Is There Still

4

It took Danny three days to regain control of the power he unleashed when he destroyed Skulker. The morning of the fourth Danny returned to Amity Park, and then to Casper High to seek out the two people he trusted most in the world. School had been in session for long enough that they were well into third period when Danny floated through the dry erase board hanging at the front of the classroom, eyes faintly burning with the icy blue fire that was his ghost energy.

The expected reactions came. Fear, incredulity, startlement. Happiness and relief from two significant sources were Sam and Tucker lounged bored in the back of the classroom, the books still closed and definitely not opened for the lesson that was well under way. Paulina was there, smiling hopefully, and Danny let his eyes slide past hers as he drifted past a stunned Mr. Lancer.

Who finally found his voice and broke the silence with, "Moby Dick! Don't you have any place else to haunt, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny smirked, sparks flying as he made his way back to the rear of the room where Tucker and Sam where sitting, looking like they were trying not to laugh. It wasn't going so well, considering the way they were doubled over with their hands plastered to their mouths. The laughter faded significantly when they took full status of the obvious changes in Danny, but it was still there as Sam stood and held her hand out.

Danny shot a questioning glance at Tucker who shook his head and shrugged. "Pick me up after school?"

Danny nodded and shot a wide smile back at Mr. Lancer. "I'll be back to haunt you later, Mr. Lancer," he said with a chuckle as he drifted up off the floor, Sam firmly against him as he turned them both intangible and flew them up through the second floor and then the roof, high into the clouds that drifted lazily over Amity Park.

For her part, Sam was content to float along with Danny, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face pillowed against his shoulder as the air grew thin and chill with altitude. She was on the verge of complaint when the flight leveled out and they drifted above the clouds, far, far above the clouds with darkness closing in on them and the curve of the earth resting at their feet.

"Oh," she breathed into his ear, and Danny smiled at her as he brushed some hair back from her face.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long," he said as they spun slowly around and Sam got a closer view of space than she'd ever wanted.

"I wasn't worried," she breathed. Or thought she did as she realized that she really wasn't, and then she looked down. "Oh my god. Am I dead, too?"

Danny laughed. "No. You're still intangible. You don't have to breathe if you're intangible." When her eyes went wide he held her closer. "We're too high for the air to sustain anything. We can go back down if you want, I'm sure we'll be right on time to meet Tucker."

She nodded, closing her eyes and leaned into Danny as they started to descend. "School isn't over for hours," she muttered.

There was silence for a long time, only the sound and scent of wind as it parted around them, clouds that seemed to cling to them as they cruised back towards earth. Then Danny asked her, "How long do you think it takes for us to fly to the edge of the atmosphere safely?"

"I don't think I want to know," she replied shakily as she finally opened her and looked down to see her classmates milling around the school like ants.

Danny chuckled. "I'm kidding. It's only lunch time. We weren't gone that long." And when she glared at him wildly, eyes flashing violet, he laughed. "I'm already dead, you can't kill me again."

"Don't say things like that," Sam said softly, her face falling and her eyes darting away from his as they skimmed the treetops next to the courtyard of the high school.

Danny let them touch down, trying to ignore the tremors in Sam's body as his feet hit ground. Better not to ask, he thought painfully. He mentally kicked himself for being ten kinds of fool. He should have known better than to joke about it; Tucker had told him she wasn't taking it well.

But she was taking it better since he'd stayed. Since he was still there.

"We should find Tucker," Danny finally mumbled. But as they searched the crowd of students, hands still clutching and remaining invisible, they realized that the familiar red beret was nowhere to be seen. "You think he skipped out after we took off?" Danny finally asked her, sounding much more like his old self than he had since before he'd found out he was dead.

Sam only shrugged. "I don't know. He's been spending an awful lot of time at your house lately."

Danny shot her a bewildered look but suddenly remembered the day in the cemetery when Tucker had said, "Because she's my friend, too." It made sense to Danny suddenly, and he looped an arm around Sam's waist and shot them both up into the air and towards the hulking structure of Fenton Works and the Op Center array that was visible from all parts of the town. Truth be told, it was a landmark in Amity Park and well known in most of the surrounding cities.

The closer they got the more nervous Danny became, until they were standing in front of it and he thought that maybe moving on would have been a better option. Who cared if Amity Park was wiped from the face of the earth? Anything, even that, would be better than the rippling green shield that was in front of him, surrounding his once home, and locking him out. Danny closed his eyes against the sudden pain, the realization that his family hated him. His parents, at least, since Jazz had known and accepted before he'd ever thought to tell her.

It was a nightmare.

