A/N: Well, part of the reason this is late is because FF is down. Or has been. Talk about a nightmare. I could read anything I want, but I couldn't get into my settings, profile, etc. This includes the ever-important Doc and Story Managers.

Anyway…be warned…

ANGST AHEAD!

This chapter gets really deep into Danny's mindset…which is actually kind of depressing. Reviews! I can still access those!

GeekyZelda: Yes, I have a timeline that (more or less) matches the show. Any differences can be explained by the timeline change – or maybe a fallacy caused by comic-book time.

According to the DP wiki, Box Lunch is 8 in TUE. This means she would have to have been born before the end of the series. (Yet again, this is if you go by the DP wiki, where Dan was 24. This means Danny was 14 in TUE. Therefore, Box Lunch would have had to have been born when he was about 16.) However, BG and LL weren't shown to have any such relationship. While this could be because it wasn't the focus of the show (by a long shot), I believe that Dan kind-of kick-started things. So, she'll be 5 instead of 8 when Danny's 24.

Also…I hope all questions you may have will be answered in the course of the finale.

KodiakWolfe13: …he appreciates your support. *sarcastic thumbs-up*

Great: Yes, that's it.

JC: Thank you. :D

Chapter #16: Carpe Diem et Memento Mori

Frostbite looks down at the masses that now swarm his normally-quiet village. They're all cramming into the icy towers for shelter, the still air of the Far Frozen now alight with a hum of energy.

Dark energy pounds at his senses, at the perimeter of his land.

"And I'm supposed to protect them all?"

He'd simply frozen, his face slack and bloodless. He'd teetered dangerously, as though about to collapse. Frostbite had held him by the shoulders, suddenly becoming aware of just how small the halfa was in comparison – even for a human.

A child.

A child, for Infinity's sake! Not even quite two decades old!

His core tightens at the thought, both with apprehension and pride – two emotions that often war within him for the Great One's sake.

For a long time, he'd never thought about it. Danny Phantom was just a distant hero – and then he became an apprentice. Even then, he'd held the young ghost on a pedestal; a great being not in need of help, really. It was just a pleasure to help him – to make things more convenient.

Over the past few years, he's realized how erroneous that mindset was.

A child. A young human man, with family and friends…a future. A brave soul who would trade his own heartbeat for another's sake. A living being who is walking towards a warm and loving future with a bride-to-be and, eventually, a family of his own.

And he'd give it all up for the greater good.

"Raging Flames!" Frostbite hisses, pounding a fist against the wall.

If Danny learns of his concern, he'll begin to push him away, just as he does everyone else. He'll make them step back with a gentle smile and a change in subject.

It makes the yeti sick to his stomach.

-BREAK-

I've known I'd die since the beginning. Some part of me knew…that I couldn't run forever. That the piper would come to collect someday. I couldn't possibly get away with it…

Why me? So many other people, surely, find themselves on the brink of death. Why did I survive? Was it luck? Determination?

…greed?

…desire?

I still remember it. I've never told anyone about that moment. There was a brief moment, in the portal, where the pain just…stopped. I could feel it – the emotions of my friends outside. Their fear, their distress. All I could think about was how much I wanted to help them. I felt so cold. I began to feel a…swirling, where I hadn't felt anything before. I saw Tucker, my best friend. I saw Sam, my crush. I saw my parents, my sister, my town. I wanted to protect them. All of them.

Sam was calling my name. Screaming it. I…I had to get to her, I had to help her. So many emotions swirled around me…looking back at it now, I understand what was happening. Am I still Daniel Fenton? It's something I've wondered since my sophomore year of high school. Of course, I haven't told anyone.

My powers are not the only side-effect of my half-death. My obsession is only a fraction of it. Sometimes I worry that the line between Vlad's obsession and mine is dangerously thin. Do I save others because I want to help them, or do I play the hero because they're my neighbors, and my friends?

I sense it, sometimes, a darkness. I sensed it after the C.A.T. incident, but not because it wasn't there before. It was always there, I just became hypersensitive to it. All ghosts are connected to the Infinite Realms. This applies to halfas, too. It's part of us.

I look at Dani, though, and wonder. What's her obsession? Does she have one?

