Disclaimer: Don't own DP.

Thanks to Chrysanthemum9484, Invader Johnny, KaezerZilla, ZoneRobotnik, and Dp-Marvel94 for reviewing last time! So appreciate you!

Overall Miniseries Summary for Karma: Dan challenges Pariah Dark for the position of Ghost King and loses badly. As a result, Pariah Dark rips out Dan's power core and tortures him to make him an example for other enemies. He then throws a broken Dan to the resistance before claiming the human world as part of his empire. Valerie struggles with what to do regarding their strange prisoner and how to stop Pariah Dark before he destroys them all. Hurt!Dan. Rated: M.

Karma Part 15: The clear-minded Ghost King Dan Phantom struggles under the weight of his past, but he's not the only one as he and Valerie forge a little found family from the ashes of the world around them. Final chapter of the Karma thread!

Content Warnings: N/A

Deliverance

Shot 81: Karma Part 15, Epilogue

Days passed with no further sign of Dan Phantom.

In that time, Valerie gained a temporary roommate in the form of a skittish Nina, who was left reeling from the attack on the playground. She repaid Valerie's kindness by obsessively cleaning and plastering drawings of flowers and vines across the bedroom walls, but she remained fearful of human interaction, trusting only Valerie, Vlad, and Damon. Her fingers still trembled as she shakily painted a green vine, attempting to hum a happy song before it faltered in her throat.

As Valerie opened the door that day, returning from a conference meeting, she caught sight of Nina in the middle of another panic attack. "Nina?" she called, voice tight with concern. She set down her tablet. "Hey, what's wrong?"

The little girl dropped her paint brush, splattering dark green paint onto the tarp at her feet. She pressed her palms against her eyes to hide her tears as she struggled through a sob. "The bad pictures," she said. "In my head—all the bad ones keep coming back."

Valerie swallowed hard and kneeled beside Nina, still awkward with managing the emotions of children. "Did you want to go see Vlad for a while? He knows a lot about bad memories and working through them."

Nina looked up, agonized as tears freely slipped down her rounded cheeks. "He can't make them go away," she breathed through a sob. "And if I bother him too much, m-maybe he'll leave too."

She reached up on the nearby desk and pulled down a box of face tissues, offering one to the little girl with a grump. "Has Vlad ever turned you away?"

The girl blew her nose, still blinking with wide, bloodshot eyes. "No," Nina said, sniffling. She wiped her nose again and paint on her hands streaked across her cheek. Her face broke all over again in anxiety. "But no one wants to be around me in the end, no matter h-how hard I try."

Valerie's throat tightened, and her own eyes prickled with an odd burn—that somewhere deep down, she knew the loneliness of staring out at a world with happy nuclear families that had moms and dads and siblings, wondering why she wasn't worthy of the same. "You're just tired, Nina. It makes all the bad pictures and thoughts feel closer than they really are. Did you get any sleep at all today?"

The little girl shook her head again, her eyes bagged and hollow. "It's hard to sleep," she said.

Beside Valerie's bed on the floor was a small mattress they'd dragged in for Nina, covered by an old quilt. On more nights than not, Valerie awoke to the sound of sniffling muffled into a pillow.

"Those kids aren't going to hurt you here," Valerie reminded her firmly. "You know they can't. I won't let them."

Nina's big eyes brightened with tears again. "I know," she said, wringing her hands. "But they hate me even more because Dan wrecked the playground in payback for me. I made him angry, and then he had to leave, and it's all my fault."

Valerie sighed, closing her eyes briefing and inhaling slowly. "It's not your fault," she said. "If there's anything I know about Dan, it's that he can't stay away from Amity Park for long. He said he was coming back."

The girl sniffled again, setting down her face tissue and grabbing for her paint brush. "No one comes back for me," she whispered.

In concern, Valerie pulled away, still eyeing her. As she did so, the room sharply dropped in temperature, and her ghost radar triggered with a sharp alert.

She looked down in consternation, her own heart skipping at the sight of a familiar, all-expansive signature rapidly approaching. The power of a Ghost King was such that it flooded the entire region with a hair-raising cold.

Dan.

Nina stared at the goosebumps raising on her skin in consternation, eyes widening. "Oh. What is…?"

Valerie made a strangled noise as a giant, green portal shimmered into the view. "That would be Dan coming back for you." Under her breath to hide her own anticipation, she complained, "Although it used to be that ghosts didn't materialize in the middle of the damn resistance."

