A/N: This update's coming up a bit faster than the last chapter :P

For those of you waiting for Danny and Ember to get together, you won't have long to wait 😊 Though that also means the story is starting to approach its conclusion as well. To be honest, my hype for Danny Phantom has burned itself out a while ago, but it wouldn't be right for me to leave this fic unfinished when it's by far my most successful work. I'll be finishing this fic (or at least, the main part of it) faster and earlier than what was originally intended, but I WILL finish it. Only something REALLY disastrous could stop me from fulfilling that promise.

Chapter 53 – Dinner and a Good Time

The entire stadium was silent as Danny and Ember wound down their final song, still amazed and stunned at how different it was compared to their others. Danny inwardly began to sweat, wondering if he had somehow miscalculated their song choice.

Then, the audience exploded into the loudest and most deafening cheers that Danny had ever heard in his entire life. If Ember hadn't warned him ahead of time of just how loud crowds could be, he swore that he could've been literally blasted backward by the sheer volume and force of their accolades.

Ember pumped her fist in the air with a delighted grin on her face and the crowd began to chant both her name and his at the same time, the flames that made up her hair bursting forward at a level more intense than anything Danny had seen from her before, even during the many battles that he had fought against her before their friendship. "Thank you, Amity Park!" Ember shouted to the crowd. "Let's give one last round of applause to our special guest, Danny Phantom!"

"DANNY! DANNY! DANNY!" the crowd screamed as Danny awkwardly waved back, too blown away by all the adoration and attention to do anything else. Thankfully, Ember dematerialized in a whirlwind of blue flames, giving Danny the cue to fly away into the air like a green comet and vanish. Unbeknownst to the audience, however, both of them were "merely" meeting backstage behind the curtain like they had arranged before the concert.

"You blew it away, baby pop!" Ember laughed as she held out a fist, which Danny fistbumped with a grin of his own. "You were every bit the rocking sensation you were in our practices and a heck of a lot more!"

"Man, I'm just glad that I didn't find a way to screw it up," Danny muttered. "Up until Clockwork gave me that new realm, everything in my life kept going to crap in one way or another."

"Well, thank God that you always pull through when it matters, baby pop," Ember playfully replied. Danny was about to reply when Sam and Tucker suddenly ran onto the stage in what Danny worriedly noted appeared to be panic.

"Uh, guys?" Tucker got their attention with a frantic handwave. "We've got a bit of a problem."

"The crowd is really cheering for Danny," Sam provided a bit more detail. "I think they're gonna try and mob him hero-worship style when he shows up again."

Danny groaned and smacked his face with his hand. "Oh, God no…" he groaned. "This is part of the reason why I kept my secret identity hidden for so long. If they don't want to rip me apart molecule by molecule, they want to bow down at my feet all day every day."

"I thought your parents didn't care about you being a half-ghost," Ember commented.

"They don't," Danny elaborated, "but I didn't know that back then."

"Fair enough," the ghost rocker conceded. "Generally, I think the more fame I get the better, but even I'll admit that there are times when it can annoying. Or creepy. We could just sneak out, what with the whole disappearing thing we can do and all that."

"Yeah but then we'd end up disappointing our fans," Danny countered. Ember rolled her eyes at Danny's heroic selflessness popping up at the worst possible moments. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "I've got an idea!"

Ember blinked. "Wow, that was fast. Okay, let's hear it!"

/

The crowd outside of the stage was chanting furiously. "We want Danny! We want Danny! We want Danny!" All of them had been taken completely by surprise by Danny's musical performance, and they were eager to know how he had become a rocking sensation to match Ember McLain from out of the blue.

Suddenly the curtain drew back slightly and Danny stepped forward. The crowd cheered enthusiastically as Danny waved at them with a shy grin on his face. "Hey! How's it going?" he asked. An unintelligible roar of approval was his answer. "So I've heard that you guys wanted to ask me some questions." He spread his arms out. "Obviously I can't answer every single person's question or we'll be here all week, so I'm going to just going to give you the answers to what I've heard are the most common questions."

