A/N: Warning: implied abuse in the second last scene. No specifics, but it's the elephant in the room.

Time meant nothing in the Ghost Zone. Danny barely slept, resting only when he needed to and searching endlessly under the eerie green light. It dimmed to almost nothing in the vast area called the Darkness, but it was a place filled with lost souls. He chased every gleam of light he saw, every faint hope, but there was no sign of Jazz, just as there had been no sign of her anywhere else. He wandered with increasing desperation, asking everyone if they'd met her, heard of her, anything, and didn't realize he'd become lost himself until something collided with his head.

It fell to the smooth purple rock at his feet with a clatter that echoed against the walls of the cavern he was searching. He stared at it dumbly, absently rubbing the sore spot where it had hit. It was all bright metal, smooth and shiny and somehow wrong. It gleamed with more than just reflected light, faintly pulsing with false power—stolen power—at its centre. It didn't belong in this world. It—

There was something tied to it.

Logic reasserted itself, and Danny reached down to pick up the Booo-merang. The note was fastened on with multiple Fenton Elastics, their wide bands emblazoned with the FentonWorks symbol. Danny worked the note free, tears stinging his eyes and an ache growing in his chest as he remembered the last time he'd gotten a note this way—and the person who had sent it.

The note was written in his mother's hand, shakier than usual but still recognizable. Danny, it read, please, come home. We need you. You're our son, and— There was a tear in the paper, and he couldn't make out the smudge of ink in the next few lines aside from the odd word (family and home and Jazz) until it concluded —finds you. It always did before. Please come back to us, sweetie.

Going back now would be admitting that maybe Jazz hadn't come back after all, that maybe she wasn't somewhere even he could find her. It meant admitting that she was gone. That he really wouldn't see her again, in any form. That they wouldn't have a chance to finish their conversation.

But the note was from his mother. Not Sam, not Tucker, not even Vlad. And she'd sent it into the Ghost Zone with the Booo-merang, likely with no more certainty than Jazz had had that it would find him but trying to be confident that it would. Because it had to. Because it always did, in the end. It was keyed into Danny Phantom's ecto-signature, after all.

Please, come home.

Jazz would never come home again.

We need you.

Even though they still needed her.

Please, come back to us.

Jazz was gone. She wasn't coming back, even though he'd never gotten a chance to say goodbye.

Chest tight and suddenly unsteady on his feet, Danny sat down. When the tears came, he didn't try to hold them back or reason them away. Instead, he sobbed until his eyes were dry and his breathing even again.

And then he started back home, the Booo-merang clutched tightly in one hand and the sodden remnants of the note in the other.

Danielle came when he called, turning up in the living room of his apartment before he even realized she was there. She was good at that, even when she wasn't using her powers. Her earlier years had been rough, honing skills most people never needed to learn, and he still regretted not being able to do more for her. But maybe he could fix that now like he should have years ago, back when she'd actually needed him. "I told Mom and Dad," he said before she could offer any of the rote sympathies that he'd heard hundreds of times since Jazz's death. He'd never realized how many friends Jazz had had. "I want them to meet you."

Dani blinked, clearly having expected this to be about Jazz. "What?"

"You're family."

She hesitated.

She still thought this was about Jazz.

"Danny," she said slowly, "I…. I heard about your search." And that you came back empty-handed. She didn't need to say that for him to hear it.

"That's not what this is about," he said. He didn't want her thinking that he was just using her as a replacement. Dani had felt that way far too often in her life. "I swear. This was…. This started before that accident." He didn't know how he was going to tell her, but he had to try. And maybe, with his parents' help….

Dani frowned. "What did?"

"I'll explain when we get to FentonWorks." He changed into Phantom, feeling his body shrink and lighten as it fell back into his old, fourteen-year-old form. It was still disorienting, but he'd started to think of it like a familiar glove that he'd misplaced for a while: a brief novelty of having it back again before it just seemed to fit like it always had before. Jazz had suggested that a few years ago when he'd been grumbling about being short again and how he couldn't reach as far as he was used to without intentionally stretching his body. It threw off his fighting between his ghost and human forms, and he really had to concentrate so he could swing and actually connect in ghost mode.

Thankfully, ectoblasts and ice rays made up for a lot of shortfalls on that front, but he still liked to throw a good punch when he got the chance. It was embarrassing when he missed, especially when the margin wasn't small.

"Lighter means faster, Danny. Be thankful for small mercies."

It still hurt, knowing they'd had that conversation so many times but knowing they'd never really finished it and now never would.