A sharp cool slipped against Valerie's neck as a puff of breath tickled her ear. "And it used to be that you would fight such intrusions," Phantom murmured.

Her heart seized even as her expression faulted. She turned around to stare into wine-red eyes, still clear of the insanity that had once flickered through them. Upon Dan's head glowed the Crown of Fire, which carried a palpable energy.

Before she could speak, Nina slipped between them and hugged Dan's leg. "Dan!" Her eyes were bright with tears that bubbled over in a sob. "I thought you left forever. Why were you gone so long?"

The powerful ghost's eyebrow twitched with a curiosity as he leaned down and patted her head. His movements were tentative, as if he remained uncertain of normal human customs for displaying care. "I was rebuilding my lair in the Ghost Zone." His gaze slid back to Valerie. "And ensuring the permanent removal of certain foes."

Nina pulled away, not quite realizing that her fingers had left a trail of green paint against the black material of Dan's jumpsuit. "A lair, meaning the castle you talked about?"

"Yes." He sniffed, glancing down at his paint-stained knees before waving his hand. The paint disappeared into the typical smooth lines of his jumpsuit.

Valerie crossed her arms. "And these foes…" Her expression faltered. "I take it they were the, uh, the ghosts from Pariah Dark's court?"

His face split with as close to a dark smile as he could manage, and the light did not reach his eyes. "They begged for mercy." He turned away from her, the ends of his floating hair slipping around him with a reverberation of energy that she could feel. "I gave them a far more honorable end than they deserved."

On instinct, she reached out and grabbed for his gloved hand.

Dan's fingers were long, dwarfing her own. He did not recoil or tense at her touch but instead glanced back at her. He tentatively squeezed her hand before slipping away, falling silent for a time.

Nina glanced between them, twisting her paint-smeared hands into her sweater with nervousness. "Is everything…okay?"

Dan's eyes slid to her. "All will be well soon," he said. "But the conversation I must have with Valerie is for adults, not for children."

The girl nodded. "Oh, I see. Um." She awkwardly gathered up her paint, only to pause in the middle of her mess. "I'll go get us popsicles for grown-up talk."

His eyebrow quirked. "Popsicles?"

"It's like," Valerie said, voice dry as Nina slipped to the door, "her version of a drink or something."

"Ah."

It remained silent between them until well after Nina's footsteps had faded out of the range of Dan's hearing. He leaned against the windowsill, his black cape a hissing flutter about him. It carried all the darkness and strange light of the Ghost Zone, like the rest of him.

He looked odd against the window, with natural sunlight behind him.

And then he pulled off the Crown of Fire, the glow about him dampening as he did so. "The children who attacked Nina and made her cry—they are the children of humans on my red list."

Valerie tilted her head, swallowing hard. Quietly, she moved to sit beside him on the windowsill. "What about it?"

Dan turned to her with stormy eyes. "I do not want my past to harm Nina again, but I cannot erase my own red list through more violence." He looked down at his own hands, as if distant with himself as he listlessly spun his crown. "And my list is extensive."

"Yeah, it is." Her voice softened. "Are you alright? After…everything?"

"No. I understand now that revenge does not offer relief, and that forgiveness is difficult to obtain." He paused. "Even you are hesitant with me because of the past that I cannot erase."

She scratched her elbow, making a noise in the back of her throat. Her leg and shoulder bumped against his. "I mean, I know you're different now."

"I am not entirely," he said, voice halted. "The impulse to ruin this city may be gone, but I have memories of it, just as all the living do." He stood up from the windowsill, his long hair flickering down his shoulders like waves of starlight. His face was haunted. "It's a nightmare I cannot escape, and one that you cannot either. A part of you is still waiting for me to regress back to a monster."

She looked down, wringing her hands. "It's not that," she said, voice halted. "I know you're not a monster anymore."

"But?"

"But you offered me the title of Ghost Queen." Her breath hitched. "I get the part about keeping you on the good path, but…a title like that doesn't just come for free, either. What kind of trouble are you getting me into, really?"

Dan reset the Crown of Fire upon his head, his glow radiating out as the power shifted in his irises. His words were halted and uneasy in his mouth. "It is true that the position will not be without difficulties. The Ghost Zone is as infinite as the stars in the sky, and I've received warning that others covet the power I've obtained." His expression tightened. "I have set things into motion that I cannot stop."

It remained silent as she searched his eyes. "How powerful are these others compared to you right now?"

