Is There Still

3

The first time he fired an ectoblast after he died, Danny freaked out so badly that he lost control of it completely and destroyed the ectopuss he'd been chasing. That only made the panic escalate, as did the stares and pointed fingers from the people of Amity Park as he flew through the town above them, bent on trying to stop the ectopuss from hurting anyone or damaging more than it already had.

That had been before school had started, and he'd almost sworn he saw a familiar red beret among the people looking up at him, and a darker figure next to him, her pale face turned away. That had hurt, but the hurt had gone in a flash as Danny realized that whatever ghost powers he had had before as a halfa, had been dramatically altered upon his death and graduation to full ghost.

They weren't the same, and he knew it. They were stronger—he'd never been able to do what he'd done to that ectopuss before, not even on accident. They even felt different as they surged through him now, a constant thrill of heat through him that could rise up and distract him if he let it. The ebb and flow of power within him was almost hypnotic, but it was a hypnosis he found easy to break after the shock he had three hundred feet above Amity Park.

Not only was he Danny Fenton in a black hazmat, but his powers were no longer a vivid green. No, now they were an icy blue, a freezing blaze inside him that begged to be used, to be let out, to do it what it had been created to do. To protect. And that he hadn't done. At least, not intentionally, and it had taken him the better part of the afternoon to come to terms with the sudden and drastic change.

It was familiar, so familiar, but so different. And confusing. But he wasn't a halfa anymore. He couldn't count on anything being the same as it had been before he'd died. Finished dying, he thought quietly as he drifted invisibly down the halls of Casper High, stopping every few doors to peer in and identify familiar faces, students and teachers alike.

One thing was for sure, not a single person looked completely there. Anyone who had actually known Danny looked kept peering around every so often like they expected him to just show up for class again. An odd smile quirked at Danny's mouth and he considered actually doing that. It could be fun. It could be a lot of fun. And so easy to just pop into Mr. Moody's classroom and pick up his book bag with an apology and a ghostly show.

It was still where he'd left it next to his desk.

The bell rang and Danny shot up to the ceiling, above the sudden crush of students, watching closely as they passed beneath him. No one knew he was there. It was almost like he'd never even existed at all. Except there was Paulina, right there down the hall, looking over her should and above her head, like she expected the object of her obsession to drop in at any moment.

And there was Dash, he was looking over his shoulder too. Only his face wasn't hopeful, it was frightened. Like he thought that maybe Danny would come and get his own back on Dash for all the times he'd shoved him into a locker, a toilet. Any of the times he'd pantsed him, given him his best atomic wedgies. Any of the hundreds of cruel torments he'd visited on the smaller student through the years.

And following behind Dash was Valerie. She, at least, looked upset. Whether it was because her ghost hunting persona was still taking the blame for his death, or because he was Phantom, he couldn't tell. Maybe it was just because he was dead. Maybe she'd liked him enough as a person to actually mourn him when he died. Maybe she'd been one of those people to flatten the grass around his grave on his behalf.

And there… There was Sam with Tucker. If he'd had a heartbeat, it would have stopped when he saw her. Or at least stuttered before picking back up at a race. She looked so pale. So tired. Like she hadn't slept in days, like she'd lost her world. "Oh, Sam," Danny breathed into the air above his classmates. He drifted down the hall after Sam and Tucker, and into a classroom, realizing with a smile that it was Mr. Moody's. They'd had him for last period, for world history.

And his back pack was still untouched, until Sam and Tucker took their customary seats and Sam reached out one slender arm to grab the bag and tug it over to sit beside her, her fingers digging into the nylon of it as she shot a weak smile at Tucker. The bell rang again and Danny flew to the back of the classroom, careful to stay high enough that the wind of his passage wouldn't disturb anyone.

There was a paper on Tucker's desk, his messy handwriting was scrawled across it. Danny didn't have the chance to read it before Tucker folded it over and passed it to Sam who opened it and nodded her head before bending down and putting her own pen to the paper. Danny dropped lower, reading the three words Tucker had written. Are you okay?

