I felt the need to write some angst. This was the attempt. I'm not exactly sure what was going on with this. Okay, I kind of am, but it's ridiculously long and filled with my Timeline Theory and crap.

Phantom Planet, to the fandom, is kind of like that one cousin who got arrested for public nudity at the family reunion. We all know about it, but we pretend we don't and that it never happened. That is the thought process I'm using here and why it is not part of this story.

S.O.S. Text

"We need a signal," Tucker spoke up, and Danny lifted his head from where he was sprawled out beside Sam on her bed, one hand resting on the bandages that had been wrapped around his chest.

"Why?" He asked, and after a pause added on, "For what?"

"In case you get hurt like... That-" He motioned to the hybrid's bandages, which were covered with reddish-brown and bright green stains, "-Again and we aren't there to patch you up or you can't make it over here or... Yeah, we need a signal. Or you can stop ghost hunting at night."

Danny scoffed, and Sam ran a hand through his currently snowy-white hair. "Danny, I think it's a good idea. We need a signal, so that if you're hurt and can't get to us..."

"I'll never use it," Danny mumbled, laying his head back down on Sam's bed. "...What about an S.O.S.? If I'm ever hurt really badly... I'll text you guys one or something. That work?"

Sam and Tucker both nodded, and Sam moved a little ways away from Danny. "...You can sleep on my bed, Danny. Tucker and I will grab some air mattresses or something."

Danny lifted his head once again, "Sam, you don't have to, I don't-"

"Dude, you just about got shish-kabob'd by Skulker." Tucker spoke up, "You should take the really comfy bed, we'll be fine, and we didn't almost get skinned."

"I wasn't almost skinned," Danny muttered, "He just kind of... Cut my side... Yeah..."

Sam and Tucker exchanged a glance, a little concerned by the fact that Danny sounded so relaxed. They could only chalk up so much of what he did to the painkillers -of which he had taken an unhealthy amount of- but the way he could so easily dismiss a ghost who wanted to outright kill him...

It wasn't natural.

Little did they know that eventually they would be wishing desperately for that Danny back very soon.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Two weeks later, and three days after Danny had apparently joined up with Valerie to rescue his 'cousin', Sam awoke late in the day after staying up until 2:57 in the morning playing Doom with Tucker.

She reached over beside her, slowly picking up her phone to check the time.

1:36... Darn it, Tucker, why did you make me stay up so- oh. I have a text?

Pressing a few buttons brought her to a screen, which revealed that the text had come from Danny at 3:02 the morning before, Sam bit back a groan.

Great, five minutes after I went to bed. What did he want?

She pressed a few more buttons on her phone, and nearly dropped it on her face in shock. She threw it aside, jumped out of bed, and quickly threw on some clothes before running out of her house in a panic.

Danny's text had been simple; S.O.S.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Maddie opened the door to the sound of frantic knocking. On the other side was Danny's friend, Sam, red-faced and nearly out of breath. She had her hands on her knees and slowly lifted her head.

"...Did you just run all the way here from your house?" Maddie asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sam's only reply was to slowly raised her head and half whisper, "Danny..."

"He's... In his room," Maddie supplied unsurely, and Sam pushed past her. Maddie looked after the girl with a look of confusion, which only strengthened as Sam bumped into Jazz who had been coming down from upstairs, muttered Danny's name once again, and both girls rushed up the stairs.

Maddie stayed where she was for a moment before closing the door. That was odd- very odd indeed. She was considering going after them, until Jazz's ear-piercing scream reached her ears.

There was no moment of consideration- Maddie ran up the stairs faster than she should've been able to. Sam and Jazz had opened the door to Danny's room, Sam was all but hugging the doorframe as she muttered 'no' and Jazz had fallen to her knees with tears streaming from her eyes.

Maddie was behind them, looking into her son's room within moments. What she saw caused every motherly instinct in her to rise up in her.

From the window, dragging along the ground, was a trail of glowing green ectoplasm with bits of red- is it blood? Oh my God, oh my God- that pooled up right beside Danny's bed with a lot more red present.

And her son- her baby, her boy, her Danny- was nowhere in sight.

Maddie's scream as a result was perhaps the loudest of all, "DANNY!"

.-.-.-.-.-.

