Empyreal
empyreal (em-pir-ee-uhl) adj. - pertaining to the highest heaven in the cosmology of the ancients.

-Eleven-

"'I've always been one of the few only children in my entire grade. For my entire life, my friends have all welcomed baby siblings into the world, or welcomed older siblings home from school. But whenever I went home from grade school, it was just myself and my parents. I love my parents, but there was something missing in my life. In all of our lives. Something that would complete us, as a family. And my parents, being the incredible people that they are, knew just what it was missing.

"'Soon, when I couldn't have been older than two, my mother was pregnant with their second child.' "

Second child? But, Jazz is an only child… this was getting interesting.

"'Everyone was excited, naturally. The few friends I had at that age were all excited that we were all going to have baby siblings together. Months later, we found out that we were having a baby boy. A little baby boy, all our own. I was so excited, that I dedicated my entire existence to making our house acceptable for another little life form. I can remember the hours I spent with my father, painting over the decrepit walls of the guest bedroom, making it clean and comforting for an infant. It was the room right across and down the hall from mine, right at the head of the stairs.'"

That was… my room. Or rather, the room I was staying in. I thought about it a realized that, yeah, it was a light blue. A faded blue, like it had been painted long ago. And all the other bedrooms were white…

"'But something happened. Influenza was going around, and my mother, then eight months pregnant, caught it. Luckily, she didn't have a horrendous version of it, and she got through it pretty well and pretty quickly. But soon afterwards, she began having problems with her pregnancy. The baby was moving too much, or too little, or he wasn't able to get food because the chord was constantly getting blocked, and then unblocking itself. I was too young to really scientifically understand the situation, but I think I knew what was bound to happen.'"

Uh-oh. I glanced at Jazz, who was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, one leg crossed over the other, looking away. It seemed as if there were tears in her eyes.

"'Three weeks later, my mother gave birth to an infant boy – six pounds, four ounces, pink and squishy, and perfect. Perfect feet, perfect hands, perfect arms, perfect face, perfect chest.

"'Except his perfect chest didn't rise and fall with breath. And his perfect body didn't transport any blood. And his perfect little heart never beat once outside of my mother's womb. He was stillborn. '"

It made sense now. Why they were all so apprehensive to have me in this house. Why I was here. This must be it. Because they had a stillborn child. Although I was unfamiliar with the term, the context it was written in allowed me to figure out that he was born, well… dead. How horrible is that?

"'My mother cried for what felt like years. Except it was most likely only for a few weeks, as a bout of post-pregnancy depression set in right afterwards. But to me, my mother was never the same again. Right after this incident, she had a hysterectomy, so she could never make this mistake again. And for my entire life, I've known that it wasn't her fault. And yet, she blames herself constantly.

"'He's still around, you know. Somewhere. He's buried in the cemetery that's only ten minutes from here. Born on April twenty-third, at two-thirty-three in the morning, at six pounds, four ounces, with raven black hair that he got from our father and a pink squishy body.

"'We named him 'Daniel', which I guess is Hebrew for 'God is my judge'. Whether God was little Daniel's judge, I'll never know. He was just so perfect, and so pure, I don't know how God could even judge him in the first place. He lived for nine months, and for a number of those months he was a clump of rapidly dividing cells inside my mother.

"'Last year we applied for the Student Exchange program, so that a student from the opposite side of the country could live here for three months and go to my school. We tried for someone my age, but instead we got a fourteen-year-old Freshman named Danny.

"'I know he has his own family, his own siblings to worry about, and his own home, but he's the same age that our 'Danny' would have been, if he were still alive. And sometimes I can't help but love him like the little brother that I never got to know.

"'Three months just isn't enough.'"

I lowered the paper into my lap, taking a deep breath. Jazz sat beside me, looking at the floor.

"…well?" she asked finally. A street lamp outside flicked on, its yellow light reflecting off the curtains. Night was here.

"Well… what?" I asked slowly. She sighed.

