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Shot 15 Summary:The Haunting Part Two: Amity Park is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Valerie Gray's defeat of Phantom. But there's some strange, ghostly activity at Valerie's grave site…Genre: Supernatural, Rating: T


Deliverance

Shot 15: The Haunting Part 2


Dan listened to the trumpets and laughter with a grimace. Amity Park was hosting a large parade to celebrate its freedom from him, and everyone sounded careless, drunk, and wild. He thought them all insipid excuses for human beings. If only they knew he existed with them beneath their precious barrier. If only they knew he was haunting the grave site of one Commander Valerie Gray.

In the past hours, the town had made its way to the memorial for the 100-year anniversary, where the mayor lit candles, and the people released dozens of flying lanterns that phased through the ghost Shield with ease. He had watched reporters hover in front of the mayor, carrying recording equipment to immortalize the event. Many citizens had stood on their hover boards or gazed down from their hover cars.

He himself had simply masked his ecto-signature and watched it all from behind the statue itself. He tried to consider what it would be like for him in another one-hundred years, then a thousand. But he couldn't think like that. His mind fragmented a bit too much, and so he focused on the faces before him, suddenly wishing that none held wrinkles and that everything and all time would just stop.

The candles had all burnt to their wicks now, the wax melting into the still-brown grass. The people had left for their celebratory parade and drinking fest long ago, leaving the memorial a mess of flattened mud and deafening silence.

Dan Phantom now rested on top of the marble slab above Valerie's grave. It was the closest he could get to her. "You hear that?" he called lazily. He stared up at the dome of the ghost Shield above them. It dampened the sight of the stars. "Everyone's drunk, just for you. This is what people are doing to celebrate your death. They're getting drunk."

Phantom received no answer, of course. The marble slab beneath him was as silent as the statue that shadowed above him. He imagined that Valerie probably would not have cared if people got drunk in her name. She'd approve simply because it annoyed him.

His nose scrunched, and he closed his eyes. "Ridiculous," he huffed. "If people are remembering you by drinking, then by proxy that's how they're also remembering me. This is not how I imagined I would be remembered. I imagined something far more cognizant. And fearful."

The wind picked up strangely, whistling through the statue as if in a laugh.

His face twisted in pain and disappointment. "Oh no, you're doing it again. Or I'm doing it again. We need to stop this."

The remains of his sanity were slowly starting to drip away under the grave site's strange behaviors, especially with the sound of merriment in the background. "Are you still playing chess games with me?" he called out to the air. "Is that what this is? Psychological warfare?"

The more he thought about it, the more he felt in tune with Valerie's marble slab. It was cold, colder than himself, and he felt an icy unwelcoming emanate from it. "…What, you're angry cause I'm lying on you?" He gave off a smug smile, placing his hands behind his head. "Well, then. I'll just stay right here. You know you like me on top."

The wind stormed through with a sudden strength, nearly pushing him sideways.

"Pretty sure I don't," whispered a rough, feminine voice. It was light, hardly a breath of irritated amusement.

His power core stalled strangely, and he sat up quickly in shock. "Valerie?" he breathed. For a second, he thought he saw a flash of red to his left. His eyes darted to see her. The entire purpose for his existence wavered in the moment.

But nothing was there. Dead tree limbs shook in the wind, which died down as soon as the blast was over. His cape fluttered about him, like an unsettled heartbeat. The whole memorial site was abandoned but for himself.

He swallowed hard in uncertainty and paranoia. Had he just heard her? Or was it in his mind? His fingers gripped the edge of the marble slab a bit harder, his knuckles turning white underneath his gloves. He hadn't had auditory hallucinations for a couple of decades. Surely, he wasn't so far gone. He called out, voice rough, "Come on, Valerie. Stop messing with me."

Still no answer. He could hear the distant revelry in the background and the occasional cry of Valerie's name. Even the syllables of her name on the wind rubbed him raw.

He leaned back on the marble slab, squeezing his eyes shut as he groaned. "I hate you," he complained. "Really, Val—you've redefined the meaning of evil. Enslaving me to you when you know I despise limitation."

Amity Park's tower struck midnight, and the people cheered. Dan sat up again quickly, realizing that lights around the whole city—lights on the Shield towers—were blinking strangely. Slowly, the ghost Shield above them began to retract down, the mayor speaking over the crowds with pride and reverence.

