Disclaimer: Danny Phantom, the world set within it, and the characters in it are not owned by me - that privilege belongs not only to Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon, but also just as importantly to the vast team of co-writers, co-directors, animators and all other staff who laboured over its creation and development. Without their efforts this fanfiction would not exist, and neither would a good portion of what struck me in the first place in one of the most childhood-defining cartoons in my life.

"What a joke," Paulina spat, scrolling through the rest of her feed. "Are these people really this hellbent on vilifying you?"

I continued to lay on the sand, my head cushioned by my hands, with a mellow sorrow that resurfaced since the first time I met Paulina on this shore. "And the rock tumbles back down again…"

"Danny, honestly. 'So obviously fake and gay, lol'. 'No way that hideous monster and that octopus aren't in cahoots together.' 'The Fentons are right, he could've killed the school pulling this stunt and still would achieve the same thing'? This is such. Bullshit!"

She slammed her fist into the sand, before running her hands through her hair in an attempt to calm herself. I sit up, laying my arm across her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," I said. I don't even know why I apologized; obviously this was absolutely not on me, but still nevertheless, the words shot from my mouth. "I should've just not even asked you to pursue this. Maybe- " I groaned, unable to piece my words together properly " -maybe we should just drop this."

She stared at me as if I had grown a third eye. "Are you serious? Danny, are you going to actually help yourself, or are you going to give up a loser?"

Her words stung like venom. One glance at my pained reaction, and her expression rapidly softened. "No, I'm sorry," she quickly retracted. "That was uncalled for."

I shook my head slightly. "Your words aren't completely untruthful," I admitted.

She sighed. "Danny, you give up now and all of the work that's been done is just gone, into thin air. Drop this? No way in hell. In fact, shouldn't this make me even less likely to drop it?"

She diverted her attention back to her phone, still fuming. Granted, the news hadn't been all bad - the site was still teeming with praise for me, some now having the seeds of doubt of what happened with Miranda being planted in them. But of course, social media had been split between those and even more vile accusations.

And of course…

Paulina opened a video of a rally in Central Park, with a considerable mob forming around the stage.

"They are manipulating the truth of what happened," My father roared into a microphone. "Don't be fooled by these vile creatures. They have conspired to… to-"

"They're trying to make themselves look good to cover something," my mother intercepted. She bellowed with such conviction that every pair of eyes in the crowd could not be helped but be fixated on the two of them, in the crowd and even out. "They are making themselves look like heroes, but we know they are just trying to hide something, something that you and I know. And that, is that they are murderers!"

The crowd veered along with her, some even raising their fists in defiance with various unintelligible insults thrown my way. News cameras surrounded the stage and several reporters with microphones were present as well. No protesters, nobody to say that there wasn't a lick of evidence behind their words, none.

I shouldn't have been surprised - after all, the defectors that I was aware of were but a fraction of the true population - but all at once it felt like I was floating in outer space, completely lost and surrounded in complete emptiness. Listening to them airing out their hatred made me feel even more claustrophobic than before - I mean, after all, the whole reason I had to leave my identity under wraps was almost solely because of people like them. I could tell myself that I was protecting my loved ones from association, or I could trick myself into saying that I had to live my life as if I hadn't possessed otherworldly powers.

But at the end of the day, if my parents were to discover their own child was a ghost, would they accept him? Or would they simply disown him on the spot, or worse yet, would they not hesitate to obliterate him, molecule by molecule?

The answer was getting increasingly obvious.

I felt a tightness in my chest, and pulled my knees to my chest. It was getting more difficult to ignore that this task wasn't just an uphill battle, but an entirely losing game on top of that.

"You're not going to take this lying down, are you?" Paulina queried. "We'll have to show them. Somehow, one way or another."

I looked into her eyes that were filled with a determination and fire that I knew would never ignite within myself. I simply didn't have the energy to mask the gloom that spread across my face, and I simply gazed despondently.

"I'm not sure what to think anymore," I disclosed. "I know I have to be strong and face it head-on, but is that even possible? It feels like facing a steel wall head-on, you know? My skull could absolutely, possibly break it, but not before I perish from a concussion..."

"Hey, we'll figure it out," she consoled. "I know how you feel. We can turn it around; it might just take a little bit of time, but we could just lay low and try to be as good as we can possibly-"

"Do you actually, though?" I spat, a little bit of jealousy foaming at my mouth. "You're the daughter of a real estate tycoon and your name is the first name on everyone's minds in your high school. Do you even know what it would be like to be me?"

