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.

The moment that I put them down, Tucker and Sam went straight to the laptop, firing off the fan site. The escape plan was almost miraculous in how it worked - the timing in which I lingered just enough to make my transition stick, the rapidness in which I flew over to them and hightailed my way out of there as fast as possible, my heart hammering away in my chest as I did so. I didn't even stick around to hear Luke's response after transforming, but from the quick glance I caught of him, if I had to discern it for myself, I would have said that behind the shock on his face, was still a glint of awe.

"What's it like, Tucker?" Sam voiced, doing her best to hide the nervousness from slipping into her tone.

I thought that I experienced the first spark of joy in a long while, when Tucker's eyes lit up and his posture straightened. "Yeah, they're eating it up," he informed us. "Just read some of these… people on both sides are really going ballistic here…"

'He's just a kid… he's literally in the high school opposite my street, how can he be a mastermind conspiracy theorist like people say he is?'

'They're monsters. Both of them, they should be in jail and the CPS should have been involved yesterday.'

'How did they manage to birth such a monster under their care? They've lost my vote for sure.'

Of course, there were the full fanatics who loved them so much that it only fueled their energy - after all, good for them for cutting ties with a murderer right? - but it was as clear as day that people were starting to turn around. Some rumblings were present about how innocent I was, just an 18-year-old thrust straight into the heroic frontline earliest at 14 - but most of the ire was now directed at Jack and Madeline.

People hated cruel abusers, but not as much as they hated cruel abusers who were also stupid as fuck.

"Yeah, I can see the activity spike now," Tucker surmised with satisfaction. "Look at all the people who flaked when Dash died now coming back saying they always supported Danny, heh."

That was the last I heard of the matter, as I immediately began to search the house, room to room, corner to corner, corridor to corridor. There really was only one thing - one person - on my mind. And with every room that I searched only to find empty, it was like a part of my heart withering away, gray petals of a dying flower bouquet floating away.

I shook my head, reaching straight for my phone - with the number associated with Danny Fenton, according to her own phone - and punched in her number. With every whir or the dial tone, the dread only set in more and more, like the venom of a snake bite rapidly circulating around my bloodstream. And then the drop of the call, and then another frantic punching in of her number, and the whir.

Whir. Whir. Fuck! Whir. Fuck!

Maybe - no, of course, definitely, she didn't want to talk to me. Obviously she needed the time to process this. What was I doing, trying to disrupt her in her time of making sense of things?

But where was she? Where was Mr Sanchez, for that matter? It was like they had vanished in thin air - it was a Sunday, after all, there was no way he'd be at work, given he was just there in the living room watching television. Did he whisk his daughter away, leave no trace here? Did they just leave this place forever? But all their stuff was here… but, but even then…

I confirmed it for myself when I reached the basement- they were both definitely gone. I punched in Mr. Sanchez's number - again, with the whirs, but this time, the dropped dial tone kicked in faster. I shook my head as I headed upstairs.

'Paulina,' I wrote into the text message. 'I'm okay with giving you as much time as you need. Just let me know if you're fine. Even a 'K', please?'

I debated whether I should have even written the follow up - like it would have helped at all, if I wanted to give her the space. But at the same time, I was so desperate to keep everything together, and I thought… even just something to preserve, just something to hang on…

'I hope that we can at least remain friends, Paulina. I'm so sorry. I wish I could tell you this in person. I really am sorry.'

"You can't find her at all?" Sam voiced, in disbelief, as I re-apparated in the study room and shook my head in response.

"They're gone. Can't reach them at all, neither..."

"They? Oh no…" Tucker muttered, pursing his lips together grimly. "We-... should we call the police? File a missing repo-"

"Of course not," Sam snapped at him. "We're already hiding from the police, you think we should even be involving them at this stage?"

We continued to stare at one another, and with every passing second, it was becoming clearer and clearer that all we could really do was wait, again. God, waiting again, for the public to morph their perception, and be completely out of control about it, and then having to wait for Paulina to make her decision…

I took a deep breath. So.. this was it, huh? This was how my most guarded secret would be disclosed - not in the midst of fanfare, not even in the midst of a highwire act to preserve it, but in a bold declaration as my final statement to the world? Like my last words before being hung to death?

I looked down at my phone. Years ago this would have been step one of my fantasy - to reveal my secret to Paulina, let her know that I was indeed the person she was pining for. The only real step two was for her to reconcile them together and fall in love with me properly. Of course, I remembered once, when she was overshadowed and seemed to discover my secret in the water park. For a short while it'd been a dream come true, that now I could only replay in my mind, in my bed just ruminating over what could've been. A dream that I had spent 4 years wishing for her to accept me and fall in love with the human side of me…

It felt stupid, reckless, to just put all my eggs in that basket. But this was all I had left.