The crowd died down and allowed their hero to speak. But unknown to them, the figure currently on the stage was merely a duplicate created to deal with the task at hand. The real Danny and Ember had vanished and were quietly sneaking away from the stage, with only Sam and Tucker trusted with the knowledge of their escape. "Damn, baby pop," Ember whistled once they were safely out of sight of the stadium, "that's gotta be one of the sneakiest ways I've ever seen duplication used."

Danny grinned. "Starting to think it might be favorite power outside of the Ghostly Wail," he replied as they rematerialized. He looked around to make sure that nobody was around. "So, uh…what happens next? Go home?"

Ember laughed. "Nah, baby pop, concert might be over but the night's just getting started. Whenever my crew and I had a successful concert, we would always celebrate by eating out at a nice restaurant somewhere. I've actually got quite a bit of money stored up from sales and stuff, even if I don't show it off, so I don't mind giving my band a nice little treat for doing so well."

Danny blinked. "So you're…inviting me out to dinner?" he clarified.

Ember raised an eyebrow. "Why, you've got somewhere to be?"

"No," Danny shook his head, "I'm just a bit surprised, is all." There had actually been a bit more to it than that – for a wild second, he had wondered if Ember had been asking him out on a date together. But he had quickly shut that thought down – she was simply treating him to a nice dinner both as a friend and as a fellow rock partner.

Besides, he wasn't sure if Ember actually thought of him like that, and he had to be the one to make the first move. His experiences with Sam had taught him that.

"Sure," he continued. "I wouldn't mind."

"Good answer," a voice interrupted before either of the two friends could say anything, "cause if you refused I was going to make you disappear with my kiss ability and then force you to appear again at that restaurant."

Both Danny and Ember turned to see Johnny and Kitty on their motorcycle a few feet away. "You two totally rocked everyone's world tonight," Johnny praised as his shadow gave them a thumbs up. "I've been at a lot of your concerts before, Em, but I've got to say that Danny brought the badassery up to a whole new level! You should have started singing with him ages ago!"

"Well, it's not like baby pop made his musical talents common knowledge!" Ember retorted. "Besides, up to a few months ago we were enemies!"

"You sure it wasn't just BST?" Kitty mumbled out of the corner of her mouth so that only her boyfriend and his shadow could hear. Both of them had to fight the urge to collapse to the floor laughing, and even then they failed to suppress a bout of snickers.

Ember's eyes narrowed. "What was that?"

"Nothing!" Kitty cheerily replied. She had only been joking anyway – she knew better than anyone else that the only positive emotion Ember had had for Danny before they had become friends was a grudging respect for his willingness to deal with the Ghost Zone's biggest threats, and that was it.

"Anyway, where were you guys planning on eating?" Johnny asked.

Ember smirked. "You know the place," she replied.

"A bit higher up than the usual class? Well, you can't just go to The Sapphire Ambience looking like THAT!" Johnny gestured at the two of them. "You're sweaty and everything!"

Ember raised her hands in a pacifying gesture. "I know, I know. We're gonna change out of these rock star clothes first."

"So I have to change into a suit?" Danny asked. "I've never been there before."

"Nah," Ember shook her head. "It might be expensive and high class, but the people there really don't care much about appearances as long as you don't wear something incredibly stupid and outrageous. To be honest, I was kind of hoping you'd wear that black biker-style leather jacket that you wear nowadays in the Ghost Zone. It fits your style more than any stupid tuxedo ever could."

Danny grinned. "I can do that," he agreed. "I always hated wearing suits. They're so stuffy and annoying."

"I'll meet you at The Sapphire Ambience at 8:30 PM?" Ember asked.

"Heck yeah!" Danny replied with a laugh. "It'll be nice to have a fun night out in the living world for a change."