Sam's reply was neater than Tucker's scrawl, and Danny breathed a little easier as he read it. I'm fine. I miss him.

The paper went back to Tucker and Danny was struck by the urge to join in on the note passing as he had so many times before. Instead of writing anything, he reached a hand out and poked Tucker in the side. Hard. Tucker's eyes shot wide and he squirmed over as he looked wildly around like he expected an attack. And maybe he did, Danny realized as Tucker dropped his head back to the paper and printed out Danny's name, following it with several question marks.

"Yeah," Danny said softly as he dropped down to the ground in between Tucker and Sam, his face close to Tucker's ear so that he couldn't be heard as he stood between them.

Tucker's hand fair flew across the paper, then passed it to Sam without even folding it. She read it and shot up straight as she looked at Tucker through Danny. The smile on her face, the hope, the affection… Danny couldn't help it as he touched her cheek with his fingers, and then dropped them to hold onto her hand tightly. She squeezed back, closing her eyes.

"I miss you, too," he whispered as he leaned down to her. He brushed his lips across her cheek and took the pencil in his own hand, scrawling one sentence and waving it at both of them, knowing that if anyone saw the paper floating in the air that there might be mass hysteria. I'm going to have some fun. I'll see you both later.

Then he chuckled as he let himself lift back into the air, dropping the invisibility and smiling as thirty or so sets of eyes swiveled to face him. Out of all of them, there were only two pairs that weren't afraid, and Danny almost laughed as Dash cowered low in his seat. He dropped back to the ground beside Sam and hefted his book bag up, looping it over his shoulder before strolling down the aisle between desks, taking care to walk inches above the ground.

"Sorry, I forgot my bag," Danny said coolly to Mr. Moody, and Tucker and Sam collapsed in the back of the room, hands clapped over their mouths as Danny calmly walked through the classroom door.

"Oh my god," Sam breathed.

Tucker chuckled and then reached out and grabbed her hand, the smile wide on his face as he brandished the note at her. "You need to tell him." Her lavender eyes went wide and she shook her head. "He's already dead, Sam. There will never be a better time." Even as Tucker said it he wanted to laugh.

Postmortem matchmaking was wrong on so many levels.

"You think so?" she asked suddenly, and Tucker nodded, not even breaking eye contact as Sam's hand shot in the air and she followed it to her feet. "I need a pass," she said to Mr. Moody, who was still staring after the door.

"I, uh—" the perplexed man started.

"Women's troubles," Sam said evenly, and almost ran to the front of the room, snatching the hall pass from Moody's desk without waiting for his answer. She raced out into the hall and looked left, then right, and spotted Danny whistling his way to the doors.

"Danny!" she called after him and took off, her boots pounding loudly against the floor, and he turned around just in time to catch her as she flew into him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly, letting her eyes close as he dropped his book bag and pulled her into a hug.

After a long few moments Sam pulled back, looking up into his dancing blue eyes with a smile. It felt like one of the first she'd smiled since he'd died, and she realized that Tucker was right. There wasn't a better time. He was still there. He might be dead, but he was still there. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, words that would explain how she felt, but when she tried nothing came out.

She closed her mouth, swallowed, and then tried again. "I missed you. I'm sorry about yesterday."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and hugged her again. "Don't be, I understand. Tucker told me some of it."

There was a slamming door behind her and Sam glanced back, startled, realizing that it was Moody's classroom door closing. "I have to go back," she said softly. "After school, right? You won't forget?"

He shook his head. "I won't be late. I'll just be floating around here. I promise."

"Don't forget," she said again, and startled him as she brushed her lips across his in a swift kiss. Before Danny could do more than let his fingers tighten on her waist Sam was pulling away and hurrying back down the hall to her classroom. She gave him one final glance before she slipped back inside and dropped the pass back onto Mr. Moody's desk, ignoring his stunned face and serenely making her way back to her desk.

"What'd I miss?" she asked Tucker as she flipped her notebook open, ignoring the eyes that were now glued on her.

Tucker shrugged and gave her a smug grin. "Nothing. Finally."

