Strength of a Family

Chapter 1 Opening a Door

"C'mon Danny! Don't you want to a look inside of it?" Samantha Manson, or rather Sam to everyone in the world as she was want to remind, told her one of her two friends since kindergarten exuberantly, a look of wonder on her face as she beheld the inactive portal before her. She was a fourteen year old teenager who was currently spending her summer break between Casper Junior High School and Casper High School at the home of her friend. A young woman of average build, she wore dark clothing typical of a goth. Thus it was no surprise that Sam was giddy with the thought of seeing into another dimension that was literally the afterlife. The occult just had that kind of pull on her.

"I don't know. Mom and Dad said we shouldn't stay too long down here without them to supervise us." Daniel James Fenton, Danny as he liked to be called by rather than his stuffy, formal sounding name, was a prodigy fourteen year old born to the genius inventors Jack and Maddie Fenton of Fenton Works. Both were incredibly gifted inventors each with an intelligence quotient of one-hundred and forty-five, or one-hundred and fifty-two in the case of Madeline Iris Fenton nee Fraiser. Despite being incredibly intelligent, they were both known for having a few screws loose. Case in point the portal they had built that would apparently ripe a hole in space-time and lead to a plane called they dubbed 'The Ghost Zone'. Had the device worked, the implications of a fully working portal to another dimension would be reality-shattering, literally.

But it did not work. As such, all the portal could be was a nice decoration for his family's lab, a massive stain on the Fenton family's pride and a money sink that had lead to nothing.

"For once Danny, I agree with Sam," the final member of their trio interjected as he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Tucker Foley was an unassuming African-American with a deep love for all things technological. So it was no surprise that when Danny showed him and Sam the inoperable 'Ghost Portal', Tucker's mind had begun to run over the calculations of powering such a device and how one would even work. It was so difficult for even his technologically gifted mind that he realized that the technology behind the device ran on quantum mechanics, something he had only just begun to understand. "I'd like to see what makes this thing tick."

"The blueprints are kept in my dad's computer," the raven-haired boy told his friend. He then scowled when he saw Tucker surreptitiously slowly slinking his way over to door leading to the adjoining office. "The door is locked with a voice command requiring a specific phrase and retina locked. And even then, dad has, like, fifteen safeties on his computer with over a hundred redundant protocols that lead to nowhere. That's not even counting the ten firewalls he has surrounding the file."

"The phrase is 'Fudge', isn't it?" Tucker joked, once again realizing how much this portal meant to his friend's parents.

"Oddly enough, it's the only system that doesn't have 'Fudge' as my password." Danny, Sam and Tucker jumped, surprised at the additional voice and turned to the stairs to see Maddie and Jack Fenton in their regular civilian garments. Both of their cheeks were flushed and their son could see that their eyes were red from the crying that had more than likely gone on after the failure to activate the 'Ghost Portal'. The technology fanatic soon sputtered as he tried to formulate an apology, but was stopped when Jack simply raised his hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Those blueprints are useless now since the Ghost Portal doesn't even work." There was a tinge of sadness as he gazed at what was to have been his and his wife's life's work. He looked down at his wife and smiled at her when she gently took his larger hand in her own and squeezed to show her support, even if she was as equally devastated.

"Is it alright if we take a closer look at the portal Mr. and Mrs. Fenton?" Sam asked trying to withhold her giddiness.

"I would tell you no," Maddie began as she sent a stern look in the girl's direction. Out of the three teens, she was known to be the most impulsive and had a tendency to drag her friends, more often than not Danny many times more than Tucker, along the ride. "But knowing you, you'd do something that might severly injure one of you. So instead we'll supervise you to make sure nothing dangerous occurs."

Danny's parents then doffed their civilian clothes, revealing that they were still wearing their jumpsuits underneath the entire time. "Since Danny has helped us with building the portal, he'll be the first to go to demonstrate proper safety to you two. In the meantime, I'll go shut off power going to the portal just in case." With that, Jack went over to power controls and began to turn off power lines to the portal while his wife ushered their son and his two friends to the spare hazmat suits. Maddie had given Sam a pointed look when she saw that the Jack emblem had been replaced by a black stylized 'D' but said nothing on the subject.

"Ready Danny?" his mom asked as she walked him over to the portal with Sam and Tucker in tow. Danny merely nodded his head and calmed himself before slowly making his way into the inoperative portal. His eyes slowly trailed over conductors lining the walls in a certain pattern. The air in the chamber was freezing cold, more than likely due to the coolant need to prevent the machine from overheating. A flash of light suddenly turned his attention toward the maw of the portal where a grinning Sam was holding a camera, while Tucker was rolling his eyes and Maddie was raising an eyebrow in question.

"Get out of there Danny!" Jack shouted as he ran away from the power station and toward his only son, a look of panic in his eyes. All power levels had been at zero and yet the EMF and Electroplasmic Readers had surged to the threshold, meaning something ghostly was reaching through to there world. The reason why Maddie and Jack had picked this spot of all places was because there was a tiny crack between their home dimension and that of the Ghost Zone. They had hoped to build the portal by breaking the crack just a little and stabilize it enough to have a permanent entrance to the Ghost Zone.

The problem with that was one cannot enter another dimension without permission to do so. The portal was merely a door bell to alert the occupant that they had a visitor. It was thus up to the occupant, in this case a resident of the ghost zone, to decide whether or not to open the door.

It all happened so fast that none of them could have reacted. Despite their being no energy coming from the portal itself, something was reaching toward the portal from somewhere else and powering it on. The machine thrummed to life, electricity flew all around Danny as he tried to escape, but soon that electricity was replaced by a brilliant flash of green light that flooded the chamber and engulfed a screaming Danny.