"I do not know," he admitted. "Perhaps some are nuisances, and others are…like me." He clenched his fist, his jaw tightening. "I meant it when I offered these relics to you." His voice carried an unsteady pattern. "I want to do the right thing, and the only option is to raise your throne to mine. So that we may…protect our people. Together."

Our people.

Valerie stood up. She reached out and shakily placed her hand upon Dan's chest, just slightly off-kilter from the location of a standard human heart. There, his power core pulsed with a deep, thriving energy.

He reached up, daring to stroke her wrist as they spoke silently to each other.

The material of his jumpsuit was soft and thick, cool with his energy. She stroked her thumb over the location of his power core in awe. "A man after my own heart."

His eyes crinkled with a slight amusement as he tilted his head. "I do know your heart." He intertwined his fingers over hers.

She allowed him to encompass her hand, swallowing down emotion. "And this, um, this power that you're offering to upgrade my suit, as part of accepting this title. It wouldn't…change me, would it?"

His mouth—still too wide and fanged to be civilized—split open. "The nanoparticle technology in your blood is a creation of Technus, and it feeds off your natural electromagnetic signature as a human. My power would merely augment that technology, but your suit would display more ghost-like capabilities."

Valerie pulled away, self-consciously brushing a dark curl behind her ear. "It'd just stay in the suit, right? What kind of powers?"

"I can reflect my basic powers using the nanoparticles." His hands lit in a glow. "Ecto-blasts, intangibility, invisibility. Enough that you can manipulate specialized manifestations of power and exercise abilities to the same degree I can."

"And you're willing to offer this? Like, for real?"

For a moment, a brief vulnerability passed across his face. "Only to you." He held out his hand, his palm open. He wore gloves in that moment, his long fingers and the scars that still marred his knuckles hidden from view. "It is meant for you."

Valerie recalled the image of his bare hands bruised from blunt force trauma. Those hands holding her steady as she trembled in exhaustion from her infirmary bed to her wheelchair.

Holding her hand through the pain.

In the silence, she placed her hand in his.

His cool, long fingers curled overs in a familiar way, and his too-wide mouth stretched. He leaned his forehead against hers, the cool metal of his crown a hard contrast against the heat of her skin. "You will not regret our alliances."

And the next thing she knew, the entire room flared white.

Valerie's lips opened with a soft gasp, her eyebrows scrunching together as she felt the soft cool encompass her entirely—as if she were intangible once more. In that moment, Dan's core was as her own beating heart.

A deep, thriving power.

She inhaled, pulling away in awe as his energy activated her battle suit. The nanoparticles shined over her, locking into place. She soon stood in her battle suit, and its red panels glimmered more darkly while yet glowing white with a thrum. She stared down at her own hands, eyes wide.

Dan titled his head. "Are you alright?"

She turned her hand, blinking. "Yeah." She managed a shaky inhale as she clenched her fist, the air around her reverberating with crackling sparks. Her suit responded with new lines of code streaming into her mind.

Power at 300%.

"I feel great," she breathed, looking back up at Dan. Something burned in her eyes—tears? A strange relief or a joy? The energy itself acknowledged her as an heir for having dealt a mortal blow to Pariah Dark.

Dan smiled, and it was a handsome sight. A relief lightened his gaze now, as if the power's demands had been wearing on him. "It was meant for you, in part," he said, tilting his head.

His gaze dropped to her lips at their proximity.

Her breath puffed against his in the silence. "And is that what we are?" she asked. "Two halves of a whole?"

"Would you deny it?"

Between them, the great power hummed with an equilibrium, but Valerie struggled to focus on the meaning of it compared to the decreasing distance between her and Dan.

The sense that for once in her life, she was in the right time, in the right place.

That this was all so very right.

The sound of Nina's sudden squeal shook them out of their closeness, and Valerie flinched, eyes wide as she turned to the sight of Nina running in, having dropped three green popsicles, now melting on the floor. "Oh!" the little girl said. "Oh, do I get a power-up too? Is that what this is? Me next, me next! I wanna fly." Without any fear at all, she tugged on Dan's cape, widening her eyes to give herself the appearance of a kicked puppy pleading for food.

Dan made a noise as he watched his cape bunch into her sticky, popsicle-coated hands. "This power is for Valerie," he said, voice firm, "and for her alone."

Nina made her lip quiver, eyes will wide and shining. "Please?"