Then again… I knew this was it, anyway. If she was going to leave forever - then, that was that. This had to come to a head eventually, from what I could extrapolate, anyway. From the moment I kissed her, and let our worlds converge, I put her in this spot to reconcile the me that she had fallen in love with, and the me that she would have never touched with a five foot pole. And then, I put her in the spot to be my guiding light… to be my reason to live, in every sense of the word.

God, what kind of hero was I? The more I thought about it, the less I was confident that this was really the right move at all.

But then again, it was pretty much my only move.

"Danny," Sam's voice took me out of my trance, and she eyed me with a warm sympathy. "Danny, I-... you know, I know this doesn't sound genuine, but, I-... I'm rooting for you and her."

"Really?"

"I… I don't really care to admit this," she said, exhaling sharply through her nostrils once. "But… I think everyone deserves some form of happiness. Even her. And well… perhaps not in specific to your relationship with her but… at least to find some closure."

She sighed. "Shit, Danny… how'd it come to this?"

I shook my head. "If I knew the answer why, perhaps I would've turned it around sooner than later." Even now I had no clue what I had done to be so… so cornered. Perhaps it was the lack of what I'd done, but at the same time, it felt like I was going to get cornered like this regardless. Hell, if I hadn't done anything, if I had just abandoned my frankly mindless pursuit of altruism… perhaps nothing would have happened to this degree.

But of course that couldn't be. This was what I was put on this planet, zapped by a malfunctioning device for, right?

Either way… it was like I had released that boulder, letting it roll over me or roll away forever, letting the winds dictate my fate.

I flew out to the hallway, where several family photos adorned the walls. I placed my hand on one of the hung pictures that was a solo shot of Paulina, a rather regal photo of her that oozed with confidence, like with every photo of her. Of course, a part of me wondered how obsessive I was, to throw away everything just for a girl - but at the same time, I knew that I had nothing but her to lose. And even if I did lose her… at least I made my shot, right?

I closed my eyes. Hopefully things would only go up from here.

If there was any part of me that had thought that the situation could not escalate further than this, that was smoothly erased now.

If the buck had just stopped at their odds for mayorship taking a complete nosedive, I wonder if Madeline and Jack would even have stooped so low as to do this. And then, perhaps, they could've just slunk back into their jobs of the Amity Park ghost-hunting force.

But of course, there was just… the suddenness of the tides turning against them, wasn't there?

Perhaps it was also the salt in the wound that with this shift, the government, without Vlad at their helm, was less interested in finding me and were considering just outright nullifying my warrant completely. Not to mention, the counter protests that were advocating for my protection were ramping up significantly.

But more importantly, once people accepted the claims that I had made in that interview, suddenly there were protests against them as well. Suddenly people were calling for them to be arrested instead - what with the attempted child murder, and pushing their own sense of justice on others without fair trial.

Which I mean, was exactly what they were doing in the first place. And in a way, they were executioners of the sentiment of the public as much as they were enablers and crafters of this sentiment. But that didn't stop rabid, revenge-hungry folks from finding a new martyr - after all, if there was something people hated more than murderers, it would probably be child abusers. And incompetent ones at that.

But even then, what comes around goes around. With the politicians in a gridlock, and any formal report, the consideration of whether I was a criminal worthy of execution and whether Jack and Madeline should be charged with attempted homicide - such considerations could only remain up in the air.

And so, when I read their text message, it was like an arrow straight through my heart.

"Danny,

"For 14 years, we raised you lovingly under a household that put you and your sister first above all else. We know, even as the 'pair of morons' that you painted us as, that you are capable of so much more than what you are now.

"We have tried our best to find a good solution to this problem. Finally, we have discovered that the same way you became a ghost can also be the way to take away your powers.

"We find that this would be a good overall solution - we can continue being ghost hunters, we'll drop all the charges against you and even protect you from whatever the law will do to you, and we'll stop trying to kill you.

"And in return, you will return to us as our son, retract all the claims you made in that interview, and we'll go back to the way things were. As far as we can tell, this is a win-win: no more putting your life on the line every time you think you have to fight these other ghosts, and we'll have our son back.

"But, in the case that you don't see this the way we do, we do have something that might change your mind. We will free them once we have taken your powers away, but remember: call the police and we will kill them. Food for thought.

"We'll be waiting at home. You have three days."

I honestly didn't think they would stoop to this level, but I suppose murder was definitely higher on the totem pole of crimes compared to kidnapping, if they wanted to go that way.