"Wait here," Sam said softly and walked through the ghost shield, not even bothering to ring the bell or knock. She simply reached out and tried the handle, pushing it open when she found it unlocked. Danny, however couldn't stand there and wait.

For one, it felt far too exposed, no matter that his secret was so far out it might as well be orbiting Saturn. Everyone in town had to know by now, he knew that despite the lack of news breaks to tell him. It was just logical that a couple of classrooms full of high school students wouldn't keep their mouths shut on one of the biggest gossip stories of the year.

For two… It just hurt.

Danny floated up, his eyes still closed, until he could open them and look down on the Op Center and Fenton Works from above it, and the familiar figures that were sitting on the stoop in the tiny backyard. Jazz's familiar red hair tucked against Tucker's shoulder? She looked like she was crying, he thought and flew lower so that he could see more clearly, even if it was distorted a bit by the shield.

Jazz was crying, all over Tucker, who didn't seem to mind in the least. Who'd skipped out on school to sit there with her. Who was holding her closer than Danny wanted to think about. Who was stroking bright red hair back from Jazz's face. Who was kissing her! Danny could only blink in shock and surprise as the backdoor flew open and a very angry Sam rushed out.

Jazz and Tucker didn't so much spring apart as jump up in surprise, and Danny looked, really looked, and realized that his sister was small. Smaller than Tucker, now, and Tucker was actually stepping forward of, and slightly in front of Jazz. Like he was trying to protect her, until he realized it was Sam and not someone else.

There was heated arguing, mostly from Sam, and then a surprised, floored look on her face. Dawning understanding, and Danny just shook his head and drifted away from the vantage point he had, flying higher so that he could look down at the town. A nightmare. It was his nightmare: dead and unwanted by everyone now, in the very place he'd tried to protect for so long. In the very place he'd given his life to save.

The tiny bouncing figure was what shook him out of his depression and Danny drifted lower, then flying down to touch down lightly as he realized that it was Sam, and she was smiling just outside of the edge of the ghost shield.

"It's not against you, Danny," she explained happily. "It's to keep Vlad out; Jazz told them everything."

"What?" was all he could think to say, and then the front door was opening to show Jazz and Tucker standing there, and a pained smile on his sister's face.

She walked down the stairs and outside the shield to wrap him in a tight hug. "I'm glad you came," she whispered honestly before pulling back to look him full in the eye, and Danny realized that not only was Jazz smaller than Tucker, she was smaller than him. He almost smirked down at her simply because he was looking down, until he saw the faint shadow of worry in her eyes.

"They wanted to see you," she said simply.

Danny glanced over at Sam who nodded, and then to Tucker who just looked back evenly. "They're not going to…?" Jazz shook her head. "And I can really just… walk through it?"

"Or fly, if you'd rather."

Danny shook his head and Jazz reached out and took his hand into her own, ignoring the iciness of his touch and the faint blue sparks that still flew about his eyes as he followed her hesitantly through the shield, and then up the stairs, and then inside of Fenton Works. Home, he thought once, I looked around with a twinge of longing from in his chest.

His eyes burned as they moved across everything that he'd known while he was alive, and then came to a startling halt on the couch. And the two silent and still figures that were his parents. Danny stopped, tensed, prepared to fight or flee in a very primal way. He felt a tug on his hand and looked down at Jazz, really down he realized, and dropped back down to the ground to turn nervous eyes back to his parents.

His father, who had stood and come towards him, and his mother who was only steps behind. The burning grew stronger and Danny struggled against it, trying to hold the sudden fear at bay, and the indescribably urge to throw himself into their arms and just cry.

"Did you think we wouldn't understand?" his father asked quietly, and Danny let his eyes drift closed against the pain in his voice.

Then he felt a hand on his arm and looked down at his mother, and the sad but reassuring smile on her face. "Danny, we're your parents. We love you no matter what."

He hesitated for a moment. A heartbeat. But certainly no longer than that before throwing himself into their arms and clinging, crying and murmuring frantic apologies as they just held him.

---

The sun had set long before life was seen outside of the Fenton house. Danny, Tucker and Sam were all gathered in the backyard at Danny's behest—the house, his room, it still hurt too much for him to be able to bear it for too long. It was nothing more than a reminder of a life that he could never have again, no matter what anyone said. He wasn't Danny Fenton anymore. Nor was he Danny Phantom, either. No, he was something in between, and no longer even half human.

He was a ghost. A full ghost, and he knew it better after the things he had done with his newfound powers than he ever had before.

"You're not the same, you know," Tucker commented as Danny drifted on his back several feet in the air, a swirling ball of blue dancing across his fingers and knuckles.

