I don't own Danny Phantom, nor Les Misérables.

Castle on a Cloud

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She felt as if she were trying to relearn the basic methods of breathing. Mentally instructing herself, she shifted her weight and opened her eyes as her consciousness returned.

Before violet eyes danced silvery pools of crimson red, some of the blood trickling down her waist, over her skirt and down her legs onto the ground. She was laying on her side, one arm crumpled (and broken as it felt) beneath her. Her dark hair was in her face, sticking to her face with the combination of sweat and a light rain.

She slowly pushed herself up, and she felt her back connect with a cool, hard surface. She turned, only one of her eyes clear, and saw that she was underneath a giant slab of what appeared to be plaster and wooden boards.

A fallen wall.

She groaned and clutched her side, warm blood trickling over her hand as pain shot through her. Her vision flickered as more of the soft rain fell through the crack in her haphazard wall shelter and trickled down her body.

She slowly crawled forwards, her hand falling on the warm leg of her friend. Her love.

She pulled herself to be level with his still form, lying on his stomach, his head cradled in his arms. His back was soaked in blood, his raven hair a mess and in his face. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing.

She smiled, becoming aware of a faint siren somewhere in the distance. She had partially come out from underneath the rubble, and noticed that the sky above them was dark, the street lamp next to them bent neatly in half from the force of the explosion.

On her right was her other friend, dark-skinned and unmoving, not even breathing. He was lying on his back, turned to one side. His right arm and hand turned up as if accepting something.

She lowered herself over them, brushing the hair off of her love's face, and touching the cool cheek of her dark-skinned friend.

Her mind was racing through many thoughts. Hundreds of things were coming to her at once; regret, fear, uncertainty, sadness. Grief, even, knowing some of them had already passed on.

But all of that began to swim in her mind, and slowly faded, like someone had turned off her thoughts as her vision started becoming darker and hazier. All she could do was remember a sweet, simple song. It was a song she learned as a little girl in a fancy private day care somewhere, from a famous musical. But she taught it to her mother and when they were still close friends, her mother would sing it and hum it with her. It was the only thing that she kept with her from her childhood.

She had never seen the musical, nor knew anything about it. She had read the book, and had sung the song over and over to herself hundreds of times while reading it. She had never really understood what the lyrics meant.

But now, she did. The lyrics came to her, the tune simple and lovely. The words started making sense, and she began taking comfort in them as she opened her lips and her voice curled out, still as sweet and pure as when she was young.

And she sang it to them.

"There is a castle on a cloud… I like to go there in my sleep…"

She pulled her love's dark hair behind his ears and touched his cheek, feeling it's warmth. Maybe he would live.

"Aren't any floors for me to sweep… not in my castle on a cloud."

She gently moved her dark-skinned friend's arm, placing her own hand in his cold one.

"There is a room that's full of toys… there are a hundred boys and girls…"

She laid her head nearer to him, her strength dissipating.

"Nobody shouts or talks to loud… not in my castle on a cloud."

She gently moved her dark-skinned friend closer to her love, and leaned on her love's side, closing her eyes, singing softly in his ear.

"There is a lady all in white, holds me and sings a lullaby. She's nice to see and she's soft to touch… She says…" She took a breath and whispered into his ear.

" 'Cosette, I love you very much.' "

She stopped, her mind almost gone. She knew what was going to happen to her. She knew she wasn't going to be one of the ones who survived.

Had she known what was going to happen, she wouldn't have come when her friend had told her to. He had said "There's something wrong, his parents have been contacted. They're going to the Nasty Burger. Let's follow."

Something was wrong, alright.

They were all going to die now.

She closed her eyes and lay down between her two friends, wishing her final moments to be with them. She moved up right against him, the one she had fallen in love with. His body was still warm.

She whispered.

"I know a place where no one's lost… I know a place where no one cries… Crying at all is not allowed…" She breathed deeply, her last breath releasing from her lips as she murmured the last line of her forsaken lullaby.

"…not in my castle… on a cloud."

When the firefighters talked to each other later, one of them would touch his friend and say "The only reason I found them underneath that part of the wall was because I heard someone singing. It was very soft and sweet, but sad. Almost like a lullaby."

Take's place right after the Nasty Burger explodes in the precursor to The Ultimate Enemy.