"Danny!" all four occupants of the lab shouted as they saw the event unfold before them. Sam had run toward Danny the moment she heard his father shouting for him, but had been blown back by a shock wave that had preceded the brilliant green flash. When she had climbed back to her feet, she had screamed his name so many times while trying to get the portal and somehow rescue her friend, but was held back by a teary eyed Tucker.

"Tucker! Let me go! Danny! We need to save Danny!" Sam had screeched at her friend. "We need to save him! He can't be gone, he just can't!"

"Sam-"

"No! He's not dead! He can't be! He isn't! I won't believe it!" The grief was evident in her voice as she stared with tear streaked cheek at the glowing green air where Danny had once been. "I can't lose him," she whispered. "I don't want to be the reason he's gone." Sam then broke down in Tuckers arms as she finally realized that she had just killed the boy she was just beginning to like. "Please bring him back," the goth repeated the mantra over and over again, hoping one of the 'spells' she had come across were real.

"Jack, what happened?!" Maddie shouted as she had the collar of her husband's jumpsuit in her iron grip. "I thought you deactivated the power?! I thought you were keeping our baby safe?!" She shook him with such force that Jack was afraid his neck might snap, despite him having a good two feet on her and having a much larger build.

"Everything was reading fine, all power levels at zero, but then the EMF and EP readers skyrocketed without warning." Maddie's eyes went wide, while the feeling of dread began to mount. "I had no way of predicting that something like this would occur." Jack looked down and clenched his fists, his eyes shut all the while tears began to slip free. "I'm sorry Madeline." His wife soon was engulfed in his strong arms as they wept at the loss of their only son.

"Ugh..."

Sam's head immediately snapped up at the groan and her eyes soon blinked back the tears to see a silhouette become more and more defined as it approached the mouth of the portal. Her eyes widened when she spotted someone slowly stumble out of the portal clutching it's head. The being was clad in monochromatic clothing while a light glow surrounded it. Silvery white hair also stood out to her, but what really caught her attention was the white stylized 'D' on its chest. Hoping that the figure before her was her friend, and not some apparition, Sam asked quietly, "Danny?"

"S-Sam?" The now identified Danny was still clutching his head, trying to fight off the pain both in his mind and in his body. "Danny!" Sam shouted as she shot to where he was and engulfed him in a bone crushing hug as tears streamed down her eyes. Maddie and Jack were just standing back, mouths agape when they saw that the being, more than likely a ghost, was actually their son. But their minds had reeled at the implication that their son had just died and come back.

"Wh-What happened?" Danny slurred as he turned intangible and phased through the hug, causing Sam to yelp at the sudden cold and jump back. He then fell flat on the cold metal floor returning tangible.

"Danny!" everyone shouted as his parents and Tucker rushed over to his prone figure. Maddie and Jack had nodded to one another before gently turning their son over and began to check him over for injury while also taking in his current characteristics. When they saw no rise and fall of his chest, took his hand in their own and realized it was icy to the touch, the cruel reality that their son was truly dead finally hit home.

They all just sat their, Tucker's hand on both of his friends shoulders to off his support, Sam's hands grasping one of his own tightly while his parents held each others' hand and Danny's, lamenting the fact that Danny Fenton had ceased to live on this day and was instead for all intents and purpose, a living dead. 'He can't be dead,' they all thought at the same time.

'I can't be dead,' Danny thought to himself.

A peculiar happenstance occurred at the moment when Danny and his friends and family had shared the same thoughts and feelings, something that would baffle them all for a while.

There was this cool feeling that washed over Danny's body a moment later. Sam was the first to notice, as their was a slight warmth to the hand she held. Not wanting to be tricked by one sense, the goth opened her eyes and gasped. That intake of breath broke the other three from their vigil and their reactions matched her own. Rather than seeing white hair, black hair greeted them all. The hazmat suit he wore as well was also back in its original state, although slightly worse for wear. Jack and Maddie could not believe their eyes when they saw the telltale rise and fall of his chest, but it was there and they could feel warmth in his hands, meaning blood was flowing through his veins!

"Jack, our baby!" Maddie cried out with tears of joy as she squeezed her husband's hand.

"I know, he's, he's perfectly fine!" Jack crowed as he hugged his wife.

"Mom? Dad? Tucker? Sam?" came Danny's tired voice as he weakly pulled himself up into a sitting position.

"Danny!" everyone once more shouted, though this time in joy as they group hugged him.

"Still sore," Danny whispered hoarsely as he readjusted himself in hug sandwich, of which Sam was latched onto his front. He soon relaxed as he held Sam closer to himself, smiling as he felt her grip on him tightly a little. "I heard your voice, loud and clear Sam."

His reply came in the form of tears and repeated cries of, "I'm so sorry!"

It's painfully obvious that this an AU. Also because I like stories a little more grounded, but not too grounded because then they would be me and thus an asshole on the outside and a saint on the inside, all characters will seem more human rather than like their cartoon counterpart. So that means Danny's superhero business will need to be more thought out so no one else finds out about his secret identity. If you didn't know it already, yes it is a Danny and Sam pairing. The thing is that Danny doesn't understand how deeply his feelings for Sam go and while he likes the happy feelings, he doesn't want to chance it and risk their friendship.

How many times is that gonna be repeated again? Vegeta?

OVER 9000 TIMES!

I thought it was over 8000? Eh, whatever.

More than likely a number of you have read this story because you had alerts on my publishing after having read 'Souma and Erina' and 'Serenity'. I'll say it now, no I have not abandoned the stories. I'm just bashing my head into a wall because the words literally don't want to come out despite me knowing what I want to write. Since I don't do outlines, I have seen the need to do so, as free handing a chapter is good for short chapters or one shots, but not for a ten-thousand word chapter. Be on the look out for those updates within the next month or so.

I promise.

Note: I own nothing.