"Today," the mayor's voice echoed across the whole city, "we find ourselves no longer bound to systems of oppression or beings of tyranny. Today, we find ourselves no longer in need of the cage that has protected us. Today and for every day in future, we will walk forth as free men—without fear of the past!"

The Shield hummed and sighed as its numerous towers went permanently offline.

And though the fall of the Shield meant Dan could escape Amity Park, it made him feel suddenly more claustrophobic. His entire world was shrinking. Amity Park would move on. Valerie's statue would become just another statue, and he just another textbook anecdote. A deep, fiery anger bloomed within him. The present age was leaving him behind in the past—forgetting about him. He thought back to the boys last month who had dared to graffiti Valerie's statue. His fists clenched in fury. "No," he whispered, voice lowering with a snarl. "No, you will not forget us. You will not forget!"

But he watched in absolute misery as the Shield dissipated.

In that second, he thought of decimating the entire city, sweeping it down block by block with his power. He imagined the cries of terror and the way the people's hearts would fail at the sight of him. Oh, they deserved it. They deserved it for forgetting. The Shield was Valerie's legacy, and they were forgetting.

"She designed it for you," he whispered harshly, voice cracking in hatred. "Every tower was hers. And you're ruining it!"

In his anger, his power core revved up, seething with decades of unused energy. He shot off his powers from his fingertips, sending a searing red beam of light into the ground. The power stormed through the earth with a hissing crash. And then he realized what he was doing, and he froze in panic. All thoughts of death or conquest disappeared.

Oh no.

With great hesitance, he turned his head to see what damage he had done. The ground had hemorrhaged open into a wide maw of dirt and dust, all the way across the memorial site. And then he saw that his power had struck the dark marble slab that covered Valerie's grave. It had blasted off the top quarter, splintering and cracking the remains.

His heart stalled.

He realized in horror that he had desecrated Valerie's grave site himself, which in turn meant he had destroyed his own memorial. He dropped down beside the crumbling marble slab and grabbed the pieces that had fallen to the dirt. "No, no, no," he moaned. All thoughts of the ghost shield left him entirely. All of his anger fled into great pain as he clutched the shattered pieces close. "You have to stay whole. You have to remain."

His fingers began to shake as he realized that he could not rebuild the slab. Valerie's name had been shot off into near dust. Her credentials and engraved messages still remained: Here lies the savior of the modern world. Friend. Daughter. Commander. But her name was gone. Her beautiful, brave name was gone. And just as her skin had been burnt and torn by his power, so was the dark marble finish.

"No!" he cried out, red eyes darkening in anger and fear. He tried to fit the pieces back together again. His breath hitched. An image of Valerie's lifeless, dead body invaded his mind, and he flinched. He flung the marble pieces away from himself, seething in hatred of himself. "No," he breathed, red eyes dark with pain. "It's all wrong! I didn't—" His voice hitched. "I didn't mean to…"

And a groan of irritation suddenly echoed around him. "Aren't you a little old for temper tantrums?" some voice accused.

Dan did not look up, eyes squeezed shut. "Go away," he cried out. The voice sounded like Valerie's. Another hallucination. His voice raised. "Go away!" He grabbed onto the locks of his hair and pulled, face pained as he leaned over on his knees. "I can't take it anymore! I just want it all to stop! Just stop!"

He sunk into himself, bowing his shoulders forward. He wanted to disappear. He wanted everything to end. His eyes began to burn with tears again. "A hundred years," he said hoarsely. "I can't keep holding on. I don't know what to do. I'm going crazy."

He wanted nothing so much as to see her before him again. His entire mind and existence depended on it, and here he was, slowly breaking under her silence.

How did ghosts who were millennia old exist? How did they not just…go insane as time passed? Clockwork was not to be counted, of course—his identity revolved around time. But most of the other ghosts had to make do with creating timeless lairs in the Ghost Zone, where they held onto their obsessions tighter than their own names. And while most of them were not quite sane, none of them careened in such total self-destruction as he did.

His obsession was tangible and human and gone gone gone

"—You've ruined me!" he accused shakily to Valerie. From his fingers, ice stems formed, opening up into flower petals that glowed green. He dripped ice roses onto the destroyed marble slab, as if to hide the damage he had done. It was a peace offering, a desperate attempt to appease whatever held such control over him. "Just let me go," he begged, face twisted in pain. "I'm tired of this! Just—stop this!"