His hair flopped into his eyes again, but brushing it back wouldn't help. It never had. Danny turned to look expectantly at Danielle. "Explaining will go faster if you start in ghost mode."

"By explain, you mean show, right?"

He didn't bother to answer, but she didn't wait for one, either. Rings of light flashed over her, changing black hair to white and blue eyes to green. Her ghostly glow was almost nonexistent in the bright light, and she could still easily pass as a human. Dani had mastered what he never had: changing her form and blending in. Or maybe changing into ghost mode without actually changing her clothes. He wasn't sure at this point if it was a matter of her perfecting her power or tied to the reason that he didn't look any different at all.

Of course, Plasmius wouldn't have been running around a science lab in a cape, so he was definitely missing something. That, or there were some really fancy lab coats out there.

Danielle looked down at him until he floated up to her eye level. She was smirking. "You're never going to grow up, cuz. Maybe our ghost forms show our mental age."

It was her attempt at a light-hearted jab, trying to get his mind off Jazz. Off Jazz being gone. Because she didn't believe him when he said this wasn't about Jazz, wasn't about introducing her as a replacement family member. But if this was about Jazz at all, it was him finally doing what she'd been telling him to for years.

"Just trust me," Danny said quietly.

Dani didn't reply, but she didn't need to. She'd been trusting him for years, even when he hadn't deserved it. And now, she trusted him again by following him into the proverbial lion's den. Dani Phantom might have grown, but she was still recognizable, and his parents had tried to hunt her down in the past.

The tentative truce between the Fentons and Phantom was well known, so Danny didn't bother going invisible before diving towards his parents' kitchen, Dani on his heels. The fact that she was hanging back meant she was nervous; she certainly didn't need his protection anymore. But maybe he could give her something else, something she didn't even know she needed.

"Mom?" he called as he hovered with Dani by the sink. "Dad?" Even to his own ears, his voice sounded young. It was too high; it hadn't broken until after the accident. He'd relished that, back when he'd been trying to keep his secret, but now it was a reminder of the past he didn't need, a reminder of the times Jazz had tried so hard to help but ended up catching him in a thermos instead.

"Be up in a minute, Danny-boy!" Jack hollered back. He'd taken the truth about Phantom in stride, not batting an eye about it. It made Danny wonder if he'd suspected something, once, before seemingly being proven wrong as Phantom and Fenton had grown more different. But even the morning Danny had gone into the Ghost Zone to look for Jazz, Jack had simply given him—given Phantom—a hug, pulling in Maddie when she approached instead of stepping back, and then letting him go with nothing more than a quiet, "Good luck, Danny-boy."

Danny had never asked what he had missed, what they'd done in the weeks—months—of his absence, but none of the machines except the Booo-merang had targeted him upon his return.

Jack came up the stairs first, followed by Maddie. His eyebrows shot into the air. "The ghost girl," he said. "She one of your allies, Danno?"

It was more of a peace offering than a question; they'd seen Phantom working with Dani in the past and had seen her with increasing frequency over the years. They knew she was a friend; what they didn't know, what they needed to know, was her story.

"This is Danielle," he said, gesturing with one hand.

"Dani," she corrected.

"She's like me." He dropped to the floor and changed back, stretching to his full height as Dani transformed back into her human self. Judging by the look on his mother's face, she could see the resemblance more clearly in human form. Dani was tall for a girl, barely an inch shorter than he was, and she didn't try to hide it. Moreover, the expression she wore now was one he'd seen on his own face too many times not to recognize it. She was trying to hide her nervousness behind a mask of bravery, telling herself that she could get through whatever this was, no matter what it took.

That determination was a Fenton trait, even if she'd never taken the Fenton name.

It had been years before he'd told Sam and Tucker the full truth about Dani. They'd known she was a halfa, but he'd actually told Jazz the truth before he'd told them. He'd seen her face change after Tucker had offhandedly mentioned Danielle being a cousin, so he'd felt obliged to fill her in then. Dani had agreed to tell Sam and Tucker after that, just so the mistake wouldn't be made again, but she'd also made it clear that she liked thinking of Danny as her cousin and saw no reason to change that.

But his parents….

He couldn't pretend she was just a cousin with his parents any more than he'd been able to with Jazz. If they only knew her as Dani Phantom, sure, maybe he'd be able to fool them into thinking she was some long-dead cousin, but the time for those lies was over. Dani wasn't his cousin, not really, and she needed more help than he could give her alone.

Danny glanced at Danielle. Her lips thinned, but she nodded, giving him permission to proceed.