"I'll take you back to your house," Johnny offered. "I can help you get to the restaurant real quick. You don't want to be late for a dinner with a girl, date or no. Trust me, I have experience." Danny wisely decided not to ask what kind of experience Johnny had to make that statement. He got onto Johnny's bike and the two rode off. After they had gone, Kitty turned to Ember. "Come on, Em, we need to get back to the Ghost Zone quick. I've gotten Wulf to open up a portal near your realm so we can get you ready."

"What's the hurry?" Ember asked, surprised by her friend's urgency.

"This is the closest you've gotten so far to a real date!" Kitty gushed. "And no, I'm not talking about Skulker's screw ups. You've got to make a good impression on Danny!"

"Geez, calm down!" Ember exclaimed. "I'm not dating him!"

"Maybe not now," Kitty thought in her head, "but you will be very soon. I'll make sure of it!" Not wasting any more time, she grabbed her friend's hand and all but dragged her over to the location she had arranged with Wulf. "This is the first real chance you'll have at getting a boyfriend who's also a good person," she thought. "It's something you've always wanted even if you don't remember that, and as your best friend I'm going to do what I can to make it happen."

A few hours later…

Johnny's motorcycle raised through the streets, its invisibility and intangibility activated to avoid attention and causing accidents with other vehicles on the road. Thanks to the motorcycle's speed, they were able to reach The Sapphire Ambience at 8:25 PM, right on time.

"Thanks for everything, Johnny," Danny gratefully thanked him as he got off the motorcycle.

"Hey, no worries," Johnny brushed it off. "Besides, Kitty was gonna kill me if I didn't help you out." There was something in Johnny's tone that seemed a bit strange, as though he were hiding something, but before Danny could think about it further Johnny rode off into the night, leaving Danny at the restaurant.

The Sapphire Ambience was a rather small restaurant but Danny could tell that it was still a high quality establishment. Lights glittered all around its surface and the outside was decorated with blue restaurants, complete with a glittering walkway leading up to the entrance with small lamps twinkling on either side.

"Looks like you made it right on time, baby pop!" Ember's voice called out to him. He turned around to wave at her…and it took every ounce of his willpower to stop his jaw from dropping at what he saw. Though she still wore her signature rock star makeup on her face, Ember had gone out of her way to prepare for their night out. She wore an elegant black dress that extended all the way down to her feet and she had let her fiery hair flow freely down her back.

It was amazing how these small changes made her seem a lot more beautiful than she already was.

Ember smirked at his blushing face. "Like what you see, baby pop? We can't just sit here and wait for you to stop gawking, our reservation is in a few minutes."

"Uh…yeah…" Danny barely managed to regather his wits as he walked alongside Ember into the restaurant. The inside of the restaurant was just as beautiful as the outside, with golden highlights that matched perfectly with the blue curtains on the windows. Despite this elegant atmosphere, there was a type of informal cordiality about the place that Danny didn't expect, and in the far corner Danny could even see a guy wearing a T-Shirt and jeans of all things.

"Told you this place doesn't care about what you wear," Ember responded as she approached the counter. The attendant smiled knowingly at the two teens and beckoned for them to follow him over to a table right next to one of the windows. Danny looked through it to see a beautiful view of Amity Park outside, wondering if this was the first time he had seen the city at large without an enemy ghost getting in the way to ruin things.

"You know, these guys seem pretty okay with you being a ghost," Danny commented, finding his wits fully for the first time. "You didn't even try to hide behind a disguise or anything and that guy didn't seem to even care!"

"We have a bit of an agreement going on," Ember explained. "I bring my crew here to eat and they don't ask any questions, and in exchange I don't try any of my world domination plots or cause any collateral damage around here." She shrugged. "They don't really complain at all, it's not like I'm forcing them to give me food for free or anything. Of course," she added, "they're a lot happier about this now that I'm not going for those world domination plans anymore."

