So, I read somewhere that apparently, one of the people working on Danny Phantom left the show and various good ideas were thrown out after Reality Trip. One of which was Danny stopping Danielle from flying off dramatically into the sunset to live a life on the fucking streets as an infant in a ten-year-old's body. Basically, Danny becomes an older brother, comes out to his parents, becomes more responsible. I like this idea. Let's see how I did with it, huh?

"Best part is that I didn't have to waste any energy on your dad." Danny's head turned so quickly he felt a few joints pop. Danielle was floating just a foot away from his window, grinning like a cat that caught the canary.

"Danielle?" Tucker raised a brow, examining the homunculus critically. Sam tensed like a bowstring, ready to pull out and fire her wrist ray at any moment. Danny kept his focus mainly on the miniature Phantom outside of his window, with an ectosignature that could easily trigger every alarm and weapon in the house. "What the-"

"It's Elle, actually. And don't worry, you'll see me again." She turned to fly off into the horizon and start a new life abroad when the presence of another ghost waved over her senses. Turning back she raised a brow as Danny put a firm hand on her shoulder. "Um, Danny? Why are you interrupting my dramatic flight into the sunset?"

"No, nu-uh, no way." He pulled her back into his room and sat the confused girl down on his bed. "Are you fucking insane? You're not going out there alone, Elle. Physically you're, what, ten? No ten year old should be out in the world alone! Hell," Danny scoffed. "A 20-year-old shouldn't be out there alone either. And chronologically speaking, you're probably not even two years old!"

"Are we talkin in or out of the pod? Cause-" Elle tried to shrug the situation off, but Danny and his friends wouldn't let her.

"I'd say out since exiting the artificial womb would be your day of birth… which was when, pray tell?" Sam sat down next to the pair, a glance turned to Tucker, who already had his PDA out and a scheduling app ready. "We should know when your first birthday party should be."

"I don't know or care how Vlad managed to develop a human body within only a few months, Elle, but you're still new to the world," Danny said as he levitated his chair over to sit in. "You don't know how a lot of things work, and I don't want you learning the hard way without someone to fall back on."

"And who would that be?" Elle crossed her arms, frowning hard at her original as he listed off a billion and one reasons why she shouldn't adventure on her own. "You can't come with me, you've got school and ghost hunting and your parents. I'm not going back to Vlad," the two shivered at the thought. "I don't know anyone else in either world. I don't have any fallback, Danny. Wasn't made for that." Elle's vision grew blurry, and she blinked away the tears, wanting to be able to focus on leaving. Danny's hand was still on her shoulder, however, keeping her grounded to the bed and solid. "Danny, I wasn't made with or for a family."

"Technically, Danny is your biological father since you vary enough from him to not be considered an actual clone." Tucker piped up helpfully as he tapped away at his PDA. "Gimme a minute, the cheesehead had Technus help him construct his security I'm pretty sure. I can tell you your birthday in just a bit."

"The fact is," Danny said, "you don't have someone to rely on in life, not if you go off on your own right now. But if you stay here, then I can guarantee you will." Elle looked up into Danny's eyes, Sam turned his gaze from the homunculus to her friend, and behind him, Danny could hear Tucker's stylus slowing to a pause. "Stay here, and you can become part of the family."

"And your parents?" Sam spoke up, twisting her wrist ray around rapidly. "Are you ready to come out and tell them your secret Danny? We don't have a Clockwork redo or the Reality Gauntlet fall back on if they don't take it well." The goth stared into Danny's eyes, worrying her lip as the various scenarios where the Fentons tried to kill Danny in both forms flitted through her head. The security system turned on and targeting the Phantom, Maddie's plasma staff burning a hole through his chest, an ectoblast splattering his brains on the wall after he turned back to prove that he's still their son. "You know Tuck and I are here for you if things do go that way, but…"

"Hey, there's every chance that they'll be all for it, overcome with guilt, proud of you for being a hero like Jazz is, fascinated by your stories about friendly ghosts in the Zone, etcetera." Tucker put a hand on Danny's shoulder and squeezed. "You're their baby boy after all. Younger children get parental favoritism." Danny snorted and smiled at the two of them.