"We call each other cousins," he said softly, "but the truth's a lot more murky than that."

"I thought you were the only half-ghost," Maddie breathed, still staring at Dani.

Danielle shot him a sharp look and then let out the breath she'd been holding. "He's not," she said, "but my origins are complicated. I'm…. Danny got his powers in a lab accident. I'm an experiment."

She couldn't hide the bitterness in her voice.

As far as he was concerned, she shouldn't need to.

"It was a long time ago," Dani added, perhaps not wanting to see the mixture of pity and horror on his parents' faces.

"But something went wrong back then," Danny said. He could feel Dani's eyes burning into him, but she didn't interrupt. "Her DNA isn't stable like mine." He heard Dani mutter something about Ecto-Dejecto under her breath, but he continued, "She's aging faster than she should. Something with her cells. I need your help to stop that."

Dani found his hand and gripped it, hard, nails digging into his skin. He could feel her trembling. Vlad really hadn't told her. Now he wished he'd talked to her first instead of springing this on her now, but he hadn't really imagined that she hadn't known. She'd always understood the science part of things better than him; he preferred mechanics. And Vlad…. How could he have kept this from her, even in the years since he'd told Danny about it? That hadn't been the last time they'd talked about it.

"It's because I'm a clone," she whispered, but her words sounded loud in the fallen silence. His parents hadn't moved, their shock only seen in the slight widening of his father's eyes and his mother's swallow.

Dani's hand fell away from his, and he turned to see her shrinking into herself, dropping to the floor in a huddle. He opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say. What could he say? That this was his fault? That he should have told her earlier? That Vlad should have told her earlier? That he didn't want her to find out this way but that they needed help because he couldn't figure this out on his own and it was too important to keep her in the dark?

Maddie crossed the floor and knelt next to Dani. "You're safe here, sweetie," she said. She rested a hand on Dani's arm, but when Dani flinched away, she withdrew it. "We won't hurt you. Even if you weren't a…a clone, you're a friend of Danny's. I daresay you're family. We'll do what we can to help if you're willing to work with us. We can take as much time as you need."

Danny didn't realize his father had also moved until he felt the arm wrap around his shoulder. "You found us another cousin, Danny. I just wish we hadn't found out about her like this."

"Can you help her?" He wasn't in ghost mode anymore, but his voice sounded young. Lost. Helpless.

Jack gave him a squeeze. "We'll do our best."

The tests were frequent at first but not particularly time-consuming, except when Maddie specifically asked Dani to stay so she could be monitored. Dani agreed—she always agreed—and slowly started to open up, to believe that she had been accepted as a part of the family. Danny went through almost as many tests as she did, of course. He was the closest thing his parents would get to a baseline, an idea of how Dani's DNA, her cells, or whatever else they were looking at, should appear.

Since she was his clone, he might be able to offer a solution that Vlad never could.

But blood and ectoplasm infusions did nothing. Stem cells might work, his mother said, but she wasn't willing to risk something like that in a home lab. It was too dangerous, even for them, and they couldn't risk going to a hospital. DNA was extracted, dyed, and compared under the microscope, as were their cells, but the ectoplasmic elements didn't hold the stain. Dani was the one to realize that they'd react to the presence of their ectoplasm, glowing in response, but whatever his mother had been looking for, she couldn't find it.

"Nothing different is going to come up in the centrifuge," Dani muttered to him as their blood samples spun down. "This is pointless. They can't help me, cuz. This isn't a disease; there isn't going to be some magical antibody that'll stop this. What's wrong with me is more than another shot of Ecto-Dejecto is going to fix."

"If anyone can figure this out, they can."

"But they can't. That's my point. I'm a mistake. I've always been a mistake. They can't fix that."

Light flashed, and green eyes stared into his blue ones. "I can't wait around like this. I can't…. I can't stand this false hope. If I have less time than I thought I did, I need to live. I want to see more before I melt like the Wicked Witch of the West."

"You're not going to melt, Dani!"

"What else do you think destabilize means?" There were tears in her eyes. "I hate waiting like this, Danny. I can't do it. I'm sorry. I just can't."

He reached out to her, but she turned intangible, pulling away and flying off.

She was too used to running to try to find comfort in family now.

And that was his fault.

Danny closed his eyes on his own tears. "Jazz," he murmured, "I keep messing up, even when I try to help. I'm making the same mistakes I did as a kid, like I haven't learned anything. I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I never liked your advice, but it was usually pretty good." It was usually right, too. And she'd know what to do in a situation like this.