"No," he said again. "But if you wish to experience flight, you will soon. The castle I promised resides in the Ghost Zone and requires flight to reach."

There was a beat of silence as Nina's mind caught up. Her little, sticky fingers slipped from the flickering edges of his cape. "Oh," she said, this time true tears of joy rising in her eyes. "New home?"

Valerie warned to Dan, "Don't get her hopes yet. You might not be able to take her with you."

"She's not staying here," he said.

"She's a ward of the city," she pressed. "You gotta convince, like, my dad at the very least to vouch for you and sign adoption papers in front of a judge and a lawyer. You'd have to show them what Nina's new home would be. And you know no one's going to let you walk away with a human kid."

Nina's face fell. "Even if I wanna go?"

Valerie swallowed and nodded. "Even if you wanna go." She retracted her armor, the glow about her dying away and her red-black armor resettling into nanoparticles in her bloodstream—the power of a Ghost King humming yet within her. The line of her mouth softened before she added to Dan, "You're settling your score with me, but you still have a lot to prove."

Dan's eyes hardened. "She will be a princess. Is not that enough?"

She crossed her arms. "Can you even feed her real human food in the Ghost Zone?"

It felt silent among them, with Nina wringing her hands. "Please, Valerie," she said, voice wavering. "I really wanna go. I can make my own stuff and cook rats." Something in Nina's gaze was far older than that of a child—that she had already scrounged and scraped for food and shelter before the resistance had found her.

Dan cut in, voice strengthening with finality. "She will not cook rats. And if it is your father who decides her fate, then I will show him what luxury lies ahead for Nina."

Valerie's eyebrows flew up. "He doesn't go into the Ghost Zone. Like, ever."

His mouth stretched with a humor. "And what would he have to fear, with you as his fearless and all-powerful champion?"

"He's still not a fan of you," she deadpanned.

Dan's expression faltered with a pout. "A person destroys the world one time…"

"It was more than once, Dan. It was, like, every Wednesday and Friday evening."

"Nuance."

The thriving energy of both Valerie and Dan triggered alarms in the heart of the resistance, such that the militia had armed themselves in preparation for a possible ghost invasion. Valerie huffed through her communicator as she walked through the hall—Dan her dark shadow. "It's okay," she said. "I promise no one is attacking. Dan is behaving. We're all fine."

Behind her, the Ghost King made a face. "I do not 'behave,'" he complained. "I should graffiti a wall with expletives before others think I'm now a philanthropist baking cookies."

Valerie placed a hand over her communicator and retorted, "Don't be a gremlin. Also, I'd never trust your baking."

Her father's voice crackled in. "Baby girl, we're registering massive power outputs from him, along with an ectoplasmic wave…from you?"

Her voice strangled. "Ah, um. About that."

"Valerie, what's going on?" She knew that warning tone. "What's that ghost gotten you into now?" Damon's tolerance of Phantom was tempered only by his memory of said ghost feeding a weak and helpless Valerie chocolate pudding.

"Well, you know that deal he offered?"

The line remained silent.

She added, voice straining, "More powerful ghosts could attack our cities in the future. Doesn't it make sense to have beneficial alliances?"

"Valerie."

"You know we were outmatched without his power," she pressed. "It took us both to take down Pariah Dark."

"Oh my god, Valerie." He sighed with a groan. "Do you even know what you've accepted?"

The thrum of energy swarmed within her veins—a whisper behind her human heart. "It's a way to keep Dan hovering by me, instead of roaming for more relics that get us all sucked into another dimension."

"Excuse me?" Dan complained.

"Don't even try to pretend like it didn't happen."

Ahead, the hallway double-doors slammed open, with Damon carrying a communicator. He was flanked by several soldiers in full gear, and all of them tensed at the sight of Dan.

Damon's face broke, and he moved forward, pocketing the communicator. "Valerie," he complained, voice breaking. "Most people don't want an angel of death hovering by them all the time." He clasped onto her arm with his only remaining one, his grip tight with worry as he glanced her over. "Or their power."

She held on tightly, her eyes softening. "An angel of death is better than the demon you would have called him a while back."

It fell silent between them. The father's throat tightened as his eyes misted, still looking her over in concern.

From behind Valerie, Dan appeared, leaning his chin on her shoulder. The filaments of his hair slipped against Valerie's cheek. "I like the sound of angel of death, but you should remember, Damon, that I am in fact a king."

