I do not own Danny Phantom.
Present
On Christmas Day, Valerie Gray thought she'd opened all her presents, but she peeked under the tree and spied a little green box with a silver ribbon. All the other presents had been wrapped in colorful Christmas paper, but this one was so simple. Just a box and a ribbon, with a little tag that said "Val."
"Who's this from, Dad?" Valerie wondered.
"He asked me not to tell you, you should just open it," her father replied.
"Okay . . ." Valerie carefully undid the ribbon and opened the lid. Inside was a folded piece of paper that commanded "read me first" on top of some tissue paper. She squashed her curiosity as to what was under the paper and opened the letter.
Val,
I'm sorry I don't have the courage to do this in person, but I'm tired of hiding who I am from you, and I'm tired of pretending. So I'm going to tell you a story, and I hope you'll read the whole thing. I'm asking you to believe the impossible, but I hope you will, because every word is true.
The story starts with a normal fourteen-year-old boy, or as normal as someone from his family could get. His parents were inventors. They'd been working on a huge project for a long time, but it didn't work. They were devastated. Their son, with a bit of urging from his friend, went inside the machine. He put on a hazmat suit and walked in, his hand along the wall for support in the dark tunnel. He didn't see the "on" button until it was too late.
The invention turned on with him inside. And it hurt. When the boy woke up, he had white hair and glowing green eyes. He was a ghost, but not a true ghost, only half. The other ghosts called him a 'halfa,' half a ghost, half a boy. This is the point where you may stop believing me, because even to me it sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
A few months later, the boy discovered a use for his new-found powers. Helping people. He wasn't very good at it at first, and more than a few things happened that he wishes he could have stopped. Most of all the incident involving a dog, Axion labs, and one Valerie Gray. He never intended to cause her father to be fired, and he wishes he could have apologized. Well, I guess he's doing that now.
The boy couldn't control the dog, he barely had control over his own powers, and it just wouldn't stay in the ghost zone. He's gotten better in these last two years, and he won't ever let those kinds of things happen again. Finally, people are calling him a hero instead of an enemy, but the one he really wanted approval from still hunts him.
By now I'm sure you've guessed that this story has been about the early after-life of Danny Phantom. What you don't know is that he's still not just a ghost, but a halfa. Human. In ghost form he goes by Phantom, but his name was and is, Daniel Fenton.
I hope you can forgive me for all I've done, I never meant any of it.
Danny
Valerie was speechless, she didn't know what to think or what to feel. She slowly put down the letter and grabbed the box, pulling up the tissue paper. Inside was a long necklace on a silver chain with a simple pendant. It was a metal Danny Phantom insignia, the words 'I love you, Valerie' engraved on it.
She put both the letter and the necklace back in the box and ran to Danny's without a word to her father. She arrived at the large brick house, and walked up to it slowly. Valerie knocked, and when the door opened, there stood Danny wearing a Santa hat.
Valerie hugged him tight, "Can you ever forgive me, Danny?"
Danny smiled and hugged her back, "There's nothing to forgive." Valerie broke down in tears and in that moment, she knew she believed him. She looked up into his sky blue eyes and wondered how she never saw it before, the hero he was and is.
"I love you, Danny Phantom."
Just some fluffy fun I had, not supposed to be serious. Really, Valerie accepted everything way too easily and the whole thing was pretty cheesy. Oh well, just another reason we need a "fluff" genre here!
-Vi