A/N: Hello, Day 3 Section 2 of Phanniemay! I started writing this for Portal, stopped, wrote Fate instead, and rewrote this using the prompt Dream. Admittedly, I like this one better than the first draft, but that's just how things go. This fic will be cross-posted to my shiny new tumblr too, the link to which is on my profile if you're curious.
This is just a little introspective fic about Danny and the portal, which then changes into why he walked in, which changes to daydreams, which changes to astronaut stuff. I'm sorry if it seems a little OOC, but regardless of that I had fun writing it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or Phanniemay, but I do have a tiny blog and an account on fanfiction!
"C'mon Danny, a ghost zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out."
"Y'know what? You're right. Who knows what kinds of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of that portal."
Danny sighed, reclining against his hands. The cool metal roof of the Op center felt nice against his hands as he pondered the words that rang through his mind for the umpteenth time. He couldn't help it, not really; it had been exactly one year, to the day, that he got his ghost powers, and ever since he woke up that morning he couldn't stop thinking about it.
Why had he walked into the portal back then? He'd been thinking all day, and yet every single time he tried to come up with an answer for himself, it felt... off. Like it was just an excuse, like he hadn't walked into the portal only because of Sam's suggestion, like there was something missing from his answer.
Actually, none of the ghosts had bothered him today either. Did they know it was his sort-of deathday today? (He still didn't know about this whole "half-ghost" thing, but he figured that was a question he could think about some other time). It would make sense, but he wasn't sure how he felt about the entire ghost zone knowing that today was the day he'd stepped into the portal.
It would also explain why it felt like every single ghost in the zone had decided to escape from the ghost zone after he put them back at least five times. In the Box Ghost's case, ten to twenty times.
Every. Single. Day. For the past week.
Danny was exhausted, but he had to admit; this reprieve, though nice, left him feeling even more anxious for later, once the day was officially over.
He frowned; why did the ghosts always go through his family's ghost portal, anyway? Vlad had a portal, but he supposed he wouldn't want to go through Vlad's mansion just to get to the human world either. Didn't natural portals open up all the time? He supposed that there was never any guarantee as to when it would close afterwards... But, where did those come from? His mind instantly supplied him with the image of an amorphous blob of ectoplasm randomly pulling open various doors before slamming them shut at random intervals of time. Sometimes it slammed them shut instantly, other times it opened a nearly obscene number of other doors before going back and closing it slowly.
Suddenly he wondered about different worlds. If the human world was connected to the ghost zone, and the ghost zone's portals could open up at any period in time, did that mean they could open up to alternate time periods and universes too? This time he couldn't help but think of himself, running through a door or a natural portal with a rope tied around his waist as he dove through the natural gateways of the ghost zone. Danny snorted; Sam and Jazz would never agree to the idea. They'd sooner tie him to a rock, just so he wouldn't go off on his own like that. On the other hand, he was sure Tucker wouldn't mind. His mind dutifully placed Tucker at the end of the rope with Sam and Jazz screaming at both of them in the distance, and Danny couldn't help it.
A single laugh, followed by another, then another, and again. His laughter echoed over the neighborhood, hysterical and carefree. He wasn't even entirely sure why he was laughing anymore, because that mental image definitely wasn't that funny, but for some reason he couldn't help but feel uplifted as he fell back, leaning against the now almost freezing metal of the ops center. It took a good few minutes, and still he gave a little giggle, but eventually Danny got his breathing under control. He relaxed, feeling his core hum inside him in contentment at the cold steel below him as he spread his arms and stared up at the dark sky, the sun having set some time ago.
The bright grinning expression on his face faded to neutrality when he remembered what it was he was thinking about earlier. His past distress was gone, and a dulled sense of confusion took its place. The effort necessary to bring his mind back on subject seemed like too much to be worth it, so instead he opted to shrug off the confusion and simply lie there. As his breathing evened, he finally noticed the stars that twinkled above him. His parents, already aware he was up on the center roof, had shut off the neon sign that marked their home, leaving his view of the sky unobstructed by the glaring lights.
With his mind clear, Danny's mind drifted, his lips quirking upwards as he traced out the familiar patterns above him, a near overwhelming sense of calm filling him as he stared at the gradient purple and blue hues of the night sky. He thought of the stars and the nebulae, the black holes and the possibility of alternate life out in the universe, the endless void so full of things no one could imagine.
For a single breathtaking moment in time everything seemed to stop and make sense, and in that single moment Danny smiled.
The reason he'd walked into the ghost portal one year ago was the exact same reason as to why he wanted to be an astronaut in the first place, wasn't it? It was the same reason why he loved to stare at the stars and wonder, the reason he would sit and think of what lay beyond each door he came across in the ghost zone. Danny could still remember when he was younger, when he would daydream of the possible life forms and planets, the different stars and discovering things that, before, had been nothing more than speculation.
He paused in his slightly straying thoughts. Was his dream of being an astronaut really intertwined with his reason for stepping into the portal?
Yeah, he decided, it is.
Danny let out a contented sigh, satisfied. Having his answer, he let his eyes drift shut and fell asleep, his dreams full of the reaching sky, the glimmering stars and the endless gateways to other worlds, encompassed by the unknown.
In the morning he would wake up on the roof of the ops center, refreshed and left with only a fading sense of satisfaction and relaxation as a reminder of his thoughts from the previous night, those feelings vanishing as his ghost sense went off. He would only vaguely remember what it was that had bothered him the previous day, but as he finished up and went to empty the thermos before school a seemingly stray thought would pop into his mind, making him grin up at the portal entrance and filling him with an eager warmth.
He hoped he'd be able to find out what was out there beyond those other portals too, someday.
A/N: I really think there's something just absolutely amazing, about the thought and knowledge that there are things that will forever be beyond our understanding, knowing that there's so much we haven't seen or that we don't know about. In that way, I suppose I can count myself as being a little bit like Danny? Writing this fic took my breath away and just gave me the greatest of feelings, I hope you guys enjoyed it, even just a little bit.