Happily Ever After

author's note: please disregard TUE and Phantom Planet for this oneshot.

"We don't die," Danny said, his voice neutral and unsettlingly calm. Beside him, Vladimir Masters nodded in agreement and added, "Dying is a strange concept. What we are doing is something entirely different."

It was early autumn and the two stood alone in an unfamiliar graveyard before recently upturned ground. It was years later, though the exact amount was unknown.

Undisturbed by his companion's words, Danny continued, his voice heightening with his rising frustration, "I mean how can you die if you're already dead? It makes no sense."

"It's more like fading than dying," replied Vladimir, continuing on as if Danny hadn't spoken. Danny raised his head for the first time that day and moved his gaze from the headstone before him to the elder man beside him. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, close, but not enough to touch. "What do you mean?" he asked his voice soft and the littlest bit hoarse. The familiar feeling of tears came to him, but his ducts had been dry for a long time and despite the tingling feeling, no tears came.

"As you know, we aren't like regular humans."

"Why thank you for stating the obvious, Captain."

Vladimir gave a rare chuckle. It came out dry and lower than he'd expected, more of a cough or cackle than a real laugh. But a laugh nonetheless. How long had it been since he'd laughed last?

"Well yes. Unlike this young woman here…" he paused for a moment and gestured lightly toward the headstone before them, "…whose soul went straight to whatever lies after this, ours stayed within our ghost sides after our human halves died away."

"But what is this?" asked Danny as he opened his arms and shrugged his shoulders. "If we aren't human and not fully ghosts what are we?"

"Well, that's been the question since your and my accident, hm?"

"I guess. But I don't understand why other souls get to go somewhere else and we're stuck in this earth/afterlife purgatory."

"I don't think there really is an exact explanation, Daniel."

Danny made a move to argue, but instead decided on simply retorting, "I hate when you call me that."

"My apologizes, Danny."

Danny nodded his thanks at the correction and grew silent again. Above them, the thunder gave a threatening clap and the afternoon's light drizzle turned into a heavy downpour. The rain slipped passed the two as if they weren't even there, only splattering once it hit solid ground. Vladimir popped open his umbrella despite their being no need. He held the umbrella over both his head and the crouching form of the ghostboy before him. Danny knelt onto the upturned ground before the headstone and traced the letters engraved in the stone.

"Another grandchild?" The elder ghost asked after a moment.

"Great-grandchild, I think," replied the younger with a soft smile, "You keep forgetting how old I really am."

"In my defense, you don't look nor act your age."

And in truth, Vlad was right. In human years, Danny was well over a century and Vladimir even older, though he refused to give the younger ghost his exact age. After the loss of their human halves, the two had stopped aging physically. Danny's half had died at the tender age of twenty-six. He'd lost it to a long bout of pneumonia a good number of years before, leaving his loving partner and their three children. Vlad's death hadn't been such an event. With the loss of his human half, Vladimir had appeared the same as usual to Danny. It had gone as far as his youngest child asking 'why was daddy talking to the kitchen wall again' for him to realize what had happened and why Vlad was only visible to him.

"I wish I could remember more," sighed Danny as he got back to his feet. "The name's familiar I think... but I can't recall a thing."

Vladimir wrapped a skinny arm around the younger's shoulders. Danny didn't shudder at the older man's touch. He allowed himself to relax into the other's arms. Decades with no one to talk to save one another had given them a common interest and in the end had drawn them closer. It had taken time, years passed and they barely spoke to one another. But with each year and no pleasantry in sight, the two had grown closer. Aloud, Danny was still unable to call the elder ghost his friend and instead opted for acquaintance. But internally he considered him that and more.

"You were saying about fading?"

Vlad took a deep breath through his pursed lips. "I've been watching the others ghosts...such as the wish-granter?"

"Desiree," Danny corrected.

"Yes, her. Also Youngblood and Skulker, just to name a few."

Danny nodded, "Okay, go on."

"As you mentioned before, you've heard of your great-granddaughter before and perhaps you've even come in recent contact with her. Yet you can't recall her face or any physical features."

"Uh huh."

"Tell me Danie-Danny, do you remember your wives' name?"

Danny's face went hard at the question. His lips turned down and he refused to meet Vlad's gaze.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," said the elder ghost. He reached a hand beneath Danny's chin and raised it so their eyes focused on one another. His tone was gentle as he continued, " I only ask to help prove my point. You cannot. Nor can I remember your mother's name."

"Maggie…I think," Danny whispered, his voice uncertain and nervous.

"Something like that," Vladimir agreed. "But what I'm saying here is when I asked the other ghosts of their lives before death they could only remember certain vague details, such as clothing worn or sentences spoken, no names or faces or full events."

"Where are you going with this…?"

"Tell me, have you seen Freakshow or his companion, Lydia, as of late."

"I haven't really been in the Ghost Zone."

"But have you?"

Danny was quiet for a long while, finally he anwsered, "No. I haven't."

"If you remember, the last time I'd heard from them they were having a spat. A really bad one, about something that had happened when they were alive. I don't quite recall the details, but it had to do with disease and promise rings and such. With each passing moment the two forgot more and more about each other. I would've stayed longer, but they had become violent. I am an old man Danny, in both age and mentality."

"You left."

"I did. Yet, I returned the following day to apologize for my quick absence. I was over there for a drink after all, but no one was there. I searched for them high and low, asking whoever I could. Nothing."

"They were gone," Danny concluded with certainty.

"Left not a trace."

"But how does that add to your theory? They could've hightailed it somewhere else. The world is a big place."

"That it is. But after that instance I started to pay more and more attention to the ghosts and their activity around us. They've been disappearing one by one."

Danny felt his voice catch in his throat. He didn't care much for the other ghosts of the Ghost Zone- what with their hatred of the human race and of him, but still. The idea that they'd just disappeared into nowhere. "So Skulker and Youngblood and Desiree…"

Vlad nodded once, his eyes hard.

"But where do they go?"

"I hope to where your great-grandchild's soul has gone. The ghosts we've come to known have been on earth for many, many years, each with something to fulfill. The wish granting ghost, if you do not remember, lost her lover and was searching the world for a way to fulfill the emptiness in her heart by fulfilling others wishes. I suppose she finally found that one wish and with it went her memories."

"So you think whatever Lydia and Freakshow were fighting about stirred up something that had happened between them when they were alive, that they needed to remember?"

"Yes."

"That's make sense," concluded Danny, "And I know I'm not besties with anyone here, but I don't know, I'm happy that they've finally fulfilled what they neded to and have left the human race alone."

"Well yes, that would be the perk."

Danny wiped at his knees, wiping away the dirt that wasn't there. Silence feel between them again, but it wasn't tense. As they turned to go, Vladimir broke it, saying, "You wonder why we, you and I, are here?"

Danny sighed deeply, taking the time to breathe in through his mouth and out through his nose. Finally he decided on a single word response, "Yeah."

"I don't have an answer for that I'm afraid."

"I didn't think you would."

Vlad again drew closer to the younger. Together, he entwined their fingers. "Do not worry about that now, Little Badger."

Danny smirked, "You haven't called me that in years, you old fruit loop."

And then the two laughed. And it was a real laugh. Vlad's was deep and heavy and Danny's was light and high, but they were both laughing at that was what mattered.

The two wrapped an arm around one another and took to the air. Together they started off towards Vlad's still standing castle.

Danny wasn't happy nor content, but he was ok. And for now, that was good enough for him. If he was to realize or remember why he was here and fade away, he hoped to do it with Vlad at his side. The world was a lonely place without a friend by your side, and for now Danny would take the elder ghost and revel in the time they had together because they never knew when it might end.