Danny nodded. "Not really much of a surprise," he replied. "Though I have to say, I'm glad that these people aren't trying to swarm us. I mean, you're Ember McLain and I'm Danny Phantom, it's not like we're exactly low profile."

Ember smirked. "One of the rules of the restaurant – mind your own business. You'll look like a real idiot if you get kicked out of the restaurant for breaking that rule, and most people who come here are smarter than that. We might get some odd looks every so often but just ignore'em."

"All right." A waiter came by holding two menus and gave one each to the two teens. Danny ordered a chicken breast with garlic-potato puree and arugula salad, while Ember ordered a prime steak sirloin with mustard oil and peppers on the side. Once the waiter was gone, the two turned to look at each other.

"So, was there something you wanted to do before the whole hero thing?" Ember asked. "I mean, you can't be telling me that you went into the Ghost Portal and zapped yourself on purpose…did you?" she asked that last part uncertainly.

Danny shook his head. "Nah, that was just an accident. I can't really call it bad luck, with how well things have turned out in hindsight. Before this all started I was hoping to be an astronaut."

Ember raised her eyebrow. "Really?" she asked, clearly surprised. "I wasn't expecting THAT answer."

Danny laughed. "Yeah, I've always wanted to go into space. Of course, I technically already DID that when I handled that whole Disasteroid mess. I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to do now, especially now that I know that I could technically go into space in my ghost form and come out fine."

"Really? How do you know?"

"My dad banished Vlad out onto some floating rock when he realized just how much of a fruit loop he really was," Danny explained. "Since he had to have been floating there for some time before Clockwork rescued him, he probably turned out fine."

Ember shook her head. "Testing that out might not be the smartest idea," she said dryly.

"Yeah," Danny chuckled. "I'm still not sure if NASA's in the cards anyway. Being a hero really ate up a lot of time, and even though I saved myself with the CAT my grades still aren't all that great."

The ghost rocker snorted. "Baby pop, you're Danny Phantom. Any university you want to go to is gonna be dying to get their hands on you, no pun intended. Hell, you could probably get straight Fs in high school and you'd still have a gold star on your app."

"Well, luckily I never let it get to that point, thankfully," Danny replied. "Thanks for the reassurance, though."

Ember grinned. "No problem, baby pop. Besides, it's the truth."

The waiters delivered their food right as Ember finished her sentence. Danny eyed his food hungrily, but remembered his manners in time to avoid making a fool of himself. The two began eating, Ember's ghost physiology not affecting her ability to eat regular food in the slightest. "I didn't know ghosts could eat regular food like that," Danny commented as he finished his latest bite.

"Sure we can, it's just that ectoplasm tastes better usually," Ember explained in between bites. "Although fancy restaurants like this one can top the quality."

"So what do YOU do when you're out in the real world?" Danny wondered. "Every time I see you out here, you were always either holding a regular concert or trying one of your take over the world schemes. I honestly don't remember you doing anything more…normal."

Ember shrugged. "I didn't always come here to do concerts or things like that. Sometimes I just like to visit other places on Earth, or at the very least in America. I've done that kind of thing before on tours while using the disguise thing that Spectra taught me, but it's nice not to have to deal with any of the usual crap all the time. Otherwise, things would get boring, and I hate boring."

"You and me both, Em. So what kind of places have you seen?"

Ember started listing various locations off her fingers. "Chicago, Mt. Rushmore, Indianapolis, the Great Lakes, places that aren't too far away from her here. And I always keep a low profile, cause I don't want the GIW coming after me."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because I always imagined you wouldn't give a crap about them."

"I don't, but I'm not stupid," Ember countered. "As long as I keep my base of operations around Amity Park, baby pop, the GIW don't need to waste anything coming after me when you're doing their job for them. And all you do after capturing us in that stupid thermos is send us back through the portal. But if I start causing trouble away from here, then that might get the GIW on my tail. And I don't want to know what'll happen if they catch me instead of you."