Damon's solitary eye slid to Dan and narrowed. "You are on dangerous ground, boy. You may try to play up your kicked-baby-deer character with my daughter, but you still owe me a new eye and an arm. And a new tablet for the one you broke before the battle."

The ghost narrowed his eyes right back, baring a sharp fang. "If you were like me, you could regenerate yourself and your things naturally."

"There is nothing natural about you," Damon said.

That made Dan's wide mouth split wide, and he pulled back from Valerie. "No," he agreed. "No, there is not." And then in a blur, he reached out, planting his hand against Damon's temple.

Valerie flinched, grabbing onto Dan's arm to stop him.

The soldiers raised their weapons as Damon froze, his single eye widening as Dan's power flooded him in a bright surge. In the blur of the moment, Dan pulled his hand away, gaze unreadable.

Valerie demanded, eyes wide in alarm, "What the hell was that?"

Dan remained silent, focused on Damon.

A strange expression tightened the father's face as he stared at Dan in shock, his jaw dropping. For a time, he said nothing as well. Then, slowly, he pulled off his eye patch with shaking fingers, revealing a healthy, unscarred eye. He blinked in awe, speechless as he stared at them both with perfect vision.

The soldiers lowered their blasters.

Dan's voice was a deep vibration through the room, carrying a sharp edge of irritation. "An eye for an eye. But if you should like to have your arm back, then I require something from you first, Damon Gray."

Valerie's gaze misted at the sight of her father's healed face, no longer bearing the harsh scars around his eye socket.

Damon's two eyes—with 20/20 vision—landed on Dan with a critical wariness and a deep awe. "…What do you want?"

Damon Gray soon found himself wearing a protective vest and visor, holding a blaster in his trembling hand as he stepped off Valerie's jet slid. Her technology burned a deep black with glimmers of red, and it crackled with an odd mixture of electricity—a consistent reminder that Dan had upheld his deal.

That all of this was real.

Above them, the endless skies of the Ghost Zone wavered with green light, with doors floating aimlessly in the distance.

"This place is a nightmare," the father grumped, eyes wide for threats. "No place for a child."

Dan carried Nina piggyback, the girl alit with great joy from experiencing flight. She seemed small against the broad expanse of Dan's shoulders.

"It's so pretty," Nina cooed. "Look at all the different colors of doors!"

"No sun, no apparent sources of water," Damon said in disbelief, turning to Dan.

Valerie unlatched her helmet, allowing her ponytail of ringlet curls to bounce free. "He says there's natural water springs below ground," she said.

"And what if she falls over the side of the island?" the father pressed. "Would she die? Fall forever?"

Nina wrapped her arms tighter around Dan's neck, peeking at Damon through flickers of white hair. "I won't go near the edge," she bargained. "I promise."

Dan's baritone voice rose with a dry humor. "Hn, perhaps he is not wrong to question your curiosity," he murmured, and then he lifted his free hand. The glow about him brightened, and the ground upon which they walked trembled before it expanded out into the ether, dipping into a moat of clear water and beyond that—a green matrix of lines that hardened into white stone with black sentinel pillars.

It loomed high above human height.

Valerie moved to walk beside him. "You can alter structures like that?" she asked in awe.

"All ghosts can reshape their lair." Dan tilted his chin with a pride and added, "Although none have taste as I do." They turned around a bend, the rocky internal structures giving way to open space. A large structure of white stone loomed over the vast expanse of the floating island. High, open windows gleamed between the pillars, with multiple levels of spires pointing to the sky.

"Oh," Nina said, eyes widening. "Oh, it's like a fairy tale."

Damon had holstered his blaster but still maintained a tight grip on it. Something in his gaze faltered as he stood before the great castle.

With a wave of Dan's hand, the front doors flew open, revealing a clean, expansive entry hall, with soft lights reminiscent of human ballrooms. He set Nina down and allowed her to explore. Her threadbare clothes contrasted sharply against the rich paneling of the doors as she slipped inside.

The sight of her—an orphan marveling in what could be hers—made Damon's shoulders deflate. "I can't possibly allow for this," he said, voice soft to Dan and Valerie. "Even…if I wanted to say yes, I can't allow a child of the state to stay in his care."

Nina cooed over the crystal decorations lining a wall, daring to reach out and touch them, which flickered a rainbow against her skin. "So pretty," she whined.

Dan's face hardened. "I saved your entire world from destruction. I healed Valerie of her wounds." He pointed at Nina. "And I offer her a world from the insanity that would make her a thief and hater of her own kind. Can that not be measured against my red list?"