"Quit whining," came the voice again. It was like a sigh against the wind, carrying the same exhaustion as he had. "I'm tired too."

Dan lost it. "Stop!" he cried, voice thundering into hysterics. He collapsed in on himself, his cape fanning out on the dead grass. "I know you're not there." He held his hands over his ears, and tears began to stream down his face. "I know it's not you. I need you, but it's not you."

The voice was more of an impression in his mind, a faint whisper over a solid declaration. "…Why do you need me?"

He did not answer, for fear that he was truly speaking to himself.

The cheers of the distant crowd turned to a roar as fireworks exploded. He flinched at the sound. Brilliant glimmers of multi-colored lights popped in the sky, one right after another. He saw their light and shadows pepper the world, and he tentatively looked up. Dan tried to focus on them as a means of separating out the real from the not-real.

For a time, he managed to distract himself with the fireworks and the clarity of the sky without a ghost shield. This new, rebuilding world had little to celebrate. He could not remember a time when they had sacrificed so much finances for a light show. It was beautiful in its own way—a small rebirth of the universe, just above his eyes.

"You should be here," he whispered raggedly to the air. "You would love this."

But when he looked down from the sky, he saw a blur of glowing red at the foot of the statue. He blinked hard. For a second, the glow looked like nothing at all—a cloud of sorts, or an image too pixelated or blurred. He thought it perhaps an afterimage of the fireworks emblazoned in his retina. But then the shadow materialized fully with smoother lines, breathing hard, leaning against the pedestal of the statue.

His ghost sense triggered, like a soft breath. His jaw dropped.

Between the dimensions of time and space, a spirit wavered. Its wild, ringlet locks floated above battle-suit-clad shoulders, weightless. Long limbs and tapered curves created strange shadows against the light from the fireworks. As the spirit straightened, shakily pulling itself into a stand, the moon reflected off the dark skin of a familiar, oval face.

Valerie Gray.

But something was wrong with this ghost of Valerie. Her side still bore the burns that had killed her, the material of her battle suit shredded and blackened. It was unsettling to behold her in such a damaged form, and he could not stare at her for long, alternating between great joy and true terror.

Phantom's eyes widened. Only weak ghosts could not regenerate their death wounds.

"Why," moaned the spirit's echoing voice, huffing a bit with exertion, "can't you just let me rest?"

Oh—her voice.

Dan was undone by her, truly haunted. He could not form words nor seem to collect his thoughts. After 100 years of existing without her, of having no challenge, of seeing his mind's eye replay her death again and again, his will had broken into fragments.

"Valerie," he breathed, voice hitched. He reached out to her, and she eyed him cautiously. Her glowing eyes flickered sharply to him, demanding an answer. He realized with a start that Valerie's once vibrant, teal eyes were red. They were a color deep like wine and blood and just as dangerous.

"For twenty years," she complained, "I slept so well. And then you—" she shivered, whether in cold or in total fury, he didn't know— "had to go and ruin that too. Like everything else."

The fireworks above them died away.

When his shaking fingertips ghosted across her arm, he realized that he could feel her, even though she was just this side of existent. It seemed to wear hard on her to manifest on the human plane. Her body shimmered as if to disappear, his non-beating heart pulled in deep fear that she would fade out.

Desperate to keep her on the human plane, he grabbed onto her hand and forced some of his energy to move into her. Her red eyes widened, her fingers tightening around his instinctively at the feel of his sacrifice. Her ghost form drank in the energy the same way a dehydrated human would gulp water. The power made her sigh in relief, and the gaping wounds in her side began to close up as she generated a fully functional ghost form.

He watched as her form smoothed out with flushed skin and reknit lines in her battle suit, the lines of her face relaxing without pain. Her glow strengthened slowly. She nearly leaned against him in relief. "Oh, I've felt those wounds for decades," she moaned.

He tightened his grip on her hand. "How much do you need?" he demanded. He would give her his entire power core, if he could. Anything to keep her here.

"It's hard to manifest a ghost," she said, breathing hard, "after you've decided to move on." She gave him a wry, miserable smile. "You can't do much for that, Phantom." When he looked a bit worried , some kind of knowing smile curled Valerie's full lips up. "What, have you grown a heart or something since you killed me?"