Danny suppressed a shudder. His parents had been incredibly enthusiastic about tearing ghosts molecule by molecule, and even though the GIW were probably more professional in their attitude about it he had a feeling their approach would have been very similar to their parents. And now that he genuinely cared about Ember, he didn't want to imagine that kind of thing happening to her.

"Even if the GIW didn't come after me, I'd probably keep a low profile anyway when going out of town," Ember continued. "Like I told you before, much as I love fame, even I'll admit it can get pretty annoying when it comes up at the wrong time."

"You're telling me," Danny groaned. "Let me tell you, the weeks after I revealed my secret identity were some of the worst. I got swarmed by fans day after day, and got so much fan mail I could probably make a mountain out of it." He then proceeded to tell Ember about the time somebody had sent them their underwear to autograph, causing the ghost rocker to nearly collapse in a bout of hilarity.

"Thank God my fans aren't that insane," Ember muttered once she had recovered. "Maybe next time I go out travelling somewhere I'll invite you to come with me," she offered. "I bet you'd love to get out of this grungy old city."

Danny grinned. "If I'm not too busy, I'd love that," he replied. He looked outside the window again and sighed. "You know, if somebody had told me four months ago that Ember McLain would be one of my best friends and I'd be the hero of the Ghost Zone, I would've laughed so hard Clockwork would've been able to hear it from his tower. And yet, here we are."

Ember smiled at him, a much gentler and more genuine smile compared to her usual smirk. "All joking aside, baby pop, you really have done some pretty amazing things over the past few months. Thanks to that realm of yours, there's actually things to do and enjoy in the Ghost Zone without us having to screw around with living world to have fun. The fact that you don't hate us after all the crap we put you through says a lot about how cool you actually are. Clockwork definitely made the right call putting you in charge as Champion."

Danny returned the smile with one of his own. "Thanks, Em. Coming from you, that means a lot. And I have to tell you, Em. Even before we stopped being enemies and became friends instead, I honestly liked you more than most of our enemies. You weren't insane or violent like so many other ghosts I could name. The worst I could say about you minus the whole world domination thing was that you have a bit of an ego complex, and honestly I could say the same about the jocks in school."

"Don't compare me with those morons!" Ember chided. But there was no real bite in her voice.

"You're an amazing singer, Em, and a lot better person than I thought you were back when we first met," Danny finished. "And I'm glad you're the first old enemy who became a friend."

Ember didn't say anything for several seconds, because she didn't know what to say. The last time a guy had complimented her like that was back when she was still alive, and unlike that bastard from the past, she knew that Danny meant every single world he had said. In the end, all she could think of to prevent her brain from shutting down entirely was to repeat Danny's words. "Thanks, baby pop. Coming from you, that means a lot."

"You're welcome, Em," Danny answered back, and the two fell in silence for several moments. The waiters came by with the check, and Ember paid for it. Danny had moved to pay for his own meal, but a look from the ghost rocker stopped him. Ember had made promised that she would pay for the meal, and she intended to keep her word in full. After she had paid, her eyes seemed to glaze slightly, and Danny could tell that she was lost in thought.

"Danny," she finally began, and Danny immediately recognized that she meant serious business, "do you remember a long time ago when you asked me about my past?"

"I do," he answered with equal seriousness, "and I promised I'd keep that under wraps. I won't even put it in the Fenton Ghost Database."

"I think I'm ready to finally tell you," Ember admitted. Danny's eyes widened in shock as she got up from the chair. "But before I do, we need to go somewhere first."

"Where?" was the only word Danny could think to ask.

Ember looked straight into his eyes. "Amity Park Cemetery. Where my gravestone is."

/

A/N: And that's a good place to wrap up this chapter. Would you consider this a date? They're not QUITE at the level of boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but they are very, very close to it. And though Kitty and Johnny might have gotten the ball rolling, it's up for Danny and Ember to make the final move.

Hope you guys enjoyed!