"Yeah, you're right, both of you. I'm terrified of telling my parents what I am, but I'm confident that they'll accept me. They did the last time that they had time to process things, they will now. And besides," he said, locking eyes with Elle, voice softening. "Your safety is more important than my secret. I can't force you to make this decision, though. It's your life, and no matter how much I wanna help, it's up to you whether you want to make this your home and family, or if you want to go off on your own adventure and discover what the world is like out there."

Elle stared, slack jawed and in shock, at Danny and his friends. She hadn't even thought about staying behind and having a family. She was an imperfection, a mistake, a cheap copy that Danny would really want to have around. Yet, here he was offering to expose himself to the top ghost hunters in the world as the thing they've been hunting for the past year or so. Danny was going to either have her adopted into his family, or he was going to go with her on her adventure around the world to stay alive depending on what happened after he told his secret. Danny was willing to turn his world upside down for her and wanted her to stay.

The tears welled up in her eyes again, and Elle flung herself at Danny, wrapping her arms around him as she reverted to human form. "Oh god, thank you Danny, thank you so much!" When she sobbed, Elle could feel that Danny had become human again too. He didn't push her away for messing up his shirt or tell her to quiet down so that his parents wouldn't hear. Danny wrapped his arms around her, and Elle cried for three solid minutes into his chest, overwhelmed by the emotions swirling inside of her head and her core.

Once she could breathe properly and had wiped the snot and tears from her face, Elle beamed up at Danny and hugged him again. "I want to stay here with you. I want a real family." Elle spoke with as much conviction as she could muster, and squeaked when Danny jumped from his chair to his bed with her still in his arms.

"Welcome to the Fenton Family, little sister." Danny ruffled her hair and looked up at Tucker. "How much progress do you have on getting into Vlad's files bro?"

"I've got everything he has on her stored right here on Emma, and I'll be copying it all down to my other stuff later so that I can create birth records and everything. You can get the papers into whichever… hospital I pick for this." If Danny didn't know how careful Tuck was with his tech, he'd have expected there to be a hole in the monitor from how fast the stylus was moving. "I'll need a couple of nights to get everything ready, and if we're going to do this believably without wishing on Desire and making everything more complicated, we'll need to have the Fentons adopt Elle." He stopped, looking up from his screen at the halfas on the bed. "Would you Danielle or Elle as your legal first name? Also, would you like a middle name?"

Elle blinked slowly at Tucker and cocked her head to the side. Tuck apparently recognized this as a signal that she had no idea what the heck he had just said because he muttered something about getting back to her on that and returned to his typing. "Guys? I'm pretty tired."

"It's been a pretty full day, hasn't it?" Sam hummed and plucked Elle from Danny's arms, ignoring her squirming. "You're tiny. You can crash at my place, we have plenty of extra rooms for when my parents have one of their adult parties, and everyone needs to sleep it off." Danny narrowed his eyes over Elle's shoulder, and Sam grinned cheekily at him. "No, you may not enter the wine cellar, I have a ghost shield on around it at all times."

"What's wine?" Danny and Tucker snorted before the ghost boy wrapped an arm around her middle and then around Sam's. "Guys, what is it? I don't like those grins on your faces." Tucker walked over and wrapped his arms around Danny's shoulders, everyone ignoring Elle's question as the teen shifted into his ghost form. "I'm gonna kick your butts if you don't tell me soon."

"Sure you will, Elle. Sure you will." Danny took off toward first Sam, and then Tucker's houses.

Of course there's potentially more, but whether that gets expanded upon into another story is currently up in the air. After all, I've got so much shit on my plate. My job has suddenly flooded with hours, but I need them because of some money mishaps, and so I'm not gonna be very laggy in updating stuff. I'm planning myself to hell with Phantom Age.