A near-wince overcame him. He stiffened, looking away from her. "You don't know anything about me."

"I didn't know anything about you," she corrected, eyebrow raised. "And then you came and bothered me for eighty years with all of your whining. So I know a lot about you now. I know everything you never wanted me to know when I was alive. Right, Dan-ny?"

He paled to a lighter shade of blue. Some aspect of Daniel Fenton appeared in his face.

She looked almost amused, but it was tarnished with a great sadness. "You didn't even intend to kill me that day. I'm angry. I always thought you'd at least be intentional."

"You were supposed to move left," he said, eyes hardening in pain. "You always move left. I was just trying to lessen the fact that you were killing me." His fingers tightened strangely on her hand as he gave her more power. His touch was strained and intimate with too many unspoken emotions.

She knew his identity. He hadn't thought, in all those years of wonderings, that she would put two and two together to know he was the remains of one Daniel Fenton.

Valerie pulled away from him, suddenly self-aware and conscious of their closeness. For eighty years, she had felt the weight of his tormented soul, and she knew the true sorrow that drove him. It made her…cautious in different ways. Her red eyes darted to the edges of the park in search of potential witnesses. She knew what this looked like. She did not want to encourage any more conspiracy theories than she had to.

"Twenty years of rest," she complained, trying to get her mind off of his strange behavior. "And eighty long years of listening to you talk me out of my own grave. You were driving me insane."

A strange, unfettered laugh choked in his throat. "I was driving you insane?" he said. "Were you listening at all? Do you have any idea what you've put me through? Why the hell didn't you manifest before now?"

"I didn't have the energy to," she said shortly. Her power core was weak. She barely had enough of a purpose or an obsession to maintain a stable ghost form. Her red eyes flickered to his, sharp and all-seeing. "I've been trying to move on for decades. But every time I thought I could let go, I felt you pulling up weeds. Scaring away birds and stupid boys." She leaned against the pedestal of her own statue, face worn. Some wretched smile twitched her lips. "Putting those damn flowers on my grave."

He looked a bit surprised at the level of sentience the ghost before him had. "You felt that?" he whispered. "And you still didn't say anything?"

"What, you think I wanted to be here?" she scoffed, looking down at herself. For a second, she looked horribly vulnerable, almost uncomfortable in her own skin. "I hate ghosts. I tried to go back to sleep, laid in my own body for a while." She frowned. "I just kept waking up."

He looked almost disturbed. "You can't fuse back with your original body. Rule number one of ghosthood."

"Nobody told me that," she snapped, red eyes glowing hot. "It's not like I knew about how ghosts move on; I just knew how to destroy them with weapons." She looked away, disturbed at her own grave site. "Not that there's much of the real me left to fuse with anymore."

Dan's face twitched in pain. He did not want to think of the body six feet beneath them. He did not want to think of the ghost-Valerie desperately attempting to fuse back with that body for eighty years.

She grabbed him by the collar of his jumpsuit and pulled him down so they were eye-to-eye. In his surprise, he allowed her to. She demanded, "So, since your sniveling brought me back, you're going to tell me exactly how I can move on. Because you're the one keeping me here." She tilted her head, eyes curious. "I want to know why."

In the soft moonlight, she could still see the remains of tear tracks on his face.

The ghost lowered his gaze, biting his lower lip. Then he shrugged out of her grasp and turned away. "There's no one else," he said, voice halted. "I can sense it. The people are soft; they don't even have armies—they wouldn't last a day against me. And all of the other ghosts are uneducated and hardly capable of advanced warfare."

She laughed at that, and the sound was harsh with disbelief. "That's what this is about?" she said. "Fulfilling one of your weird kicks for one last fight?" She was bitterly amused. She leaned in and she lowered her voice with a threat. "Look, I don't want to be here. Do you understand? I'm tired. I want rest." Her ghost shimmered for a second, her will to stay crumbling under greater desire to simply fade out. "So why don't you just choose to fade out too?"

His face broke. "I can't," he said. "I tried to fade out. Don't you understand? I need you." He wanted to explain that he was inevitably tied to the past—that as long as he could regret his decisions in that final fight, as long as Valerie remained dead and he could not die in a battle, he would remain existent. It meant he could not fade out on his own means; someone would have to destroy his power core. But he did not know how to voice such thoughts, as it was his deepest obsession, and ghosts simply did not speak of those things.

