Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or the song "Carry On, My Wayward Son" by Kansas.


Carry On, My Wayward Son

Ever since that day… That day when Phantom fell from the sky. When Jack and Maddie Fenton, ready to finally capture the ghost boy, found instead the still form of their son splayed in the crater. When blood seeped into the cracked and fragmented concrete. When Mother and Father fell to their knees, screaming. Ever since that day…

I never left for college. I went to Amity U and lived at home. My parents were disappointed, but I couldn't leave. I was bound to this godforsaken city just as much as him, because of him. I couldn't leave because he couldn't leave. Because he had to be him, I had to be there at three in the morning to lay him in bed, to wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes, to rub salve in his wounds, to sooth him. He would cry out in pain, and I would stroke his hair and sing. "There'll be peace when you are done." I'm not much of a singer, but he seemed to like it. He could finally relax and sleep through the pain. He could finally sleep.

Ever since that day, the city would congregate. Night after night, no matter the weather. No matter what apparition had terrorized the town. No matter who had died. A candlelit vigil would amass around a large, stone monument. I didn't like going there. I couldn't look at the carved stone without thinking of the limp, empty mass of flesh entombed within it. And yet every night I would come. Just the same. Just like everyone else. I would join my mom, my dad, my classmates from Amity U… his classmates from Amity High.

Ever since that day, they call out for him. They need him, they say. They plead. They sob. I sob. "Lay your weary head to rest."

People have asked Mom and Dad when he'll be back. "Soon!" they say. "He has to come back soon!" During the day, before they leave to join the others at the cemetery, they huddle by the ghost portal. "Soon!" they say. They wait.

I just can't break it to them, but he won't be coming back. They never heard him, but I heard him. "I'm… I'm just really tired. I just want to sleep." Ah, he had a long day, they thought. But I would frown and follow him to his room. I would get out the first aid kit, and I would sing lullabies. "Don't you cry no more."

I just can't break it to them, but he won't come back as a ghost. I know he won't.