If he'd stayed with Sam…. She'd be better in this situation, too. Smack some sense into him if nothing else. But he hadn't wanted to hold her back, so he'd let her go. He hadn't wanted to drag her down; she was meant for so much more than Amity Park, and he hadn't been ready to leave it. That conversation—argument, really, full of tears and bitterness and longing—had left him feeling like a foolish fourteen year old again. That had been the first time in a long time that going ghost had felt like an escape.

For Dani, it still was an escape.

The only one she thought she had.

"I'm sorry." She couldn't hear him, but he had to say it. It was all he could do now. Maybe Vlad was right, thinking Dani had been happier in her ignorance. He certainly hadn't improved things. Accept what you cannot change, Vlad had said, and what had he done instead? Failed in his attempt to change things, to fix them, just like Vlad had said he would. "I'm sorry."

Hours of flying did nothing to clear his head. Light leached from the sky, allowing the first stars to shine through, but they brought him no comfort tonight. He'd lost Jazz. He couldn't save Dani. Even Amity Park didn't need him anymore.

Danny finally settled in one of his favourite trees in the park near the school and stared up through the leaves. Venus was already bright in the sky, but she'd be joined soon enough by the surrounding constellations. He still knew them by heart, still liked to watch them, even though he knew he'd never fly among them as an astronaut.

That childhood dream had died in the portal accident, even if he hadn't realized it at the time.

Even once he realized he was no longer alone, it took him a few precious seconds to place the sound drifting up to him as muffled sobbing. Danny flipped off the branch, looking below to see a shock of blonde hair cascading down a bent body at the base of the tree.

He didn't need to look to the shifting stars to know it was late.

He let himself drift closer to the ground and settled into a crouch in the grass. The girl was older than he'd expected—a teenager, not a young child—but still young. Too young to be crying alone. "Hey," he called softly, not wanting to startle her even if that was his prerogative as a ghost. "Do you need help?"

The girl looked up sharply, staring at him with wide red eyes. Tears clung to her lashes and tracked down her chin, and she wiped at her runny nose with the sleeve of her—were those pyjamas? "No," she said, choking out the word as she scrambled to her feet. She wore shoes but no socks, and those were definitely pyjamas. "I'm fine," she continued, despite all evidence to the contrary. "Thanks anyway."

He'd know that was a lie even if he hadn't used it all throughout his teenaged years—and beyond. He'd been an oblivious kid, but even he could've seen through this one back then. "I've been around long enough to know a lie when I hear it." He stood, but when she jerked away from his outstretched arm, he dropped it back to his side. "You want to at least talk about it?" That's what Jazz would suggest, and she usually had better judgement than he did in situations like this.

The girl had already regained her composure, donning a mask to hide her emotions. He knew the feeling. "No thanks." She took a few steps away but didn't turn her back on him.

She doesn't trust me. It shouldn't be such a surprising revelation. He didn't recognize her—he didn't recognize most of the kids these days—and without so many public ghost fights, he wasn't as common a sight as he had once been.

But still.

Amity Park and Danny Phantom were practically synonymous, even now.

Then again, maybe she did know who he was. Maybe she just believed the rhetoric his parents had once spouted about all ghosts being evil. They'd recanted most of it, citing their newest studies ('most ghosts are evil, others misunderstood'), but there were still people out there who believed what they once had. There always would be. Danny was just happy the Guys in White had given up trying to capture him.

"Can I call someone for you, then?" Danny asked, pulling out his cell phone. He usually tried not to use one overtly as Phantom—that would raise more questions than he wanted to answer—but in this case….

The girl shook her head vigorously and took another few steps back. "Just leave me alone." Then, quieter, "I'm not worth your attention."

She turned and ran.

He didn't know if he'd make things worse if he followed.

He didn't know if he'd make things better if he pressed her.

Even when he meant well, things turned out horribly.

He drifted upward to watch her path, wanting to at least reassure himself that she'd be okay if he didn't do anything. Instead of heading for the street, she doubled back once out of what would've been his line of sight and headed past the fountain for the far side. When she hit a small copse of trees, she didn't emerge.

"Can't go home," Danny muttered. That was a better assumption than that she didn't have one, given how she'd been dressed. He flew down to find her again, this time announcing himself as he searched. "My name's Danny," he called, hoping he'd just spooked her the first time. "Look, I'm just trying to help."

Silence fell, but he'd heard her before and knew which direction to go in. Still, pretending he was searching would give her time to prepare herself for when he came into view. "There must be someone you can talk to even if it's not me. Family or friends or someone on the other end of a phone. I can lend you my phone if you just need to make a call." It would even be close to untraceable, given what Tucker had done to it, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

He ignored the rustling behind him, the snap of twigs and scuffling of shoes against rotting plant litter.