She clenched her fist with a wince. "You don't need me." She turned away from him. "I'm not even strong enough in this form to take you on."

"You could be," he said quickly. "If you give it time; powers manifest over time. You watched me grow for years. You could grow into something magnificent too." His face twitched, almost in psychotic desperation. "Especially if you have a reason to. I need you. Is that not enough?"

Valerie paused for a second, turning around. Her red eyes were deep with many emotions. "I made my peace," she said. "I have no regrets. Alright?" She bit her lip. "I manifested this body so I could tell you. I'm going to let go now, and you're going to let me."

Already, her power core had burnt through the energy Dan had supplied her. It was temporary and finite—it could not replace her desire to move on.

Dan said, red eyes widening, "You can't let go yet. I need you to stop me." It was a strange thought, to find himself relegated as second best. As a lower priority.

The woman sighed. "I've listened to you for eighty years, and—" She inhaled a shaky breath. "—I know you're different. I'm ready to move on. You should too."

"But—"

"—Let me go, Danny," she said, voice softer. It was strange to hear his real name from her lips. "You're keeping us both here for no reason." A bit tentatively, she reached up, lightly running her fingers down the side of his face, a sign of just how much eighty years of his mourning and origins had affected her. "There's nothing for you here, alright?"

He grabbed onto her hand, squeezing tightly. Her ghost form was transient, growing more and more transparent. He tried to transmit some of his energy to her, but she snatched her hand away, eyeing him with an amused glare.

Desperation set in. "Valerie, I can't fade without you. And if you leave me here, I'll go crazy." He was nearly begging her. "Only you can put me out of my misery. I'll do anything to make you stay."

Her eyes swelled with great pity for this ghost who was her murderer and afterlife protector. She'd given him what he needed to fade out too. There wasn't much else she could do.

Dan's mind began to race as she flickered between dimensions. His blood red eyes darkened with frustration and anger. "No! Don't go. Please. Don't go yet. I need you to stay here!"

She could feel herself letting go, her ghost form shifting to align with something else far beyond the human plane. "Sorry," she said softly.

"I'll do anything!" he shouted at her, mood swinging sharply down. "I'll make you stay!"

Something within her own fading core stalled strangely. Valerie's eyes snapped sharp at the tone in his voice. She faced him, expression twisting into something awful. "What—?"

"—I'll destroy something if you go!" he warned, tears streaming down his face. "A century of waiting for you; I've got energy to burn, you know I do."

She clenched her fists, her form suddenly more solid, her soul backing away from moving on. "Phantom," she said slowly, "neither of us want that."

After eighty years of listening to him, of discovering his true identity, she was perhaps more…accepting of his presence than before. But this? No, she could never accept fading out while he destroyed her town. Amity Park was hers. Not his. Never his.

Real fear began to seep into her, driving her power core to sputter awake in new ways.

Dan laughed something bitter. "I'll do whatever it takes!" he called out to her, voice cracking. He raised his hand, and from his fingers emitted a bright light that stormed high into the sky. "I'll make you fight me!"

"I don't want to fight anymore," Valerie said. Her voice was hard. "I just want rest."

He glared at her, eyes glowing bright with power and tears. "Can you rest," he seethed, "if I destroy your precious Amity Park?"

"Come on, you know that—"

"—I'll kill everyone," he promised, seething, raising his chin high in stubborn pain. "I will decimate this town if you fade out, and as they die, I'll tell them that you could have saved them. But you were selfish and chose not to."

Something in the blurred lines of her body halted further. "You wouldn't," she whispered, red eyes wide. "Dan, these are innocent people. They have nothing to do with this."

"They have everything do with this!" He eyed her. "You wouldn't let innocent people die, would you?"

She lurched forward. Her body solidified onto the dimension again, her red eyes wide as she breathed in anger, "No." Her voice hitched in anger. Her power core began to spark brilliantly, her red battle suit glowing with the same power that filled her entire eye. "Don't make me do this!"

Dan's face twitched with a sad, desperate smile. "It's the only way," he said. He shot at her statue, and the concrete arm with the blaster splintered at the elbow and crashed to the ground in pieces.