"What do you think?" I looked down at the paper again. She had said it was partly inspired by me, but I never imagined this.

Although, I guess I kind of expected it. In the back of my mind, I knew that there must have been something that happened that would cause Jazz to wish for her entire life for a sibling. I just never knew that what had actually happened was so… heartbreaking.

"I can't say I'm…. very surprised, I guess," I started. Jazz looked up at me. "I mean, I kind of had the suspicion that something happened, but… I never thought it would be as tragic as… this." I handed the paper back to her. "It's captivating."

"I'm glad," she said softly. She sighed. "I'm sorry I never told any of this to you before. I mean, you've been living with us for over a month now, and I guess it explains our… odd behavior."

"So, all the ghost experiments…?" I asked, wondering if I was right. Jazz nodded.

"My parents were always interested in ghosts. But… after what happened, it seemed as if they were focused on finding him in the Ghost Zone. Soon they just became wrapped up in the Ghost Zone in general. I don't think they're still trying to find him in there anymore, but sometimes I wish they were, just so… they could remember him." She sniffed and wiped her eyes. She shifted and brought up the slim black folder, the one she had brought in when she came into the room. She handed it to me.

"I also wanted to show you this," she said, and I opened the folder. Inside was a rather official looking document, laminated since it was so old. It had the words "Amity Park, California; City Hall" printed across the top in official-looking letters, crisp and clear. And below that, on the line, was a name neatly printed in pen.

Daniel Fenton.

"His birth certificate," Jazz murmured. There was all the usual information on it, weight, time of birth, parent's names. There were even his footprints, done for all newborns. I touched the paper, the tiny little feetprints that would never mold in the sand or mud, that would never outgrow a pair of shoes in one week. The little feet that would never crawl or walk or run. It really was tragic.

His left foot had a line that ran from his big toe all the way down to his heel that almost curved into a small spiral. It was unusual, to say the least.

"Yeah, his foot had that weird crease on it," Jazz said, noticing my eyes were on the foot prints. I handed it back to her.

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "It must have been so hard for you, especially with me coming, knowing my name was 'Danny' and that I was the same age as your brother."

"Well, it was fourteen years ago," Jazz said, sighing. "We've moved on." She stood up, stretching her arms. "Well, we should go to sleep." I nodded in agreement, my thoughts still preoccupied with her baby brother.

"Goodnight," she said to me as I approached the doorway. "Oh, and Danny…?"

I looked up.

"Thank you."

"Oh, my God, I never thought I'd say this, but I am so glad to be outside." Sam breathed deeply and leaned back against the tree she was sitting in front of. "I'm not even joking. Don't give me that look."

"I'm not giving you any look," I said, grinning. Sam had finally been released from her jail cell of a room, and came back to school.

It was after school, and Sam had coaxed me (and Tucker, wherever the hell he was) to stay and just hang out on the school grounds. Although it was October, the air was still warm and sweet, since we were in California. Sam had taken off her boots and was wiggling her toes in the long grass, leaning against a great elm tree on the campus.

"C'mon, take your shoes off," she commanded, sitting up. "It feels nice."

"…Alright," I agreed. My head was still filled with what Jazz revealed to me just a few days earlier. I couldn't get the nagging feeling that I knew something about her brother. I mean, I've existed in the Ghost Zone for somewhere around fourteen years; Master was never too sure of when I first showed up.

But I felt as if I knew him.

I pulled my sneakers off and my socks, stretching my legs and allowing the grass to tickle my feet. It felt funny and comforting all at the same time. Sam lay down on her stomach at my feet, propping her head up in her hands. She glanced at my ankles and laid her head on them for a moment, her face that one of a scientist conducting an experiment. I stared at her, bewildered.

"Your ankles suck as pillows," she concluded, lifting her head and instead tapping my toes idly. I blinked.

"Well, they are mostly bone," I said, staring at her. She grinned, placing her hands on the ground. We sat there for a moment, and I pulled my feet back into a criss-crossed position and leaned against the tree. Sam was just so bizarre… but that was what made me love her so much. Every time she touched me, I could hardly contain myself. My love for her had only grown in the past few weeks.