"It's complicated," Damon said, voice halted. "We're already considered too indulgent with you."

"And will you," he demanded, "consign an innocent child to beatings and loneliness, simply to punish me for my past? You know no one else wants her. The other children fear her."

The words dropped hard between them.

Damon groaned with a raw agony as his hand slipped from the blaster. "I know."

Dan's face shadowed as his eye twitched, but he remained silent.

The father turned to Valerie briefly with a hesitant look before stepping around Dan, setting his gaze with grim concern. "Let's pretend for a moment you were a regular human man. You're not married and have no history of childcare. You have exceedingly few positive social connections. You'd be rejected for that alone."

Nina peeked out from behind the door, her eyes wide as she listened in.

"Daddy," Valerie complained, crossing her arms in exhaustion. "You know this isn't a normal case. And I don't mind watching after Nina, but I can't be in two places at once to keep her out of trouble all the time."

Dan's eyes slid to Valerie.

He certainly could be in two places at once, or more.

Valerie pleaded, "We all know Nina wants to be here. And Dan is—he's trying, Daddy. He's trying to clear his red list."

The father rubbed his temples, looking worn. "He's holding my own arm against me to extort me into saying yes."

Dan's face split with a grin. "Tell me it's working."

"I've gone years without it, and I can stay just like this if it means keeping a child safe," Damon warned.

The devious mischief faltered in Dan's gaze. "I would not hurt her." His voice carried a hard finality. "And Nina woke me up to assist Valerie in battle. If nothing else, you owe her a debt for her part in securing peace."

The father demanded, "And is she even safe here? With all the enemies you have, what would keep them from invading this castle and hurting Nina to get to you?"

Dan's wine eyes flared orange. "You know I am well capable of protecting Nina. Who are you to question me when she was beaten under your watch in your lands?"

That inspired a twitch in Damon's face, and all the fight in him bled out in exhaustion. He pressed his lips together, rubbing the back of his neck. "Not exactly my watch," he muttered. "I'm not the leader of the Youth Ward."

"You are the administrative leader of your people," Dan argued. "Your resources are clearly too scarce to care for them all."

And then Damon looked up. "…I can't believe I'm going to say this. But Phantom, you have my probationary approval releasing Nina into your custody. On extreme stipulations." He raised his fingers. "Number one, you bring her to the human world to play whenever she wants, and no less than three days a week. Number two, you provide me and my associates directly with a list of meals she's getting. Nina will meet with myself and Vlad at least once a week to prove she's healthy and happy." He raised another finger. "And three, my daughter will have unimpeded access to your lair."

"She already does," Dan said, "given the title due her as Queen and her additional power that is tied to mine."

Valerie's cheeks flamed up and her arms tightened together against the panels of her suit. "I can check in on them," she agreed.

Nina slipped out through the door to hide behind Dan. His flickering cape curled around her protectively.

"And four," Damon said suddenly. "You'll use this new power and lair of yours to protect not only Nina but also the human world in its entirety. That means everyone in it, whether you like them or not."

Dan remained silent for a time, mullling over the demand, before he eventually said, "How very much like Valerie you are—always considering the macroscale of things. In the past, I would have found that annoying, but I do seek to clear my red list. Very well, Damon. You have my word."

He held out his hand, eyes dark in anticipation that Damon would yet turn him away.

The old man hesitated before he grabbed on and shook Dan's hand with a tight grip. The power of the ghost king was a thick energy around Dan—and yet completely harmless to Damon.

Valerie turned away, her eyes floating over the tall spires of the castle. There was a particular creativity to the structure of the castle that belied the expansion of Dan's mind. Every stone seemed meaningfully placed.

A strange place for a child, but harmless enough.

And a castle fitted for a King…and a Queen.

Her throat tightened up as she recalled a beaten and broken Dan turning his face away from her. A healing Dan holding her as she rested her cheek against his shoulder.

As he fed her chocolate pudding.

Valerie inhaled a deep breath of the strange Ghost Zone air, a lightness in her heart for the first time in years. "Now, give Daddy his arm back."

A week later, Vlad Masters sat within the castle of the Ghost King, sipping tea from a steaming coffee mug as he wrote out reading assignments for Nina's continuing education. He was bundled in a dark coat and boots to stave off the cold of the Ghost Zone, but he wore no armor. "Phantom does not lash out at you for over-indulging in the arts and ruining your nice clothes, does he, Nina?"

