Potential

Characters: Valerie Gray, Dani Phantom

Summary: Dani Phantom is back after four years away, and Valerie can't help but notice how she's changed.

Valerie paused, blinked, then paused again.

Dani Phantom was back.

She was also very… different then she had been four years ago. Valerie blinked again at the ghost girl that had just casually landed in front of her on the sidewalk.

"Do you need help?" The other girl asked, referring to the groceries that Valerie had tucked in brown paper bags under each arm.

"Dani?" She pronounced slowly, still trying to consolidate the person in front of her with that she remembered.

"Of course, who else?" She giggled, then tilted her head. "Unless you're talking about Danny with a 'y'. In which case you're a little off. I have a few things he… doesn't." She winked. She honest to god winked. Despite this, Valarie felt she had spent enough time in stunned staring and instead decided to just accept that this was her life.

"I don't need help, but if you're offering…" she gestured to one of the bags, and Dani smiled and took it with glee, floating six inches above the ground with her knees slightly bent. This position left her at roughly Valerie's height whereas three years ago she would have been staring at Valerie's stomach. The height was not the only change, nor was it the change that had most stunned Valerie. She was older.

It really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Growing up was what people did. Yet, somehow, seeing Dani do so made her a bit dizzy.

The Red Huntress estimated that Dani had been about twelve when Valerie had been fifteen and first meet the girl. Now, she looked to be around sixteen. Her waist was more cinched, her hips wider, her chest less flat, her muscles streamlined. She was still a bit on the small side, but it was clearly not because she was a child.

"Long time no see," Valerie started as they walked towards her apartment.

"Yup. Been out 'finding myself' you know? It's a bit harder to do when you're a three quarter-ghost clone,"*

"I'd imagine. You look good," Valerie complemented. Dani ducked her head and blushed a subtle green.

"Thanks, you don't look too bad yourself. I see you've continued your exercise and stuff,"

"You better believe it, girl." Valerie flexed her free arm, showing off the well-developed muscles of an athlete and martial artist that it sported. Some guys on the street complained that she was too built. She told them to go screw themselves. The big bonus of having a ghost powered super suit built into your nerves is that you don't have to worry about the kind of run-of-the-mill danger that men in trucks presented.

Dani reached out and touched the flexed arm, eyes going wide in awe. Valerie smirked. She'd be lying if she said that didn't boost her ego a bit. Though, Danny would say her ego didn't need any more boosting. Speaking of Danny…

"Have you seen your cousin yet?"

"Brother," Dani corrected reflexively. Then she blushed and rubbed the back of her neck the same way Danny did. "We've seen each other in the Ghost Zone here and there and kind of decided we're more siblings than cousins a few years back. Obviously, I'm the better looking free-spirited one." Dani double wiggled her eyebrows in a way that made it clear the pun was intentional. Valerie rolled her eyes. It seemed they also shared a sense of humor. If you could call it that.

"Mmhm. Right. Well then have you seen your brother since you've been back here, today?"

"Nope. I kinda don't know his address anymore. I was gonna head over to Fenton Works to ask his parents, but then I saw you and figured it'd be easier to just tag along,"

"He told you we're rooming?" It had been beyond difficult to get her daddy to let her room with a boy for her second year at Amity University, but she finally managed to convince him that it was just easier for both their secret identities if they didn't have to make excuses to the person they lived with every time they went missing, came back with injuries, or got fired for ghost reasons. Valerie thought the thing that had finally brought Daddy around was reminding him that whenever she got hurt Danny would be able to help her and visa-versa. They protected each other, it was a good arrangement.

"Yup. A few months back. You guys weren't exactly super friendly last I remembered, so it was a surprise. In fact, it was a surprise when he told you his secret in general. I'm glad, though. I don't really know many non-ghost people, but now everyone I do know is, officially, getting along." She smiled a big dopey innocent smile that was a lot like Danny's, but also something a bit different. Less 'trying-to-be-optimistic-because-I-always-want-to-see-the-best-in-people-despite-the-fact-that-my-luck-is-shit' and more 'genuinely-optimistic-because-people-suck-but-shit-goes-my-way-anyway'.

They made it to the front door of the apartment building.