Valerie flinched. Her purpose was growing stronger to remain. Deep red ectoplasm began to glow at her fingers, her power core revving up higher. "Don't start this again! Seriously! I just want rest!"

His face twitched. "I do too," he whispered. "And you're the only one who can give it to me."

And then he spiraled up, power storming from his fingers. The instant the power struck the land, it sent a blast radius that knocked over several trees and benches, cracking sidewalks. He laughed out a sob, raising his hands to target the skyscrapers in the distance.

Valerie screamed, her red eyes glowing something nearly demonic. "Don't you dare!" she cried out. Tears began to water her eyes. She lifted off the ground as if she were born to do so, her fingers instinctively curling. Red sparks shot from her palms. A sob of self-hatred and pain and anger hitched her breath at the feeling of the power. He was turning her into a monster, and she knew it. "Don't you dare!"

He chanced a look at her, unashamed of his own tears. "You're beautiful like this, Val. Just think how much more beautiful you'll be soon." And he unleashed his power, a bright light, towards the heart of the city.

Without thinking, Valerie blurred. "No!" She was but a red streak against the darkness that reappeared in the line of fire. Out of her subconscious desire to protect, a large shield spread out from her fingers, spanning across her entire body. Then the full brunt of his power slammed into her, its edges like electric shocks that sparked deep into her shield and then to her shaking arms. She cried out in a ragged scream of pain.

For a second, everything darkened.

Dan's eyes widened. "…Valerie?" His hand lowered as he watched his own power ravage her body into convulsions. He felt himself falter. This was not what he had planned. No—not at all. He had not intended her to take such a hit so soon.

The instant his power burned up against her shield, Valerie's entire form flickered. She began to dropped backwards in a free-fall to the ground, nearly unconscious.

He reacted in fear. "Valerie!" He blurred to her side, sweeping her up in his arms just before she could hit the ground. He pulled up hard in the air, clutching her body to his. She slumped against him with a groan and a half-flicker of a glow. "Dammit, this is not how it's supposed to work."

He cradled her as he lowered them to the ground. "You weren't supposed to take that hit!" he complained desperately. "It wasn't even aimed at a real building! You were supposed to attack me in revenge!" He looked down at her in fear, as she looked entirely witless. Her red eyes no longer glowed, but some strange deadness echoed from the irises. He pressed his large hand against her left side, just above her sputtering power core. "Don't fade out—do you hear me?"

He had pushed her too soon. Her power core was not developed enough for such defenses.

He was prepared to transfer more of his own energy back into Valerie. But her power core was resilient, and she quickly jerked in his arms, her eyes widening with a regenerating glow. She pushed herself away and tumbled into an unsteady stand, breathing hitching at the feeling of his touch and the agonizing punch of his power. "Don't touch me!" She tried to catch her breath as she leaned on her knees, eyeing him hard in great distrust and pain.

Dan seemed relieved. His arms were held out as if he were still holding something, for he could not shake how deep his fear for her had run, or his surprise at her quick recovery. "Oh, good. You at least regenerate well."

He knew he was relegating her to a purgatory—to be caught between worlds, yearning for one while obligated to remain in the other. But if it was the only way to keep her here, he would do it. It was for the best. It was for the greater good of them both.

Dan suddenly worried that perhaps his own suicidal tactics had attracted the attention of the Amity Park. His eyes darted around for signs of terrified human beings trekking into the ruined park. But lucky him, perhaps everyone was still too drunk and celebratory to notice the small destruction he had done.

Valerie's face darkened against him as tears rolled down her face. "I hate you," she whispered. "I hate ghosts." Her voice hitched. "I hate you."

For a time, neither spoke. Phantom tracked her power core with narrowed eyes. It remained strong, her ghost form solidifying hard like a bright light. "Your hatred," he said levelly, tilting his head. "is nothing new for me."

"I know." She clenched her fists tight. "But dammit, for eighty years—" her voice hitched, and she stopped.

He raised a brow.

She started again. "For eighty years I couldn't hate you," she whispered raggedly. She looked tormented. "I felt you crying above me. So I stuck around, and I listened to you cry for me and talk to me."

Dan's eyes widened. That meant Valerie's true obsession as a ghost was perhaps not hatred of him, but something far stranger.

