeking back at his parents, to which Maddie waved at him with a bright smile, and Jack gave him a big thumbs up and a large grin. Danny gave a small, awkward smile back. He never wore anything specific, generally sticking to a pattern of clothes. Four shirts, two pants, two pairs of socks, all for one week interchangeably. Somewhere along the way he gave up even that, and simply put on whatever he could be bothered to find that day.
"Don't look so down, Dann-o! I'm sure Jazzirincess will be able to help you. You'll be back on track in no time, son! You've got your mother's stubbornness, I tell you!" Jack comforted Danny after the boy had gotten another subpar grade in math, the middleman C.
"And your father's spirit. Keep your chin up, sweetie." Maddie said, gently ruffling her son's messy hair. The boy scrunched his face up and made a show of trying to 'fix' it, letting out an annoyed 'ugh' as he did so. Very maturely.
In school itself, Jasmine had a hard time making friends. She was too "mature" for her age, too "sophisticated" for them. Of course, that's not to say she wasn't charismatic, she simply didn't know how to apply those more socially conscious traits of herself quite yet. But by the time she was finishing up elementary, her confidence and invasive cheer had gained her a small ragtag of nerdy girls by her side who both loved Jasmine, her company, and the hopeful shield she represented, protecting the other girls from bullies and would be harassers by reputation alone.
Danny wasn't so lucky. The boy had charm — endless vasts of it, but also the habit of never being brave enough to show for it. When he first started getting picked on, Madeline had been furious, marching over to the school with her husband and son in hand, ready to give the principal a piece of her mind. Only to see no results. She and Jack called the kids' parents. Only to see no results. Eventually, Danny seemed to give up on it entirely, and just asked his parents to not bother.
Danny, unlike Jazz, was okay with where he was. Maddie suspected that lax, casual attitude is what attracted the boys first ever friend — a brown boy named Tucker in the second grade during a mix and match group project, clicking together like two perfect nerdy pieces. Madeline had been oh so grateful for Tucker, for the smile he brought to her shy boy's face. Though less so for the bags under his eyes over his very obvious nights spent awake talking online. Her boy was terrible at volume control.
Then, Daniel met Sam in the fifth grade. She was rebellious, crude, and at first Madeline and Jack worried she'd be a bad influence. But, on the contraire, she finally, finally got her baby boy to grow some confidence — puff his chest out, bare his verbal teeth. Sure, it never stopped the bullying — but it helped with her son's ego, and that was already such a big step in the right direction.
Neither Jasmine or Danny mixed friend groups, and while it was only natural, Madeline hoped the drift between them wouldn't grow into a chasm. That they wouldn't grow so far apart they only spoke once or twice every three months. That they wouldn’t end up like their mother and aunt.
Over the years, Madeline watched Jasmine's room stuff itself with books, awards and papers. Guides and lists with branching off paths and plans. Yes, she rejected her parents' career more and more the older she got, insulted it and sassed her family up and down — but that hardly meant her parents weren't proud of her, didn't dress her, feed her or cheer her on.
"Ghosts just aren't interesting," Jasmine claimed, "If they're as mindless as you say they are, there's nothing about their behavior left to study — if they even exist, which they don't."
Maddie watched as Danny's room slowly began to be filled with posters of space, pamphlets of NASA informatics and model rockets. He wasn't that fascinated by their science, and he found his family's career embarrassing, but on the topic of ghosts and hunting the beasts themselves, he was indifferent to it.
"I dunno, who cares what they do." Danny shrugged, "If they're stuck there and we're stuck here, they can't bother us. If they exist." With an added, quiet, "which they probably don't."
Paranormal study continued to follow Maddie like a well trained puppy. Her and Jack, when not busy with their kids, spent hours and hours in their own personal lab, no longer limited to the budget of an unwilling college and suspicious, untrusting professors. Weaponry, biology, theory crafting based on centuries and centuries of research, all catalogued in their shelves, computers and files.
All of it culminating, day after day. Driving their kids to school, making lunch, dinner, returning to the lab. Working. And working. And working more.
Working on the portal.
Calculations, nights spent awake obsessing over every detail, hunched over papers with her husband, his head resting on top of hers as they calculate and miscalculate over and over again, holding hands as they did so, and waking up with their limbs tangled together on the cold lab floor.
They began to properly build the monster of a machine when Danny just turned thirteen, and Jazz sixteen. Jasmine had rolled her eyes at them, whined and complained. And yet, just like her brother, she was enchanted by the science behind it — because there was real world basis for it. Mechanisms, math, electrical understanding — mumbo-jumbo that neither Jazz or Danny could even begin to try and pick apart. It astounded the two for their own respective reasons. Not enough to brag, or tell anyone about it at all, but enough to leave their parents be when the Dr. Fentons began their work.