"Do you want to duck out and transform to human? Walking in with a ghost is less than subtle,"

"Err, I haven't really been human in a while. I doubt I look very presentable…"

"Girl, look around you," Valerie laughed. They weren't exactly in a pristine part of town. "This isn't a five-star hotel. You'll be fine. The apartment number's 41, though. Meet me up there if you don't want to transform here,"

Dani nodded with a small smile and blinked out of the visible spectrum. Valerie nodded and continued inside.

She waved at the 'receptionist' where he sat watching an old static-prone television and went through a side door that revealed a dusty concrete stairwell. She lived on the fourth floor, so as far as she was concerned every day was leg day.

Finishing her quick climb she moved to the beige door with a tarnished silver plaque that read '41' and patted down her sweatpants for her keys. Before she had to look too hard though, the door swung open to reveal Dani on the other side. She looked vaguely annoyed as she moved aside to let Valerie pass.

"A ghost shield?" she asked as she rubbed the side of her head, accidentally pulling some of her white hair out of the long braid it was worked into. Valerie laughed.

"Your fault for not entering through the unlocked window instead of through the wall."

Dani stuck out her tongue.

"Some warning would've been nice. Seriously, one of the people who lives here is a ghost, why would you have that?"

"Because both of the people who live here are regular targets of ghosts and we both decided we'd rather not be blindsided in the night. At least this way we know if a ghost's coming there are a limited number of entrances… and it was funny to watch Danny bump his head on the ceiling, walls, and side of the building for the first two weeks before he got used to it." She placed her groceries on the counter next to the bag Dani had already set down and started putting them away. Dani crossed her legs and hovered in the living room. Unlike Danny who usually put an elbow on his knee and rested his head on his hand when he did that, Dani leaned backwards and 'braced' her hands behind her on a 'floor' that wasn't there.

"Nice place you got here," she said, looking around.

Valerie paused where she was lifting her protein shakes to the cabinet and glanced at the collapsing couch, worn carpeting, shelf stacked with disorganized rolls of bandaging and a few boxes of other first aid supplies, slightly glowing book randomly moving around the coffee table, and broken bazooka leaning in the corner, all interrupted up by the occasional blood or ectoplasm stain. She stared pointedly at Dani where she was turning greener by the moment.

"Mmmhm," Valerie hummed unconvinced. Dani shrugged.

"I didn't say it was perfect, but you can't argue that it's unique," she tried. Valerie found a laugh bursting out of her mouth despite herself.

"Can't argue with you there," she admitted. She finished putting away the groceries, making a note on the whiteboard they kept on the fridge to tell Danny to refreeze their freezer (it broke a month back and they had realized having Danny fill it with ghost ice that only melted every few weeks was a fine alternative to taking time out of their day to get it fixed or replaced) and moved to collapse onto the couch. It gave a protesting squeak and hurt her tailbone, but it was familiar.

"Danny's at work, but I just got off. Usually, I nap before patrol time, but you wanna watch something?"

Dani smiled widely and touched down on the couch.

"Know any trashy horror movie channels?"

Valerie snorted, "Do I ever, that's Danny's favorite genre, too."

If Valerie had been the less observant sort, she might not have noticed the slight frown that graced Dani's features, but she was and she did. She made a note to herself to try not to compare the two again, out loud or in her head. Still…

"There's nothing wrong with having some of the same interests," she dared to offer while grabbing the remote (despite the attempts of the floating book to knock it away from her, and she told Danny not to leave his weird Ghost Zone memorabilia in the living room).

Dani darted her head in Valerie's direction, then relaxed.

"I know," she admitted, "listen, why don't you pick a movie? I'm gonna go to the bathroom and de-transform, make sure I'm decent."

Valerie nodded as she brought up the tv guide.

"It's through that door." She pointed at the door in the opposite corner. Dani nodded and floated towards it, only to bump her head again.

"Hey!"

"Ya, Danny liked to do the same thing in the morning. You can see why that became an issue."

Dani snorted and opened the door like a polite normal person. Once it closed behind her, there was a flash of light from the gap underneath it and a solid thump as Dani, presumably, finally touched the ground behind it.

Valerie found a channel that was currently showcasing a giant black and white spider putting one of its legs through a car with a screaming lady and settled down to wait. She really couldn't understand the appeal of these movies when their entire lives was literally a trashy horror movie, but who knew how often Dani got to watch TV? She'd let it slide just this once.

There was shuffling behind the door and the sound of running water from the sink.

"You got any hair ties?"

