At first, nobody realized it. After the excitement of saving the world from the freak asteroid they were all just too happy to go back to a normal life, well as normal a life as a ghost hero, a newly appointed mayor, and an activist ghost hunter could be.
A year later, he was still one of the shortest kids in school. (At least nobody teased him too seriously for it.) A few years pass, and his friends outgrew him.
Sam had begun to tower over him once they were entering college and even before that Tucker could easily use him as an armrest.
As the years continued to pass, it grew more and more obvious. He wasn't the only one to notice how different he didn't look.
He thinks, it might've been better if there was some great dramatic reveal but it was all very anti-climatic when he found ou- no, not found out. Acknowledged, he knew it deep within himself even as he only tried to bury it with the memories of his now relatively normal life.
He remembers looking through the scrapbook of his time in Casper High with his sister. He remembers how she left the room when she had to answer a call now that she was a trained professional. He remembers looking at the photos and reminiscing on how different everyone looked... Everyone, except him. He remembers looking at a mirror, or was it the window, his phone? He sees that his face had not changed even when the way he dressed had, even when his hair had.
He still had the same face and for a moment he thought about how this was ridiculous, he saw his future self in Dan Phantom, clearly, he had aged but... Dan Phantom was an amalgamation of the ghost halves of Vlad Plasmius and the Future Danny Fenton, which he did not know what looked like.
Did the other Danny from that other time even get to be an adult? No, he remembers now. That Danny lost everything and what? He couldn't compare himself to the Danny who never got to be an adult proper.
He thinks of Vlad and did Vlad age? From the images he'd seen before his parents put them away because it still hurt them, his father more so, to think about what had become of their old college friend. He doesn't know and he didn't want to see his parents grieve on what could've been.
His sister returns to the room. He thinks she says she has to go, he's glad she doesn't notice the turmoil happening within him and he wonders when the door shuts if she knew about what was happe- wasn't happening to him.
Slowly, carefully he closes the scrapbook and lays it on his lap. He doesn't notice how much time has passed but he thinks he hears his phone ringing but he finds that he couldn't care less past through the haze of his own mind.
It is midnight, fitting he thinks, when he comes to his decision.
He grieves for what could've been but he can't keep pulling his friends and family back. He thinks even if his relationship with Sam had never fully become romantic he knows that this decision will hurt her the most.
(He wonders if she knew, if she started to push back their dates in favour of his rallies because she couldn't take seeing how he still looks like the fourteen-year-old from when they were only beginning to get used to the weirdness of ghosts.)
He grabs a pen and a notebook and begins to write. If he left without a note they'll only worry more and try to look for him thinking that he was taken away by someone or hurt.
He leaves the notebook on top of the scrapbook. He knows Jazz will come back for it.
He sets aside some of his most important things, mementoes to remember them by. Even though he wants them to think of him fondly as a memory of the past, he doesn't want to forget them.
--
Jazz visits her brother's apartment a week later. She remembers how she left her scrapbook and has come to take it back. She also remembers how her brother had practically gone missing.
He hadn't responded to any of her calls or her texts. She hopes her brother has only been in another one of his "quiet times."
She doesn't exactly know when it started (a few years ago? Her little brother had still been a student of Casper High, she thinks)but the first time it happened he had worried everyone he knew and it's strange to think that it had become a semi-regular behaviour for him.
She had worried a week earlier but that worry had been easily pushed aside with her being busy with work and sure that her brother would be over his funk considering how it lasted only a day or two.
...but then a day or two, became three, then five, then soon a week had passed.
The worry she feels is now gripping her close. She feels her heart stuttering and she finds that she can't breathe quite right because- because Even when her brother was so deep in his funk he never failed to answer the door.
She has half the mind to rush in and just break down the door when she decides to settle herself first. She can't help her brother if she's happening. It's been a week of radio silence and she can't do much other than cause a scene if she panics now.
Maybe her brother is just asleep, overlooking himself again. (She hears a sarcastic voice in her head telling her how 'refreshingly optimistic she's being.)
She takes a deep breath and looks for the spare key, she keeps with her at all times for emergency situations. She never did tell Danny about it.
She opens the door and finds that the apartment is neat and there's no sign of a fight whatsoever. Still, She doesn't let her guard down.
She makes sure to keep a hand close to her more powerful ghost weapons just in case.
She wanders around and finds that there is nobody in the apartment and how everything is surreptitiously neat. Then she hears the knock.
knock, knock, knock*
The person behind the door keeps knocking.