Tucker showed up and hour later, having gotten the same text. When he saw the same thing Maddie, Sam, and Jazz all had, he freaked before rushing into the lab and telling the Boo-merang to 'find Danny'.

It came right back to Tucker- as any normal boomerang would.

No matter how many times he tried and what he said- "Find Daniel!", "Find Danny Phantom!", "Find Danny Fenton!", "Find Phantom!", "Find Fenton!"- it wouldn't lock into Danny.

It was if he wasn't there.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was Jack who found the Fenton Thermos stashed under Danny's bed, nearly twelve hours later. Maddie emptied it into a Ghost Shielded area of the lab within twenty-four.

It contained the robotic ghost, Skulker. He ranted about with the new weapon he had used, and how with a wound as deep as the ghost child had gotten, there was no way he could survive. Skulker claimed that he had created a knife that would override Phantom's healing abilities, and stabbed the ghost boy almost completely through from his left side to his right, angling the blade upwards as he did so.

Maddie and Jack weren't exactly sure why Jazz had burst out in tears and accused the ghost of being a liar. Or why the ghost had just laughed in reply when they asked about their son.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was two days after that when Vlad caught wind of Danny's disappearance.

Jazz, desperate for any chance to see her brother again, told him everything.

Maddie and Jack weren't sure why the robotic suit of the ghost they were keeping had been rendered nothing more than scrap metal, or why the Wisconsin Ghost produced and completely obviated a small green frog-like ghost from the suit before disappearing into the Ghost Zone.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was seven days after the initial incident when Jazz, Sam, and Tucker told Maddie and Jack everything. About the portal accident, about Danny and his powers, about how he tried his best to be a hero, about everything.

Maddie cried. Not only had she been hunting her baby boy, but now he could very possibly be dead. Because she wasn't a good enough mother to notice the fact that her baby wasn't going through a rebellious teenage phase, but was in real danger every day.

Jack cried. He'd threaten to rip apart, to kill- his own son! His little boy!

And now Danny was gone, and Jack would never be able to tell him he was so, so sorry.

.-.-.-.-.-.

They reported Danny missing. What else were they supposed to do? The police asked questions, and wanted to see the area where he had disappeared from.

Maddie found herself doing her absolute best to wash the blood and ectoplasm out of Danny's carpet so not to raise any questions they couldn't answer.

She didn't want the police to be snooping around anyway. Her baby was dead. How could he be alive? That ghost, that monster, had killed him because he thought of her son as nothing more than a hunting trophy.

And because Maddie didn't notice how badly her son needed help. Not until it was too late.

.-.-.-.-.-.

The search for Danny lasted a month and a half before Jack called it off.

He couldn't put his family through that much more pain.

They had a memorial service for Danny two weeks later. Many accused the Fentons of giving up on their son, but Jack didn't care. He wasn't giving on his son- no, Danny was dead. Danny was gone.

And not even a miracle would bring him back.

Not even a miracle could bring him back.

.-.-.-.-.-.

The town forgot about Danny Fenton in less than a week. They went back to focusing on the disappearance of Danny Phantom, and how Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, and Jazz Fenton now spent all their free time hunting ghosts. They briefly focused on the fact that Jazz had apparently given up her plans to attend college so that she could focus on ghost hunting.

Sam and Tucker tried to convince her that it wasn't what Danny would've wanted, but Jazz didn't seem to care.

After all, unless her brother showed up to tell them himself that he wanted Jazz to go to college, she'd continue to hunt ghosts.

Because in the end, keeping the town safe is what she knew Danny would've wanted.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It had been three and a half months since Sam and Tucker had received the texts.

Fourteen weeks. Ninety-eight days.

Tucker knew. He'd counted.

He found himself sitting in the park, alone. It was getting colder, it would be winter soon, but Tucker didn't care.

Winter meant Christmas. Christmas was the holiday Danny all but hated.

And with his best friend gone, Tucker found that he'd be able to hate Christmas too.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed- the signal that he'd gotten a text. Tucker quickly pulled it out, pressed a few buttons, and nearly dropped it in surprise.

He'd just gotten a text reading S.O.S.

A text from one Danny Fenton.

I think my angst is showing.

Wait, no it's not.

Thoughts, anyone?