Is she really a ghost?

No, she's something far more…pure…than that. She's not touched by the Infinite Realms – don't ask me what I mean, I'm not sure I do either. I'm not that smart.

No, you're plenty intelligent, Daniel. You just have a lazy mind.

That's what Clockwork always tells me, anyway. I wonder if he's okay…

…stupid question, of course he is. Or he will be…or was…what tense do you use for someone who is everywhere and nowhere in time?

It's easier to pretend that he's bound by the same timeline we are.

Then there's Sam. My beautiful fiancée. Look what I've done to her life. She should be living quietly, somewhere, studying to her heart's content, ignoring her parents' insistence on using her trust fund…just…having fun. Not worrying about a wedding already.

It's an interesting relationship we have.

Both Carpe Diem and Memento Mori, at once.

Sieze the day! Get married while you can, live and love the fullest…!

…But never forget that you must one day die.

We should get tattoos.

Carpe Diem et Memento Mori!

…signs you've been with Sam for a long time; you begin to think about tattoos. I can have them circle the NASA one – or maybe I'll get it on my wrist, where I'll always see it.

…look at the tangent you've gotten on, Danny. You're hopeless.

You don't want to confront it, do you? The way you've ruined her life. You can feel her fraying, sometimes, can't you? She should be living a normal – well, normal as Sam gets – college life, chasing after her dreams. Look at her. She won't admit it, but she's had some problems.

People find it unsettling when you read their mind – even if they don't know. It happens once, and you all laugh about the silly coincidence. You don't mean to listen in – it just happens, and then they get a little disconcerted. You can't laugh of all of the jokes they make, because you know when they aren't joking.

You know when they actually hate you. When they're using you.

Not that she'll ever talk about it. She shrugs it off – because she's Sam. Granted, she has a much bigger problem…

Me.

She tells me that she wouldn't have it any other way. That she's happy. Given her circumstances, that's true, I'll admit.

But she doesn't know how happy she'd be if she'd never met me. Never fallen in love with me.

I can't say 'If I hadn't survived the portal'. If I hadn't…

…there's a reason I came back. The guilt would have killed her – I saw it, you know. Days where she'd shut herself in her room, her eyeliner staining her cheeks, her pillow…and then the bathtub, and the toaster she'd stolen from her kitchen.

I'd been electrocuted – she should meet the same fate, shouldn't she?

The thought of her going through that…It makes me want to puke again.

Tuck would break – losing both of his best friends. He wouldn't follow us, but he'd become…hollow. No one could pick up the pieces of his mind. One friend dead in a tragic accident, and the other commits suicide…

…how would someone recover from that? When those two friends are all you have?

I'd seen all of this in the moment the pain stopped. Death explaining it just made the fragments I'd seen piece themselves together into a cohesive story.

One I wish I'd never read.

"Carpe Diem et Memento Mori…"

"Danny?" Sam questions, taking a bite of her cereal. They both sit in his room, eating the breakfast she'd gotten for him.

"Yeah?" he smiles, careful to hide away his thoughts.

"Are you okay?"

The way the sunlight illuminates he amethyst eyes, the way it caresses her skin…his eyes trace the paths the morning sun creates with her tanktop, lingering on her breasts for a moment – hey, he is a man, after all! – and stopping on her eyes.

"Well, I still have a heartbeat," he answers honestly – shrugging it off this morning didn't work very well – "that's something, right?"

"Danny…"

"We're in trouble, Sam," he whispers, placing down the bowl as a new wave of nausea washes over him.

Her eyes widen – probably shocked by his honesty.

"Someone is wearing the Crown of Fire, and they're bad news. I know who I think it is, but…the alarm went off because of all the ghosts flooding to the Far Frozen. You should've seen it, Sam. It was…" his throat tightens, "There were so many of them. I didn't even know most of them."

"Why would they…?"

"I don't have a lair, Sam. Where else would they go to seek my protection?"

She curses softly.

"I'm pretty sure war is brewing in the Infinite Realms, Sam…" he swallows thickly, "and I'm one side of the conflict."

Whether I like it or not.

Carpe Diem.

Memento Mori.