"You're that ghost."

He turned, meeting curious blue eyes as the girl stepped from behind a tree. "'That ghost'?" he repeated.

"The one my aunt talks about." The girl shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. "I just thought they were bedtime stories, but you're not…human."

He was a bedtime story now? That was new. At least it explained why she'd been so afraid of him; she wasn't from here. If she were, she'd know he was real. It was kinda hard to live in Amity Park and not know that.

"I'm a ghost," Danny said by way of agreement. "Danny Phantom. And I don't know what you've heard about me, but since you're not running and screaming I'm going to assume it's good?"

That got him a small smile. "You're a hero," she whispered. "You save people."

Danny crossed his arms, looking her up and down again as he hovered in front of her. "You need saving." It wasn't a question.

Another shiver ran through the girl. "It's my mom's boyfriend. He found us here. Aunt Star has friends, but…."

Star's niece. He had a vague recollection of the story, something he'd overheard at some point. Judging by the girl in front of him, it hadn't been exaggerated.

He normally dealt with ghosts, but he could see to human creeps, too.

He passed the girl his phone. "Call the police. Tell them what you know. And tell them Phantom's going to make sure they get their guy gift-wrapped before he hurts anyone else."

Danny found a new rhythm. Instead of fighting ghosts, he'd help fight the very human crimes that still plagued Amity Park. The police were happy to work with him, and the fire department was naturally grateful whenever he managed to clear a building or even extinguish a fire before things got out of hand. It wasn't that he'd never done the like before, but this was the first time he'd started actively searching for these incidents instead of just attending to them whenever they caught his eye.

It gave him a new purpose, reassured him that he was doing some good. The younger generation learned his name again, gaining him more than a few fans, and he found himself recounting stories of the past. Of his past. Sometimes, it seemed like so little had changed; other times, it seemed that eons had passed since he was their age.

Fortunately, whenever he made some comment that made it sound like he wasn't the teenager he appeared to be, they attributed it to the fact that he'd died 'ages ago'. As if he weren't their parents' age. But that was okay, too. Because it made him remember how young these kids were and how much of their lives were still ahead of them.

The work he did wasn't the same as Jazz had done, but he was still doing his best to help people find their place in this world, to find the strength to hang on in the tough times and persevere, weathering whatever life threw at them. Sometimes it was as straightforward as saving them from some physical danger; sometimes, he learned later, it was as simple as promising to talk to them the next day.

They accepted him as one of them despite his quirks, much like Poindexter had been accepted when he'd taken over Danny's body that one time, and there was comfort in that. Some of them told him things they wouldn't trust an adult with simply because they thought he'd listen to them, hear them out and believe them without judging them. It made him thankful, for what seemed to be the first time, that his ghost form never changed.

He could do more this way than he could have if Phantom had grown along with Fenton.

Dani had been right; this town didn't need his protection anymore, not from ghosts. But its children still needed him, in their own way. His youth might be a mask, but the knowledge he'd gained over the years wasn't. And if he could help even one person, well, didn't that make it all worthwhile?

Jazz was gone. He couldn't save Dani. And Phantom would never grow older while he still drew breath. Accept what you cannot change. Maybe he could finally do that. Especially if he could change things so that they were a whole lot better for everyone else who needed him, people he actually could help. Jazz would have liked that. Dani, if she ever answered his calls again or decided to come back, would approve, too—if only because he was able to be for some of these kids what he had never been able to be for her when she'd needed him most.

He was doing this for Jazz, for Dani, for all the kids who needed him, but he was also doing it for himself. Sometimes it was hard to keep his lives separate, not to slip and greet someone only Phantom knew, but it gave him a unique perspective, too. Because he could see the effect of the ripples he'd created as they spread throughout the community.

He couldn't stop everything terrible from happening, of course, but he could stop some of it, and anything was better than nothing at all. And even when he was too late to stop something, when the fire was too far gone for a building to be saved, well, he could help stop it from spreading. And that made a difference, too. Every action like that did, even when it just came down to being a decent role model.

Accept what you cannot change, Vlad had said. But it was more than that. It was learning to recognize what could be changed and what couldn't, even with ample resources and more than enough stubbornness, and understanding how to make the best of things. It was embracing the unchangeable things, turning them into something to be celebrated instead of something that weighed you down. Things would never be perfect, but they could be made better, and sometimes that was enough.

For Danny, for now, it was.