"I came back," she said shakily, "to say that I was ready to forgive you. But now you've trapped me here, and I can't let you destroy Amity Park." She openly cried in front of him, laughing bitterly at herself. "This is what I get! This is what I get for being stupid and thinking you were different!"

He growled a bit to hide his own pain. "You were going to abandon me," he snarled back. "I had to do something to ensure otherwise."

He moved closer to her. His shaking fingers gently grabbed her chin, and he forced her to look up at him. She nearly jerked away from him, but something in his gaze was so broken that she couldn't. She could feel his pain radiate into her. "I need you," he whispered, voice strangled. "I wanna die, Val. I need your help to do that. Can't you understand that?"

Tears slipped down her face as she remembered the decades that he had silently wept over her grave, sculpting beautiful ice flowers as a transient art for her eyes alone. For a second, she did not know how to respond to him. She wavered between anger and disappointment, then understanding and pity. Her will to hate him was breaking down into far more dangerous emotions that felt more natural at her core. She knew he needed her. For decades, she'd understood. It was why she was here to begin with. "I hate you," she groaned to him, squeezing her eyes shut to avoid his gaze and the potential that he would discover she was lying. "I hate you so much."

Dan did not beg for her forgiveness. He leaned his forehead against hers, reveling in her presence. He weaved his fingers through her wild, floating hair, as if to prove to himself that she was still here with him—that she had accepted ghosthood to give him his final request. He thought her a beautiful ghost even though she still had much to learn. She would grow into something worthy of destroying him, unlike the rest of the rotten world that had slipped into total incompetency and hopelessness.

The closeness of his actions radiated the weight of sorrow and insanity that had plagued him. He clung to Valerie tighter, and she allowed him to with a suffering sigh, feeling their two power cores revving together like a hum. It was almost a type of contentment or a satisfaction at the acknowledgment of the other.

"I know," she admitted slowly, "you need me."

In that moment, they finally realized they were the alphas and omegas of their own misery. And they stood there, nearly holding each other up because there was nothing else they could do. As long as Phantom was a threat to the safety of the human race, and as long as he could not fade out on his own, Valerie could not move on either.

Valerie simply tried not to think about how close they were, or how softly Dan was running his fingers through her hair, or how much she almost wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him that she really didn't hate him. "Look, you've put me in bad situations before, right?" she said, voice rough with defeat. "So this isn't anything new. I'll get us out of here somehow. I'll…learn this new form, and I'll end you. And then we can both move on for good."

He exhaled softly, lips twitching up miserably. Her words soothed the fraying edges of his sanity. He reached down and squeezed her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. "I'm counting on it."

And for the first time in decades, he felt hope for the future rise within him.


The next day, hung-over citizens of Amity Park stumbled to the gates of their beloved park and noticed that some of the rungs had twisted under enormous force. Then they realized that benches and streetlamps and side-walks were in shambles. They saw the ruined marble slab and statue of Valerie Gray's memorial.

Upon closer inspection, they realized that the statue was no longer cold to the touch. The memorial did not carry its usual sense of sadness, nor did it seem so invincible.

They feared initially that a new ghost had arisen—some suggested it was Phantom's own revenge for celebrating his defeat. But nothing ever happened again in the city of Amity Park. Legend came to be that Valerie's soul had finally broken free of her body, which had inadvertently resulted in destruction. And so they celebrated and attached another holiday to their calendars, none the wiser of the masked ectoplasmic signatures that now freely roamed the earth.


A/N: So thus ends The Haunting. I debated on something much happier or sadder, but I felt that the ending I chose for this two-shot was perhaps more true to the characters, as a purgatorial state for them parallels their whole struggle. This is also probably one of the least romantically-charged stories in the collection, but one of the more empathetic ones, because each one inherently understands the pain of the other. Credit for the alpha and omega line goes to John Green, from his novel The Fault in Our Stars. Song inspiration for this two-shot comes from "The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)" by Kamelot.

I think it's definitely time for a happy one-shot now, haha, who's with me? Although I could be convinced to add one more installment of this small series in the future, if only because Valerie as a ghost is intriguing. I also have some pretty serious updates to do for some other stories of mine like Chained and Powerless and Quantum Paradox, so keep an eye out for those!

If you have time, please let me know your thoughts, comments, or one-shot requests in a review!