The child wore a light purple jumper that still somewhat sparkled beneath the splotches of blue paint as she drew a mural of flowers over the stone. Her thick hair was pulled back with a purple sash embedded with pure diamonds—also carrying flecks of paint. "He's never mean," she said in a happy squeak. "I love it here."

Vlad's aged face softened at her. "Have your nightmares lessened, staying in this castle?"

Her little fingers tightened on the paintbrush, and she turned around, looking guilty. "A little," she said, "but sometimes I still dream of all the bad pictures, and then I get upset."

"And what happens when you do cry? Is he still kind to you?"

She pursed her lips, setting down the brush to scratch her head. "He gave me his cape one time, and I used that as a blanket. I felt very safe then and went back to sleep."

The old man hummed. "Most fascinating. And does Dan encourage your studies? Or does he let you play all day?"

At that, Nina made a face. "He's very strict about studies and bedtimes."

"As he should be for someone your age." Vlad wrote notes on the planner, swallowing hard. For a time, his hand hesitated, his throat tightening up. "It's quite strange to hear he has done so well as your guardian."

Nina sat down on the paint mat. "Did you think he wouldn't?" she asked.

Vlad eyed the little girl, who was more aware than most and yet so very trusting of Phantom. "My dear, I would say paternal instinct is not his most natural characteristic, especially given his red list."

Her gaze lowered to the floor as she dunked her paintbrush back into the bucket. "He doesn't like it when people bring up his list," she murmured. "He goes away sometimes to be alone."

Vlad hummed, his own face shadowed with a raw shame. "Yes, I can imagine he carries a heavy weight, after all that he did in his era of madness."

Nina tapped her fingers on the floor. Her voice softened. "…Um, Vlad? Do you know if he and Commander Valerie gonna get married?"

The pen flinched out of Vlad's hand, scarring his paper with splotches of ink. "Pardon me, what?"

Her voice strengthened with curiosity. "Are he and Valerie gonna get married? He says she's the new Queen by law, and if he's the King of the Ghost Zone, isn't that what kings and queens are supposed to be? Married?"

"Ah." Vlad's voice strangled. "Hm. I'm not…quite sure I can speak for Valerie on these matters. Perhaps it would be best to ask her directly."

"But—"

"I think it's important that we begin to focus on your learning curriculum for next week, and forget about this business regarding kings and queens. Of more import, Dan noted that you struggle with numbers and slacked on your math work."

Nina made a face. "Ugh, numbers are dumb."

"Why, not at all. Do you know what one can do with numbers? The power it affords you to alter your world for the better?"

She grabbed for her paintbrush again, her voice an indignant squeak, "Dan can count all the people he's killed, and it makes him unhappy."

Vlad face-palmed and groaned lightly, caught between amusement and consternation. "Oh, Nina. That's, ah, that's not what I meant."

Atop the highest tower of the castle, Valerie sat beside Dan on the edge of a wall, staring out at the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone. She wore her infused battle suit, but she lacked a helmet, her long, ringlet curls streaming down her back.

Her leg brushed against Dan's. It was a familiar touch—a sense of safety. "I still don't get intangibility," she complained. "I tried it, and I slammed into a building."

Dan sat beside her, his wine eyes lit with humor as he snorted. "You simply organize your mind toward a desired end. Ghost energy is directed intention."

She leaned in, accusatory. "You gave me power, but you didn't tell me how to use it, or 'organize my mind,' as you say. It's harder than it sounds."

His breath was a soft puff against her lips. "You didn't ask for my help."

"I'm a Queen," she retorted, raising her chin. "I shouldn't have to ask."

"So now you use such a title against me? How wicked of you."

Valerie's face lit up. In the last several days, a heavy shadow had lifted from her, sparkling her eyes with a new mischief. "You're the one who gave the title of Queen to me on a whim."

Dan bumped his nose against hers. "This power is yours by right." He leaned in further, their lips brushing as his voice lowered for her alone. "As it is equally mine."

Her voice was a pleased murmur. "Then don't blame me for trying to use it."

He huffed, and his eyes closed as he kissed her with reverence, his mouth opening to deepen the kiss. His gloved hand rested against the back of her neck, his long fingers intertwining with her curls.

Valerie followed the soft, lazy kiss that belied their increasing comfort with each other. She retracted her armored gloves, her bare, scarred fingers running down his chest. For all the regenerative power between them, Dan's tongue still carried a scarred line, same as the starburst scar that remained hidden under his jumpsuit.