Jasmine and Danny sometimes came down to the basement just to observe. Jazz never stayed very long, getting sick of her parents "made up nonsense" in less than an hour, but Danny always liked to stay for at least two.
To him, in his own words: "It's like space, but weirder."
Danny's fourteenth birthday was spent with family and friends. Sam took pictures every two seconds, blinding everyone and creating the most absurdly embarrassing mementos of the day. Jack framed any and all that Sam let them keep right in the living room.
Danny smiling brightly, surrounded by his friends and sister, hung at the center of them all.
Danny was fourteen when the portal was finished. When they tried to activate it and failed.
When it started working again.
Madeline and Jack's lives turned sideways— what's not to say of Amity Park! Ghosts, monsters, paranormal entities, all flowing through the gashes and wormholes created by their machine, causing mayhem and chaos wherever they went, finally clearing the path and opening up the avenue of 'Ghost Hunters' and 'Ecto-Scientists' as real, valuable career paths.
One of the ghosts to escape their portal, possibly even one of the first, was the ghost of a young teen boy who called himself Phantom. Not before going through a list of mildly embarrassing given names by the citizens of Amity Park, of course (he still scowls whenever anyone mentions 'Invis-o-Bill').
He was short, lean, with pale skin, bright white hair and toxic green eyes that gave off a distinctly unnatural glow. He was snarky, played the 'good guy' and fought against the other escaped ghosts, while only causing nothing but trouble himself.
Dr. Fentons hunted him down ferociously. He was young, yes, but growing in power within seconds. Yes, he protected the city, yes, he protected the people — but he was a ghost, and all ghosts were the same.
Maddie shot at him, injured him, insulted him. Jack harassed him, attacked him and mercilessly slandered his name with cruel mocks and jeering threats of ripping him apart piece by piece.
Danny drew away from the family entirely. Even after his and Maddie's weekend together, her baby boy slipped between her fingers like sand. Jasmine became more secretive, jumpy and clumsy, pushing her parents out of the way, ruining their focus during battles with Phantom and other ghosts. She was always bad at lying.
"I don't believe that they're evil!" She eventually blurted, and Maddie could only frown. She already knew that arguing with Jazz never led anywhere.
Danny never said anything about them. His grades fell. His attendance slipped. He looked tired, he spoke and behaved rudely.
Danny was clearly and obviously tumbling downwards mentally, and Madeline had no clue what to do about it. His friends were there by his side, helping him pull the weight, but they were just a group of three fourteen year old children. What could they do?
What could they do.
What could Maddie do?
"I'm still me." Jasmine had cried after she admitted to having kissed one of her girl friends and liking it. Maddie smiled sweetly, embracing her baby girl, Jack piling on top of the two and Danny smiling from behind them, giving his sister a thumbs up.
It was a ripple in the water. Of course they accepted her. She was their baby girl. Maddie and Jack had watched Jasmine grow from a sophisticated little girl into a stubborn young woman, eyes never leaving her fixated future, relentlessly chasing forward. Of course they were proud of her.
...
"I'm still me."
Danny's voice was hoarse. His hair was caked with dirt, pale face dirty with thick, blood-thick ectoplasm, legs swaying dangerously. His white hair fell in his face, green eyes wide with fear, terror.
Fear directed at her. At Maddie. At Madeline. At his mother.
She rushed to him thoughtlessly, ecto-gun falling to the ground. She dug her blunt nails into her son's back, hugging him tightly enough to kill.
"It's okay." She gasped, because it's all she could do. Her baby's body was cold, freezing. Cuts littered his skin, and his gloved hands hesitantly tugged at her waist, returning the gesture.
"I'm sorry." Maddie whispered, her brain no longer being at the wheel leading her forwards, but rather her heart. "My baby, I'm so sorry." She sobbed, and it was only a matter of time before Danny was crying as well.
"You didn't know." He whined, falling to his knees alongside his mother, cradled in her arms as if he were just a baby again.
"I should've. I should've." She croaked, closing her eyes as she snuggled her face into her son's white hair. He smelt like ash and rubble, texture rough and dirty. He trembled against her.
She should've known from the very beginning.
What sort of mother couldn't recognize her own baby? What sort of mother could ever, ever, come close to what she had almost just done?
A horrible one. A no-good mother.
Madeline didn't feel like a grown woman in her early forties. She didn't even feel like a lady in her late twenties, cradling her newborn baby daughter, then, later, her son.
No.
She felt like a little girl, standing at the edge of a large, growing chasm, the dark shadow void below it. Behind the freckly girl is a field of tall, yellowed grass that shields her from the powerful sun. In front of her, somewhere on the far, far end of the abyss, is the figure of a tall, lean woman, wearing a teal bodysuit, red goggles, and mounted with glowing green accented guns and weaponry. Her short red hair sways in the wind, tear stained eyes stare below, and all the little girl feels towards the woman is shame and disgust.