She leaned down and turned her head to look at the school. Her eyes then trained top my feet, oddly enough. She wrinkled her brow and pushed herself over to my feet, touching the soles of my feet.

"This is odd," she said, her finger gliding over my foot daintily. (It tickled likehell, but I was controlling myself in fear of kicking her.) "Your foot has this weird crease-shape thing."

"What?" I said, sitting up. I've never taken a real look at the sole of my feet, since, well… they're the soles of my feet. What's there to look at?

I pulled my left foot into my lap, Sam sitting up beside me to look with me.

"What's so odd about it?" I asked. "It looks like a foot."

"Look at this, though," she said, touching my big toe. My eyes widened as she traced a line, a thin, faded line, down from my big toe, all the way down my foot to my heel, where it seemed to curl.

Like a spiral.

I had never noticed it before. I doubt I would have noticed if she hadn't pointed it out.

"I've never seen something like that," Sam said softly as I just gaped at my foot. "I mean, normally people's feet are all wrinkly, but… this is almost pretty. Artistic." I just stared at it.

It was very old looking. It must have been there for a very long time. I retraced the path with my fingers, my foot twitching in response to the touch.

It's the same mark. The same shape.

Could it also be the same foot?

No, I thought to myself, leaning back. No, because he's dead. Jazz said so herself. His body is buried in the cemetery. This isn't his body; this is one Master made for me.

But…

Things started occurring to me. My entire existence, I had been known simply as 'Phantom'; my hair had always been snow white, my eyes a fluorescent, glowing green. I started out as a baby, and grew over the years, at a rate equal to a human's. But it wasn't unusual for some ghosts to do that. Ghosts who weren't the souls of the dead, creatures created in this dimension, did the same thing. So it was always assumed I was a creature created by the Ghost Zone.

But when I became human, Master changed my features. He made my hair raven black and my eyes as blue as the sky. My skin became fairer. And he gave me a name.

Daniel.

I'd been in the Ghost Zone for fourteen years.

Jazz's brother has been dead for fourteen years.

I started out as an infant, practically a newborn.

He died in infancy.

I have white hair and green eyes. Just the opposite of his colors.

But when I became human, I looked like him.

His name was 'Daniel'.

My human name is Daniel.

Master never told me why my name is Daniel.

No, he did; he said my human name… was Daniel.

We have the exact same bizarre crease on the sole's of our left feet.

"Danny?" Sam asked, leaning back. I blinked and looked at her, realizing that I had been staring off into space as I tried to piece things together.

"I…" I started, my thoughts spinning. What was going on? I hopped onto my feet, staring at the ground. What was it that had been said?

"Once a human, always a human," Skulker had taunted me with.

All of those familiarities… I had felt so at ease when I first met the Fentons, as if I were truly one of them.

Am I?

"There's… there's someone I have to see," I said slowly. My head was pounding with the sudden influx of information. Sam frowned at me.

"What? What's going on? Danny, are you okay?" But I didn't answer. I had to go see him, finally. I had to confront this head-on.

I don't know what I hoped to accomplish by this, or what good going there would do. But I had to do something. I just… had to.

"Sam," I said, turning to her, dipping my feet back into my shoes. "Can you lead me to the cemetery?"

"…This one's a bit older," Sam explained, grasping the rusty gate in her hands. "I don't think anyone uses it anymore. It was bought out a long time ago anyway; this is mostly family plots going back generations." I said nothing, and just followed her into the cemetery. It wasn't very large, but it had enough trees to have the entire place nearly all shaded. Two tall stone pillars held the gate in place with a wrought iron fence going all the way around. There was a small path going through the neatly trimmed grass, breaking off into areas of little chain link fences, keeping families together for all eternity.

"If you want to find someone in one of the old families… this is where you go," Sam said, her voice a bit shaky. "There are people buried here from somewhere around two hundred years ago, or more… all within the same family."

