It was an open secret. Everyone knew, yet not one dared speak of it except in hushed tones and in distant hallways far from her hospital room. Eliza was no idiot. She may have only been in second grade when the hospital visits started, but she knew what the hushed whispers and the muffled sobs from her parents after the doctor pulled them aside meant. She knew that her grandparents flying down from washington to see her in the hospital wasn't a sign of good fortune. She was dying.
Eliza remembered going to school that fateful day. How she and her friends had been playing hopscotch when the world had started spinning and she suddenly found herself face first on the asphalt. Her friends panicked screams as they ran for the teacher. How everyone had stared as-
"Eliza!" her mother's voice finally breaking through her stupor, she slowly shifted her head to face her mother, grimacing at her neck's protests to the action. "Honey, we brought someone special to see you!", her mother sung as a smile spread across her face. This was it: maybe she'd finally see her daughter smile again, or so she hoped.
"Patches!" Eliza blindy guessed, hoping the hospital finally allowed her family's golden retriever into the hospital. However, noticing her mother's wince, she reached the conclusion on her own that the hospital hadn't lifted it's strict no-dog policy.
"I'm joking!" Eliza quickly tried to save her mother's mood. "I know that the hospital has a thermometer too far up it's-"
"Young Lady! Watch your language!" her mother half-heartedly chastised her while stifling the laughter that threatened to escape her lips at her daughters antics. "Well, you know those old comics you love? Those "Tales of Inviso-Bill and the Ghost Getters?" she waited for her daughters nod to continue, "Turns out that Danny Phantom had some free time today, and when he heard that there was a beautiful damsel in distress at the hospital, he just couldn't help but come visit!" Her mother blurted all at once, obviously excited and almost-overwhelmed that the superhero had deemed her little gal had been deemed worthy of his time.
As her mother's continued to gush about how THE Danny Phantom was visiting her daughter, the door began to slowly swing open. Strangely, Eliza noted, that it seemed to be opening all by itself, with no hand attached to the handle opening it from the other side. Studying this phenomenon, Eliza was surprised when a body appeared suddenly in front of her, blocking her view of the door.
Danny Phantom, the legend of Amity Park, was standing at the foot of her hospital bed. Shocked, all that Eliza could squeak out was-
"You brought a ghost to visit a dying girl in the hospital?"
Danny's breath caught in his throat so fast that he forced himself to cough to maintain his ability to breathe, a task that wasn't so much mandatory and more-so just routine for the specter. When the Make-a-Wish Agent reached out to him about a little girl in the hospital, he hadn't even considered how a dying child might react to seeing an actual ghost. Suddenly doubting his presence here, Danny silently cursed Sam for convincing him to take the offer despite his original misgivings about his perceived inability to interact with kids. In fact he was even more sure now that this whole thing was a mistake and that-
"Uhhhhh… Mr. Phantom?" The little girl laying on the bed in front of him questioned while looking around.
"Yeah" Danny responded unsure of why the little girl was looking around so much.
"Where'd you go?" Eliza's question making him realize that he had apparently gone invisible at some point, probably while he was busy choking on air earlier. Popping back into visibility holding his the back of his neck and looking at the ground, obviously embarrassed about how even now, control of his most basic power sometimes still eluded him.
The sound of laughter pulled his eyes from their position stuck on the ground up to the little girl laying on the bed once more. For the first time, he took in the sight of her. The pearly whites her laughter exposed to the world, the halo of blonde hair surrounding her head that was splayed out on the mattress she laid on, her feet peeking out from the bottom of the sheats. Then as he continued to look he noticed more and dozens of machines she seemed to be hooked up to, the way her laughter was punctuated by grimacing at the pain of laughter, the surprise on her mother's face at seeing her daughter in a fit of laughter for the first time in what must of been ages.
It was in this moment that Danny decided. He would help this girl. He didn't know how, but he would.
The rest of the the visit had gone better. Danny managed to stay visible the whole time even when faced with a surprising amount of snark for a second grader. Apparently, she knew how to trash talk very well, which she demonstrated as she crushed Danny for the fifth time in a game of go fish. Originally he had planned to go easy on her, but after Eliza drove him into the ground over and over in the game, he had actually started trying to win. Yet he STILL lost. How was she this good? He had a duplicate invisibly looking over her shoulder, and he still lost the last round? How?
Eventually, Danny had to leave to stop a rampaging Skulker (Who was shoved rather harshly into the thermos), but not before making promises to visit weekly. Tuesday nights, game night, quickly became the highlight of both of their weeks.
They would talk. Eliza would watch Danny play pranks on the staff and pop out of nowhere, scaring them half to death. He would do shadow puppets using an ecto-flame ball for light while 8 or so duplicates created world class shadow puppets with their body manipulation, and he would recount his greatest battles to her as she fell asleep. They were the best of friends.
But like all good things, it was coming to an end. Months later at this point, Eliza was beginning to decline. It had been weeks since she had been able to get up out of her bed and move under her own power. Laughter, above all, HURT, and Danny, the comeed-die-an (as she deemed him in a rough attempt to mimic his amazing word-play skills), was no help at all with his contant jokes and pranks. Watching as she was struck by a fit of coughing halfway through her bout of laughter was horrifying to him. He had to help, the only way he could. Ghostly Powers.
"So you're saying you might be able to take some of my pain away?" Eliza asked carefully. Hoping this wasn't another of his jokes, though he'd never be so cruel.
"I mean yes, but I'd have to partially overshadow you and take over the parietal lobe of your brain and you could also loose part of your sense of touch while I do it" Danny rambled on, unsure of how the girl would take the offer of being possessed. "And I'd have to ask your parent's permission of course and I'd-"
"Well why the crap haven't you hoped in here already?! Dying hurts ya know!" Eliza burst out.
"I know" was all that Danny responded with. He knew what it felt like to die. It hurt. "That's why I offered this to you. I know how much dying hurts…" Danny trailed off as Eliza realized her mistake.
"OMG you Idiot, get on of your duplicates in here so I can stand up and give you a hug you idiot!" Eliza huffed out. Closing her eyes, she waited for the pain to go away, and when it did, she leaped for joy. Literally, leaped out of the hospital bed, and tackled Danny where he floated. As the two lied on the floor together, Danny knew, deep in his core, he would stay by her, and every other kid's in this hospital side until they last moment. Which for Eliza, came just two weeks after Danny first helped her out of the bed.
Eliza would not be the last child whose coffin he helped carry, and whose spirit he helped cross over, but she would be the only one who came back as a ghost herself. Merci, as she was now known, continued on the tradition, showing other kid's the same kindness she was once shown. And when the time came, years later, and Danny's own human half was lying there on the bed, you can bet your core that she didn't leave his side for a single moment.