Her eyes widened; a subsequent confusion crept across her face. "How did you…"

"Have you even been anything close to my position?" I pressed on. "People love you, Paulina, everyone knows it, even I do. Had you even been the victim, had you even been vilified so much by everyone that people want your head on a stake? How can you even claim to know what it's like to be at the bottom of the mountain, when you're looking down from the goddamn pinnacle?"

She stared at me with soulless, crestfallen eyes, and that was when I knew that I had touched a raw nerve. Even though we both knew the words that spilled from my mouth were clean of falsities, of course, that wasn't a reason to lay these accusations onto her; the fact that she looked at me like an illusion had been fractured in her eyes only crushed my heart even more.

"No, I'm sorry," I apologized again, clutching my head with my hands. "That was too far. Way too far. God, and now you're probably going to hate me, and I have no one else to blame but myself…"

She inched closer to me, and placed her arm around me. "I don't hate you, Danny," she assured. "I… I suppose I understand where you're coming from when you said that. They're not entirely false, but I mean, am I not in the same boat as you are? People can see my face and check my name instantly, they see me as a, what, 'supporter of a murderer', I'd be a conspirator as well. I suppose though… that's probably not as bad as what you're going through right now…"

"That's not fair," I retorted, and my arms reflexively wrapped around her too, my fingers tracing her hair and my muscles tensing possessively. "I'm the one dragging you into this mess, too. And… you know, just because you're not going through the same magnitude of trouble I'm in, doesn't mean that it's less if you think it's bad. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you," she replied, her fingers tracing my arms carelessly. "What was that one saying again? Love means never having to say sorry? I know you didn't mean it, Danny, and if there was a person you'd vent your feelings to… I'd rather it be me."

"No," I rejected. "You don't deserve that kind of shit."

I sighed, pulling away and placing both of my hands on her shoulders. "I wish I could do something for you, too, you know Paulina," I said. "I don't want to be just, dead weight for you to help me like a… like some helpless victim, you know?"

She pursed her lips, her eyes darting downwards in thought. "Danny… I don't really need you to be anything other than yourself. Maybe… I wish you could have confidence in yourself and persevere through this. I know it's hard but… this city - this world, even - needs you."

I leaned forward a little, pulling the corner of my mouth into a somewhat defeated scowl. She was right, of course. This world did need me. Of course she had been right this entire time, about where I needed to be and where I needed to get there.

But then again… I needed me too.

Every time I gazed into her glimmering teal eyes, I could feel my heart racing. If I wanted to keep going, if I wanted to feel like I was actually doing something worthwhile, there was really only one person that really had to be treated like royalty here. My patience had basically all but evaporated. My heart was hammering away so fast that I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. What was even the point of living in the worst of both worlds, subjecting myself to torment while already being punished by the world? What was the point of shackling myself when I was already drowning underwater? All reason had faded away.

"Pau?"

She blinked rapidly. "Y-y-yes?"

"If there's someone here… anyone that could give me that confidence and persistence, then that person…"

"What do you mean?" She brushed her hair from her eyes. "That person is-"

"You… you don't hate me, do you? You still… you still like me? Like… like me?"

"Wh-... Of course I still like you, Danny, I don-"

"Again."

She simply stared back at me. I shook my head, forcing the issue. "Say it again. Please, Pau."

"Danny." She looked into my eyes, with all the conviction that I needed even without a single word uttered from her lips. "I like you."

I leaned forward and claimed her lips with mine.

I felt her tense up on contact, but nevertheless, the explosion of fireworks burst forth instantly. I could still smell the same scent of oranges and vanilla, roses, jasmine, but only accentuated this time by the taste of her. The desire to just let my wild imagination get the chance to be actualized flared like the surface of a star within me. I hesitated, waiting for her to send me any signal, and with the lack of a reaction, a cold streak of doubt and dread passed through my mind - perhaps I had gone too far. Why did I decide to do this, so out of the blue? It was like I've ruined everything, maybe this was the time to just-

To feel her kiss me back was like having a glacial lance pulled from my chest; to feel her hand hold my cheek, and lean deeper into the kiss, was like electricity buzzing with every contact point I had with her. I pulled her closer to me, embracing her and letting the warmth of her skin permeate through mine. With every small pull away of her lips, her breath overflowed and she moaned ever so quietly, almost inaudibly but enough to leave imprints of goosebumps on my white-hot skin. The sensory overload that enveloped my brain - the smell, and taste, and touch of her, it was reverting me into a wild animal.