"How do you know who's families are the old ones?" I asked as we walked through the cemetery. This was my first time ever being in one; now I knew why so many ghosts never wanted to leave this place. It was so tranquil and peaceful here… and I'm sure that those ghosts would never lose memory of themselves or their families by staying here.

Unlike all those ghosts who fall victim to degeneration…

"Well, I guess you can always ask them," Sam replied thoughtfully. She grabbed onto my hand without thinking. "Or you could—"

"—Find their family plot," I supplied, stopping. Sam stopped to see what I was looking at.

Before us, on the left side of the path, was an area closed off by a chain-link fence only a couple feet off the ground. Hanging off the links was what appeared to be an iron plate with a British family crest impressed on it. And inside the fence was a number of tombstones – some big, some small, most of them old. A couple looked newer, and at least two or three had been completely faded from time.

The crest said "Fenton" in a neat print right above it. Sam gasped a little as I stepped up to the crest.

"Y-yeah, the Fenton's are an old family," Sam said slowly. "I know they've been here for ages – their family was one of those British families that traveled West after immigrating here. Or something. Jazz wrote some paper about it that was a big deal."

I squinted into the plot, trying to see it. I know that just walking in there would be the easiest bet, but I know better than anyone else to respect the dead.

For all I was concerned, I was one of them.

I walked around the plot, grazing my hand over a particularly old tombstone near the corner. Sam watched me from the pathway, eyebrows raised. It was kind of her not to inquire – but I still felt badly all the same. I was leaving her over there, confused, as I was scouring around a family plot. I must have seemed like the creepiest person alive at the moment.

Then I saw it. It took me awhile because I was looking for a headstone of some sorts, but there wasn't one. There was, however, a marble plaque pressed into the ground near a family member who died in 1978. In between that grave and the grave of someone who died in 1881 was the small plaque. I knelt down on the ground right outside of the plot and leaned over, brushing some of the dirt away, the words glinting in the dying sun.

Daniel John Fenton
April 14th, 1990
Six lbs. four ozs.
2:33 a.m.
Always in our Hearts

And, for the second time, I saw those footprints. They were etchings obviously made from the birth certificate, but there they were, on either side of his name.

My name.

"Danny, who are you looking for?" Sam called, treading cautiously onto the grass behind me. I just stared down at the little plaque.

Is this me? I thought to myself. I looked down at my hands, and put those hands to my cheeks. I did look like a Fenton; I'd been mistaken for Jazz's cousin or nephew or something like that dozens of times.

"…Who's that?" Sam asked. I hadn't even noticed her leaning over my shoulder.

"Jazz's baby brother," I told her. Sam opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

"She… had a brother?" she asked. "I've known Jazz since she was ten and I was eight; she was my reading partner when we were little. And she never mentioned having a brother, or losing one."

"He… was stillborn," I supplied for her in a soft voice. Sam dropped down into the grass beside me and sighed.

"That's so sad," she said, in a voice barely above a whisper. "A stillborn baby… I can't even imagine."

"Yeah…" I agreed, still focused on the plaque. "That's what she wrote her personal narrative about. Her brother… and me."

"You? What about you?" Sam asked tenderly, raising her eyebrows. I took a deep breath, and turned to her. I cupped her chin in my hands and sighed deeply.

"I… I think I'm her baby brother, Sam. I think I'm Danny Fenton."

Ba ba BUUUUUUHM. Yeah. Like half of you hadn't figured that out already. Hmm. Well, it was pretty obvious, but the reasoning behind all this nonsense is still a mystery to everyone but me. Pretty much everyone figured out that Phantom and Danny were the same person (duh) but the reasons... no one's gotten close. That's exciting. Believe it or not, I typed this chapter up AAAAAAAGES ago. Literally. I'm talking last spring, maybe last winter. Haha. I just went through and revised it and made it up-to-date, because I had different ideas back then. So, not much of a cliffhanger, but hey, whatcha gonna do, right? Right. I thought so. Yeah. I'm done.