Danny shrugged, like he wasn't surprised. He wasn't, he already knew he wasn't. "What do you expect? It's been a rough week. First I died, then I came back to haunt the town. Cut me some slack."

The words barely crossed his lips before he and Tucker both were shooting anxious stares at Sam. She seemed oblivious but the set of her shoulders, the just so poise of her jaw told them otherwise. Danny sighed and looked at Tucker apologetically. Tucker, for his part, only glared for a moment then shrugged and nodded.

"You're taking risks you never would before," he said quietly.

"My secret wasn't out before," Danny replied, unconcerned.

"You're doing things for the pure mischief of it."

Danny shrugged again. "Who's going to give me detention if I pull a few pranks?"

"Danny," Tucker started, but Sam cut him off, her violet eyes lidded as she looked over at them, at Danny in particular.

"You're acting like a poltergeist," she said evenly, but barely loud enough for either boy or ghost to hear her. "You're acting like you've forgotten what it's like to be human."

The words echoed in his ears and Danny fought off a sudden wave of vertigo that slammed him into the ground with an ectoplasm jarring thud. "I'm not human anymore," he said thickly as he blinked rapidly, the dizzying wave pounding through him harder, more violently.

"Danny," came Sam's voice, hollow and fading as darkness slid over him, making him wince and shudder against the sudden onslaught of icy coldness.

"You don't really think that you are still human, do you, Daniel?"

It was a mocking tone, one that Danny recognized easily even as he struggled to his knees from the ground, green ectoenergy flaring around his fists and making his eyes go wide with confusion as he stared at them. it was only then that he realized, looking around him, that he wasn't at home anymore, in his backyard with his friends. No, he wasn't anywhere near there.

He was in the middle of the park, very near to the ruins of what had once been the fountain, and somewhere above him was Vlad Plasmius, taunting him and trying to trick him into death.

"Oh god," he gasped and searched wildly for Tucker and Sam, but they were nowhere to be seen. No, not true. Tucker wasn't there, but Sam was huddled against a tree on the other side of the clearing, bright red blood dotting her face, but try as he might Danny couldn't find any injuries. His eyes shot up at the evil ghost above him and he felt power pooling inside him, seeping out at his hands, then at his eyes, until he was encased in a sickly green fire that crackled and lifted him up from the ground so that he could face Plasmius on his own ground: the air.

But Plasmius continued on like nothing odd was happening, like the display of power that Danny knew from experience was deadly and dangerous, even to ghosts. He can't see it, Danny realized, and the terror welled up inside him as hysterical laughter.

He heard screaming from beneath him and looked back, ready to shoot a bolt at anything near Sam. It was her voice, her screaming, and he caught sight of a faint shimmer that confused him even more. I killed Skulker. It didn't settle as he watched, and then instinctively let loose with an ectoblast that pounded Skulker against and then through the tree Sam had been leaning against.

But the blast was nowhere near as massive as it should have been considering the amount of power he had pushed into the effort, and Danny stared at Sam for a moment. The blood wasn't hers, he decided, and against held his white gloved hands up to inspect the faint green glow about that. A faint green glow that flicked and hissed over dots of blood on his gloves, and it took Danny a second to realize that the blood, on both his hands and Sam's face, was his.

"Sam," he started to say, and then stopped as his voice turned into an echoing scream that bounced off of everything around him, a ghostly wail that tore down more than he had saved in the fight.

Fire danced at his stomach and he saw Vlad next to him, felt something sharp and hot pressed against his side making him writhe before he let loose with all of the power he had amassed and hadn't been able to use before. Blue energy flared out, burning everything in its path with icy heat. Danny fell back to the ground gasping, clutching his side in a grimace of agony.

Moments passed, then minutes with nothing but the sound of his own ragged breathing filling the air. Then soft hands on his shoulders, warm and sure, and a whispered, Danny?" had him jerking away, stumbling to what had once been a fence but now was nothing but smoldering wreckage.

"Don't touch me!" he cried, and Danny's eyes went wide as he looked around and realized that he was back in his own backyard. What had once been his backyard, he amended, and surveyed the damage realizing that he had been the cause of it. There were still ghostly flames dancing on sparse patches of grass, and along some of the pieces of wood scattered around him.

"It's just me," Sam said carefully as she crept towards him, her face smudged and part of her skirt singed, and Danny shook his head frantically as she came close again.

"Don't. Please don't!"

She held her hands out entreatingly, and repeated, "It's just me. I'm not going to hurt you."

"What's happening to me?" he whispered piteously.

And Tucker's voice from behind him, steady and concerned. "I think you're remembering, Danny."

---

Moby Dick is written by Herman Melville.