A/N: This is sort of a sequel to 'Dying'. It's longer than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. All the more reason for you to shoot at it :) And yes, I know I said number 17, 'Blood' would be next and it will be. Next, I mean.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.


10. Breathe Again

It was quiet, at last. I was sitting on the roof of the ops center, leaning against the wall, letting the coldness of the structure seep into me. The cold was nice, I felt comfortable with it, familiar. I was cold too, I knew, and in fact I could lower the temperature of a medium sized room by several degrees just by being there. And this, of course, was usually a warning to the people being in that room that there was a ghost around.

I looked out over the town, looking gray and quiet in the twilight of the early morning, the sun being not quite up yet. My town. My haunt. That last thought startled me a bit, but it didn't worry me as much as it should have.

I'd spent the last five days hunting ghosts, almost non stop, alternately assisted by Sam or Tucker, who needed to sleep every now and then. I didn't need to sleep. I hadn't changed out of my ghost form the entire time, constantly on the lookout for whatever ghost would make it's appearance next. There really had been no point in 'going human' again. My parents were away to some ghost convention, I didn't need to go to school because it was summer and the ghosts seemed to be on some conspiracy to keep me busy.

They had appeared one after the other, sometimes two or three of the more powerful ghosts, like Skulker and Ember, at the same time. My thermos was constantly full to the limit, and we'd set up a system in which Jazz supplied us with a fresh, empty one three times a day. It had been tiring at first, and I had been almost unconscious every time I changed back in the beginning. Then I found out that if I just stayed in my ghost form, I could re-energize without having to eat or sleep.

It was weird at first, tapping into that energy, that life that was all around me. Trees. Flowers. Animals. People. They all radiated some form of power, power that I could feel, see even when I really tried. Like some kind of aura. It seemed to dissipate into the air, and it seemed a waste not to use it, so I did. Although I tried to stay away from humans as much as possible, it seemed wrong somehow, like feeding off them was some form of cannibalism. But I was starting to wonder what they would taste like.

The door of the ops center opened, and somebody stepped out, somebody with heavy combat boots, judging by the rather heavy clonking sound her footsteps made on the metal roof. She came into view from around the corner, frowned, and then sat down next to me, shivering a bit. I grinned, because I knew I gave her that shiver.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

We sat there for a while, waiting for the sun to rise and bring a new day, this time without any ghost fights, hopefully. It might actually be a bit boring, I thought absentmindedly, there was nothing wrong with a good fight every now and then.

"So," Sam said, "We're done, right? They've all gone now, we've caught them all."

"Yup."

I didn't feel like talking, and she seemed to sense it, because she remained silent for a while. I started forming small ecto balls, letting them hover in the air in front of me, feeling their sizzling power that caused a pricking feeling in my fingers. Then I used my ice power to freeze them and they clattered on the roof, like green hail.

"Pretty," Sam said, but now I could hear worry in her voice.

"What?" I asked her, "What's wrong, Sam?"

She just looked at me, as if she didn't know what to say. I felt her worry now, it was hard to ignore, the way she directed it at me. Closing my eyes for a moment, I touched it, felt it, took energy from it. Just a little bit, I thought, just to replenish what I used to make the pretty green hail.

"What are you doing?"

My eyes shot open and I looked at her guiltily. Hadn't I sworn not to use humans as a power source?

"N-nothing," I stuttered, looking away from her.

"Why don't you change back to Danny Fenton?" she asked.

I frowned. Yes, why didn't I? All the ghost were gone, there was no need to be Phantom any longer, and yet, I didn't want to. I felt great, powerful, capable of anything, and this was only from using small power sources like flowers and trees. Imagine, I thought, what I could do by using a human power source...

"Danny?"

Her voice cut off that line of thought.

"I... don't want to," I admitted.

"Why not?"

I looked away from her at the huge glowing orange ball that was rising above the horizon. It's rays were still weak, yet I could feel them, their warmth touching my cold skin, and I didn't like it. Suddenly I was worried. Never before had I wanted to hide from the sun like this, had I wanted to look for a cold, dark spot to stay until the sun set, and the darkness of the night took over again.

I couldn't remember what it was like. I couldn't remember being warm, being hungry, sleeping until noon, taking a warm shower, or just sitting in the sun with my eyes closed, listening to my own heartbeat.

"Why not, Danny?"

Her voice was no more than a whisper now, and I saw the pain in her eyes. Did she think I would desert her? Did she think I was no longer...human? Was I still human? Only one way to find out...

I reached inside of me, searching for that warm spot in the back of my mind that represented my human form, my true form, even if I had almost forgotten about that. I felt only coldness at first, and something that had been so easy before, suddenly became hard. I couldn't do it, because I didn't want to do it. Before, I had always yearned to be breathing again, to be warm again, to be normal. That yearning was gone. I liked the way I was now, a cold, ectoplasmic entity, hovering above the roof of the ops center, capable of almost anything. Fearsome.

I touched her again, not physically, but mentally, feeling the potential there. Could I let that go, could I go back to my life, pretend to be human, when I knew I wasn't?

Then I felt it. I was still there, that tiny bit of me that actually wanted all of this, that wanted to go to school, hang out with friends and family, however weird. I grabbed it, let it engulf me, and the two white rings appeared around my waist, splitting, one traveling upwards, the other down, changing my whole body structure to something that was alive, breathing, with real blood in my veins instead of some green goo. The instant the transformation was complete, I could feel my heartbeat again, a soft thunk-thunk in my ears that I usually didn't pay any attention to.

With a soft thunk I landed on the roof, warm again, smiling at Sam. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten what it was like, that feeling unlike any other, of life swooping over me. The feeling of sweet air filling my lungs, taking that first, deep breath again.