"There are rubber bands under the sink; in the q-tip case,"

"Thanks!"

Valerie watched the spider rear backwards and break a storefront. Some guy who was probably supposed to be the police chief shouted for military assistance.

The bathroom door opened and Valerie was forced to look right away because of the burst of color that caught the corner of her eye.

"Wow,"

"Um, ya, got it done some time back while I was having an… identity crisis, of sorts. Do you like it?"

Dani had worked her hair into two purposefully messy braids that ran over each shoulder in contrast to the one neat french braid that her ghost half bore. Also unlike her ghost half, these weren't white, nor even their natural black. Instead, they were the bright fire engine red of someone who wasn't even aiming for a natural hair color. It made her blue eyes look even lighter and brought out the light splattering of freckles on her nose and cheekbones that were hardly visible on Danny (Damn, there was a comparison, which was probably what the red hair had been trying to avoid). Regardless, it really did give a new dynamic to her look.

"I love it," Valerie admitted truthfully. Dani shuffled a leg and ran her hands down one of the braids.

"Really? You don't think it might be a little too much?"

"Do you like it?" Dani nodded enthusiastically.

"Then it's great and anybody who says otherwise you tell to f-buzz off,"

Dani laughed, "You don't have to censor yourself. I've lived for five years in the land of the dead. You wouldn't believe the people I've meet and the things they'll say. I'm pretty sure I know curse words from every language and era in time. I am psychologically sixteen you know." She put her hands on her hips.

"I know, I know, sorry. So, about your travels in the Ghost Zone, what's with the getup?"

Not that Valerie had expected her to still be wearing the same clothes from when she was a kid (though the red beanie seemed to have stuck around, tattered as it was) but the outfit she had on was decidedly strange. Her top seemed to be made out of furry bandages that wrapped around her, leaving slivers of skin visible here and there, and continued down to her wrists. Her bottoms were composed of a flared mini-skirt that seemed to be made out of some sort of leather material and leggings made out of whatever the top was. The whole thing had a thick red cloak draped over it and she was barefoot.

Dani turned pink.

"The cloak is a gift from Dora, from when Danny introduced me. The furry thing is a gift from a tribe I found living on a different floating island. They were pretty cool and I lived with them for a month. My human form had grown out of my old clothes, so they let me have these. The skirt was from another ghost I meet. I think her obsession was either clothes or skirts specifically and she said she thought it suited me,"

"Well the whole thing's not exactly public wear. Do you want to borrow some of my clothes while you're here?"

"Could I?"

"No problem." Valerie stood up and pushed open the door to her room.

The space wasn't necessarily clean, what with the homework filling any space on the desk and the random ghost guns and parts for ghost guns scattered along the floor and under the bed, but she knew it beat Danny's room, so she counted it as a win.

"Any color preference? Warning, I'm pretty limited in color choices." She made her way to her closet and looked at her various gray and black outfits. To her relief, Dani asked if she had any orange or red. Red was a no go, but orange was the one color she happened to be a fan of. She pulled out a sleeveless orange turtleneck sweater that was skin tight on her, but would probably be a bit baggy on Dani, and some inevitably gray yoga shorts. She vaguely wondered whether Dani needed a bra too, but quickly decided it was a moot point since none of Valerie's' would ever fit her anyway.

When she walked out, Dani was giggling at the movie, and Valerie threw the clothes at the back of her head, which they draped over nicely.

"Hey!"

"Too slow,"

Dani stuck out her tongue for the second time today and moved back into the bathroom.

Since Valerie figured it would take a while to get the wrapping off, she decided to heat up some dinner.

"Dani, you want something to eat?" she called out.

"Sure, what you got?"

"Chicken with rice. Leftovers,"

"Sounds good, got any ketchup?"

"You're a monster," because despite what anybody said, rice and ketchup did not belong together. Interestingly enough, Danny agreed with Val on that one (and there was another comparison, but at least it was a difference).

"And you're a philistine,"

Valerie snorted and retrieved the tupperware from the fridge. There would be just enough for the two of them (like most roommates, she and Danny didn't share a grocery bill. In this case, it happened that it would be unfair to Danny, who ate like a mouse compared to her own calorie loaded diet. Regardless, she still had to deal with the bottom drawer of the fridge being dedicated to blobs of pulsing ectoplasm that she couldn't understand how he stomached eating as they smelled like dirty copper). Then she realized there was probably more than enough for the two of them, as Dani probably ate less than normal. She wondered if the ghost girl would also like some ectoplasm with her meal. When did Valerie's life become this weird?