But nevertheless, seeing Mr. Sanchez and of course, Paulina trapped in the cage with their desperate eyes captured vividly, it filled me with an overflowing fury that burned through every vessel in my circulatory system. A bit more force and I was sure that I would have crushed my phone into bits.

The whirling panic in my head could only produce the question: how? How did they know? Was it simply a guess from my obsessive infatuation that even they knew would never be reciprocated, ghost form aside? I would have assumed that they would extrapolate my 'girlfriend' to be Sam…

But then, it struck me. Mr. Sanchez must have been in the house overhearing me argue with his daughter on that day, and must have promptly informed them about the danger posed to him and her...

I collapsed into a sitting position on the floor with a loud thud. Not even I would have even entertained the notion of stooping so low, eschewing every last morsel of morality that still resided within me for something like that. How desperate were they, now? How tied to the public were they that would even go straight to such awful extremes?

I put a hand to my forehead. What was I supposed to do now? Again, it felt like I was being pushed in one direction and one direction only. What could I really do other than take up this offer? What kind of hero would I be if I couldn't help Paulina at all - what kind of person would I be, if I didn't do something about it?

Besides… wasn't this what I had been looking for, this entire time? Even beyond, keeping the faith, beyond just hoping everything would have gone right, wasn't this the best of all worlds? No more having to work tirelessly and thanklessly only to be despised by the people I wanted to save, no more having to put my life on the line and be saddled with this responsibility that I've been executing endlessly?

I closed my eyes, trying to picture what that would look like. Perhaps if everything were to go to normal, I could continue living out my human life, not having to think about anything else supernatural, and leave it to my parents and the rest of the government workers. And then Jazz and I could go back to our parents, every ounce of animosity died down between us and for the public to just forget about all of this, and we can just start again with a blank slate…

…except, could we really?

I transformed and took flight, eyeing the city below as I let the wind fly by me. Back 4 years ago, this was absolutely the dream - to have such supernatural gifts almost fall into my lap on accident and to reap the rewards of it in daily life. Back then, every flight, even invisible, came attached with a sensation that was at worst tranquilizing, and at best just liberating, a new revelation compounding upon the last revelation. But whenever I held the girl I love in my arms, that feeling of liberation was only accentuated with a sticky, honey-like coat of unadulterated bliss.

Every power, from the invisibility that made travelling even on the ground so much easier, to the strength and stamina that gave my physical education grade a spike… all of this would be gone?

When my feet touched the sandy shore, I felt the wave of memories crash upon me, even before my eyes set on the ocean. The very first time I was here felt like such an eternity ago, yet all too familiar.

A small part of me still longed for the peace of death - the comforting finality that every burden of hatred and every responsibility of risking my life for those who wanted my death would just disappear in one fell swoop. I had been right, after all - it got worse, everything got worse, as it always did. And suddenly here I was, now cornered and forced to let the very side of me that got me into this shit in the first place perish.

It was no question that all of this pain and suffering would be avoided if I had just drowned without a witness. It would have served my enemies and - more importantly - myself a favour.

I landed right in the ocean near the shore, the water up to my knees. The cries of Miranda's parents still played vividly within my head - even when I knew now their daughter was safe. But the fact that accusations of being a monster rang so loud within my head confirmed that there was no way it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. This death really would have had value.

But of course, it was completely foolish, and I knew this now - if I had just perished there and then, what would have happened to the world, to my friends, to Paulina? Would this world truly be okay without me here? Would everything really go down the way that I had pictured in my head?

I tried to imagine Paulina right here, right next to me, what would she say about it. Of course she would want me to fight on, and keep on as a hero for the world. But at her expense? Was that something she would have wanted, to be a martyr for me to keep on going in this state, where things could turn on me in an instant of the public's perception of things?

This scenery was so familiar that it had basically become my true home - the saline air mixed with the coarse feeling beneath my toes, the sound and sight of the waves gently crashing onto the shore against the moonlit horizon… the absolute paragon of serenity, be still my heart and soul. The countless memories I had with her, my hands interlocked with hers, my lips against hers, in our own secret oasis…

If I didn't do something about this now, I would lose it all forever. I was the only one that could save her, after all.

But if I lost everything that made her fall in love with me in the first place… would I be able to continue like this? I knew that when I had made the decision to do this, I had the conviction that it wouldn't matter… but being here, all of a sudden, I knew in my mind how bad I was lying to myself. Of course it mattered. It was a passage that had to be gone through but… that didn't mean that it didn't hurt.

I returned to the shore and knelt down before letting my fingers run through the grains of the shore, and letting myself soak up the atmosphere for as long as I could.

With the full knowledge, above all, that this would be the last time I'd experience true, free, happiness.