A sign that he was forever changed.

His fingers clasped over hers as he pulled away, leaning his forehead against hers. The long tendrils of his white hair flickered against her curls. "I will teach you many things," he murmured, his mouth stretching. "You will be a fearsome Ghost Queen."

Valerie licked her bottom lip, her cheeks hot even as her eyes lit with a greater mischief. "I already am."

"You already are," he agreed.

Her calloused thumb continued to stroke the uneven lines of his starburst scar in awe. "Do the other ghosts sense it? Do they know what's happened?"

"Yes." He pulled back, tilting his head. "They shudder in terror that I have regenerated from a core excision, and they can sense the revised signature of your own battle suit. Most, I believe, remaining in hiding. It may be some time before we are properly challenged by new enemies from deep within other sectors."

Her face pulled in a light pout. "Oh, and I was looking forward to testing out my new weapons. With all this peace around both here and in Amity Park, I don't wanna get soft."

Dan smiled. "Nor do I," he said, "especially now that I have much to protect." His eyes carried an ongoing seriousness in them, his gaze instinctively listing to the far tower where Vlad was currently teaching Nina. "She seems pleased to be here, but I hear her sobs at night."

It fell quiet between them. Valerie's hand slid from his chest as she searched his eyes. "She didn't like nights when I watched her, either."

His jaw set, his eyebrows furrowed in a distant concern. "So, she is not subconsciously fearful of me?"

"I doubt that," Valerie deadpanned. "Her nightmares were always about the playground and the night Dash hurt you."

A shadow appeared over his face as he exhaled—a slight discomfort turning his mouth downward, for he did not enjoy memories of Nina crying in the dirt, or the unsettling gap in his memory from being beaten within an inch of his afterlife, or that he himself carried haunts that he could not simply blast away. "And what does one do for nightmares?"

Valerie's expression softened, and she looked down. "I don't know; I got them too."

"About what?"

"Oh," she said, managing a sigh, "about Pariah Dark and facing him down in that battle. He was a scary dude."

Dan snorted, and his spine straightened, both challenged and disgruntled. "We snuffed his power core into oblivion, and he no longer exists on any plane. He can never challenge or hurt us again."

"Yeah, but that doesn't matter to your brain when you're sleeping, you know?"

"I do not require sleep," he said, raising his nose, "for I am a superior being."

She made a strangled noise in the back of her throat and poked him hard in the ribs. "You definitely need sleep, don't even lie about that. I've seen you sleep."

He grumped. "But with the power I have now, I no longer require it." He fell into silence as he stared out at the Ghost Zone, a tick of vulnerability flickering through him. "If I attempt sleep, I relive being...who I was. All the images of families running in fear, and the joy I felt as they screamed in agony over their fallen ones. It was such a strange joy. I grow ill from it now."

Valerie nudged her leg against his in the quiet. "Well, whatever demons we got, we'll fight them." She held out her bare hand, palm up. "And we'll put things right, together."

A great emotion came over him. His red eyes misted as he stared at her offering.

"…Together," he agreed, before intertwining his fingers with hers.

A/N: And the Karma thread is DONE, after 9 YEARS omg! What a bittersweet thing. I've been working to get this one completed, so that I can start a new wave of one-shots and collections without feeling I've left something behind, lol. I wanted Karma Dan and Valerie to have some happiness or at least a sense of togetherness/contentment after all the hardship.

In the meantime, I'm afraid that FFN has started auto-disabling email notifications after every 90 days? And you have to manually re-enable it to receive emails from FFN? I have this feeling that a lot of our legacy dark gray community may not even be aware the lights are still on here, especially since the last chapter had only a few people interact with it via reviews. While I plan to continue updating here on FFN with new one-shots and sequels (Tortuga sequel, anyone?), I will also plan to more intentionally begin reposting Deliverance to AO3 too, in hopes that the dark gray community can stay in contact through these technical difficulties! I'm a little nervous to break out Deliverance into multiple separate stories within an AO3 collections (that'll be a LOT of fics, lol), but since I technically already did that with the VALentine thread on my AO3 account, I guess that's just the structure I'll need to take.

For reference, you can also always find me on AO3 or Tumblr on my account, thelightningstreak! I'll continue to manually check FFN as well.

Much thanks to everyone continuing to read these stories and reach out about dark gray! Please drop a line and let me know what you think or if you have any requests/ideas for other stories. Thank you!