Dani stepped out of the bathroom and Valerie was surprised all over again. This time it was by the impressive light green tattoo that swirled elegantly but thickly all along Dani's right arm. That and the fact that her legs looked incredibly fine in those shorts.

"That a permanent tattoo?" she asked as the microwave beeped and she took out the first plate.

"Yup. It was a gift from another tribe of the ghost zone… well, more of a reward. They were on the weaker side with more basic powers, and I saved them from some asshole who was trying to take advantage of that. You should have seen them, they were covered in tattoos like this. It was really pretty. They said this one means something along the lines of 'courageous one' and it glows in my ghost form, but I guess you can't see it under the sleeve." She wandered back over in the direction of the couch. Valerie was very impressed by the tattoo thing, she promised she was, but she still had a moment of thought to note that those shorts did very good from behind as well.

The second meal beeped from the microwave, and she searched for two mismatched forks before she brought them both over to the couch, grabbing the ketchup under one arm.

"That's pretty cool. I've heard of a few groups of people here that commemorate special events with tattoos. I wonder if the ones you meet were some kind of predecessors or maybe even inspiration for those peoples." She sat down and handed Dani her plate. While she did so, she debated making another comparison out loud. She knew she promised not to, but she also thought Dani might want to hear this one, so she risked it. "You know, Danny would never get a tattoo." Valerie's guess proved profitable as Dani perked up with her fork still in her mouth.

"Really?" She asked as she pulled it out, watching the love interest of the trashy movie that was still playing faint as the spider ate someone. Despite the fact that Dani's visual attention was on the movie, Valerie knew she was waiting for an answer.

"Yup, it's just not his thing. Manson tried to convince him to get one for months, even managed to convince Tucker, but Danny was firmly in the 'no' category. Told me he thought they were cool on other people, but he just didn't really see the personal appeal,"

"Interesting." Dani smiled and looked rather pleased as she settled back to really watch the movie.

Valerie did the same but spent just as much time sneaking glances at the ghost girl. She was short and thin, but the clearly defined muscles on her legs and arms kept her from being able to be classified as anything resembling 'pixie-like'. Valerie had also remembered that her abs were just as hard from when Val had seen them while Dani was in Phantom mode. Her red hair in the braids and beanie definitely gave her a bit of a punk vibe, but without any of her own clothes to tell, Valerie couldn't say if it was intentional. Dani snorted at the movie and then laughed a little, which brought some nice color to her cheeks. By conventional standards, she might be considered a bit plain. Valerie decided that she was kind of hot.

It wasn't a new development. Valerie had pretty much always known she was bi, but she had also always been more attracted to guys. In one last comparison, she tried to determine whether she found Danny or Dani more attractive… She realized that living together and having to patch up each other's injuries, sometimes in rather dire situations and requiring the removal of a lot more clothing than society might see as appropriate between an uninvolved guy and girl, had pretty much desensitized her to the attractions she knew Danny possessed. Despite their former attraction, she could look at the two objectively.

She realized there was really no point in comparing them. She didn't know enough about Dani's personality. She didn't even know if she intended to go anywhere with this attraction, or if it was possible to.

Valerie leaned back on the couch as planes rained bombs down on the giant spider, resulting in a leg being blown off across the screen.

Dani took a giant animalistic bite out of her drumstick. Valerie didn't watch her as she licked her lips afterward.

Really, she didn't.

AN:

I've been sitting on this one for a while. This will be a one-shot series focusing on Dani and her interactions with the girls (and a few extra) of the Phantom-verse. Next up: Jazz.

* My own headcanon. It just doesn't make sense to me that Vlad was able to create a female clone with minimal problems but then needed 'mid-morph DNA' for a male clone. You can say Danielle was unstable, but remember that her problem was solved by some ecto-dejecto, something that strengthens ectoplasm. If that were possible for a full halfa, you would think Vlad would just do something similar with the male clone. Basically, I think to create Danielle he used a bit extra ectoplasm, which is easier to shape into a sentience, so she's a little more ghost than she is human.

Please Review, and tell me if there's some specific situation you want Dani to find herself in with one of the characters.