I roughly pushed her forward onto the sand and crashed my lips into hers again, the brief trepidation of not knowing if I had overstepped dissipating the moment she met my intensity, her hands reaching up and entangling her fingers in my hair. Several cables of restraint began snapping within me, and I continued to kiss with more ferocity and force, my hands curled up into fists smacking against the sandy floor in a couple of thuds. My mind had gone blank, only vulnerable to the sensation of a thousand comets colliding in the air. It felt so good to tower over her like this, my body steepled over hers, my tongue granted entrance into her mouth and tasting this forbidden fruit that had always been ripe for the taking for me.

I wondered how many barriers I could possibly break right now - how crazy was it anyway, that I could've easily pressed on ahead like this without even sparing a second thought, and she would've let me anyway? It felt almost manipulative, and was the whole reason why I couldn't have even bothered advancing my way with her. But I refused. It was just unfair, anyways, to have to live like this with one small stopgap from actually getting what we both wanted. It was really simple. It was all just simple enough like that.

When I pulled away and saw her eyes well up in tears, the sadness and guilt came crashing down again. I really did hurt her, didn't I?

But of course, she smiled at me, and chuckled. "Danny, you have no idea how long I've waited for you to do that," she said.

I shook my head. "I'm tired of this, Paulina," I confessed. "To hell with this, this stupid invisible barrier that I've put up between us. I've always wanted to do that too, you know?"

The shock immediately registered within her. "You have?"

"From the moment I met you," I continued to spill, and I could see a spark of elation on her face. "I just… I've always wanted this. But I have to hear it from you."

"Hear… it?"

"Hear you say that you love me," I said. "I know it's selfish, and it's stupid, and it's borderline abusive, but… I want to hear it from you."

"I love you, Danny."

The ease in which the words dropped from her mouth, the way it felt like music to my own ears, the way that it felt like every fear and every burden had evaporated almost instantly, it was an unmatched feeling. I almost wanted to laugh just out of sheer joy, just to feel connected to someone and to feel like someone - someone that I'd had always been attracted to, no less - had my back, in a way that not even my family nor my friends had.

Selfish. "Again."

She chuckled, wrapping her arms around me as she stared up at me with such an earnest, genuine fact of affection that it felt like my heart was melting all over again. "Danny Phantom. I'm in love with you."

A brief silence ensued, with me revelling in the happiness bubbling within me, probably the stupidest grin plastered across my face, before she spoke again, sporting a wry look. "Mi heroe, I gotta need some reciprocation here too, you know. I wanna hear it from your mouth too."

The words that poured forth from my mouth had been locked within the recesses of my mind, always a part of me but never needed to be said aloud, until today. "I love you… Paulina."

Her face flushed pink, and she averted her gaze, speechless. I laughed heartily, still steepled on top of her. "How was that?" I offered, grinning. "Was it better than you ever imagined?"

Her face grew even redder, clearly ruffled. "Sh-shut up," she whispered, still refusing to look me in the eye.

Gently, I pressed my lips against hers again, my breathing hitching as I instinctively sucked on her lower lip. I had to memorize this taste in my head, for this scent to come like a second part of me. I pulled away, my chest heaving and my nose touching hers. "I hope it was," I breathed, one of my hands reaching up to cup her face.

"Do you want to just remain like this for a bit?" she offered, her hands outstretched skyward towards me.

I nodded, sinking my body until I was chest to chest with her, our breathing now completely in sync with each other. "I'd like that," I agreed. There truly was only one person on my mind, and only one thing that I really wanted to do, only one state of mind that I wanted to reside in. And if I could reside in that state of peace for the rest of my life, and escape these troubles, and escape from the tribulations of this world, then that would be more than enough for me.

I closed my eyes, letting the sound of the small waves rolling onto the shore mix with the sound of our decelerating breathing. I reached for her hands with mine, cradling them gently as I let myself savour the warmth of her touch. This truly was our safe haven, wasn't it? Nothing from the external world to pervade our own bubble, nothing to tell us that we couldn't, nothing to tell us that this wouldn't work. If so, then so let it be.

"Te quiero, Danny," I heard her whisper in my ear, and I felt her nestle closer to me. If I was going to be branded a villain, if people were going to go after my head, if people were going to throw away every act of heroism I gave, then honestly?

Fuck that.

I might as well not add on to the suffering others gave me, and do something for myself.

For me.

For once.