---

The city was beyond quiet as Danny flew over it that night. He'd run into a few problems, familiar friends. The Box Ghost hadn't even tried to cause trouble, only turned tail and run—flown—when Danny had lit up the dark sky in a brilliant fiery blue. He followed but let the Box Ghost go when he realized exactly why he was frightening the poor ghost. He'd been, almost literally, on fire with his new powers. It had scared Danny into a complete loss of power and the Box Ghost's traditional "Beware!" had fallen on startled ears as he'd fled completely, back towards Fenton Works and the portal.

And Danny had known when he'd gone through it back into the Ghost Zone, just like he'd known when Skulker had come through it some time later.

But somehow, he hadn't expected Skulker to hide. He'd been flying around for hours now, searching. The odd connection Danny had to his parents' portal had only told him who had come through, and when it had happened. The moment that Skulker had left the vicinity of Danny's house, had made it past the boundaries that made it a home, he'd dropped off of Danny's odd new radar.

The usual haunts were empty of all ghosts. The park, the school, even the Nasty Burger. That one was actually really creepy, Danny decided as he flew towards Axiom Labs. The Nasty Burger wasn't exactly empty, there were people there. But more than half of them worked there. Considering a full shift at the Nasty Burger was eight people… Danny shook his head as he dove into Axiom, flying invisibly and intangible through it in a quick reconnaissance.

It was emptier than the Nasty Burger. At least at the Nasty Burger there had been Sam and Tucker. That was where he'd left them when the Box Ghost had shown up. It occurred to Danny as he shot back up into the air and floated a hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park, that the Nasty Burger had probably been so empty because he'd been there. True, he hadn't stayed for very long, and he hadn't really done much of anything except float along with Sam and Tucker as they ordered.

It wasn't his fault that people stared. Or were afraid.

And it was there, a hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park that Danny took a massive ectoblast in the back, for the second time in his admittedly short life. It hurt. It hurt and Danny screamed as he fell, shifting back to human on automatic as the pain bled through him in waves. The air whistled past his ears, making his eyes water as he fell, and when he hit the ground with a resounding crash, with the feeling that every bone in his body had been shattered, even the screaming was cut off.

Through hazy eyes smeared with blood Danny looked up and saw a shadowy figure floating above him, heard a sinister laugh. Then Sam was screaming from somewhere next to him—he couldn't see her, but he could hear her. "Don't touch him!" she screamed. "He's already dying."

More noise, Danny heard a faint whimper. A sobbing, shuddering gasp that made blood well in his throat and trickle from the side of his mouth as he choked on it. The whimper, the pained cries. They were his. Blue eyes slipped closed again and Danny tried to breathe around the pain, the aching burning feeling in his back. It shot through him and he thought he might be crying as he forced his eyes open again and tried looking around for Sam, for the shadow.

All he could see was pale hands painted scarlet with blood as he looked down the length of his body. There was blood. There was blood everywhere, mingled with shattered concrete and pooling around him, underneath him. He was dying. Again, he thought wildly and tried swallowing.

The pain was more than it was worth and Danny let his head fall to the side, eyes slipping closed as blood trickled past his lips. He thought he might have said her name, might have tried to tell her how much he loved her. He knew he wondered where she had come from, who had shot him, how they had killed him when he was already dead.

And then it was all gone, and Danny was again floating one hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park, a faint ache echoing in his back as he spun around midair in terror. Skulker was behind him, one of his upgrades smoking as he watched in satisfaction, and then in growing confusion. Danny's breathing was harsh with the remember pain of… Of whatever that was, he thought, and he looked down at his body, at his hands.

Black hazmat, white gloves. As ghost as ever.

The hands glowed blue for a moment and Danny thought he heard Sam screaming again, faintly from inside his mind, and he looked back up at Skulker, his eyes afire with the full strength of his ectoenergy. Sapphire ectoenergy rippled around him in sickening waves of ghostly fire and Danny stared blindly, the taste of blood still vivid on his tongue.

Energy flared out from him, bathing the darkened skies above Amity Park indigo, and Danny breathed one word as blue fire bled from his eyes.

"Run."