For Darth Frodo, Christmas, 2006

The church was packed but hushed. People were milling around in small ground, talking in muted voices, and expressing their sympathies to the affected family. Everyone wore black, and many of the women were crying. A third of the attendees were teenagers, suggesting that the person being remembered today had gone to school with them. Slowly, everyone began to take their seats, and the pastor came out to the podium to begin the service.

A figure in a letterman's jacket stood beside the organ on the second floor at the back of the church and looked at the scene for a moment in silence. He moved a little farther to the edge to see better, and noticed another boy, wearing black, at the opposite edge of the balcony. He looked to be about seventeen or eighteen. The same age as the jock.

Curious and somewhat lonely, the athlete walked over and leant over the railing beside the other figure.

"Jeez," he breathed. "Who died?" The other boy jumped slightly and looked at him. Their eyes met.

"D-Dash?" the boy in black asked, stunned.

"Phantom?" the athlete responded.

"What are you doing here?" the two of them said in unison, then stopped and looked a little embarrassed at having asked the same question. Phantom answered first, with difficulty.

"I've come to pay my respects." He leant over the rail again. Dash did the same.

"Someone you knew?" he asked sympathetically. He knew he should be excited to be speaking with the Danny Phantom, but the mood of the funeral was bringing him down or something, because he was approaching the ghost like he'd approach one of his friends.

"Yeah." Phantom sighed. "I mean, I knew him, but he didn't really know me. We weren't exactly friends." Dash nodded. It had been the same for him when he'd gone to his uncle's funeral when he was twelve. He strained to make out what the pastor was saying, but he couldn't. He turned to look over at Phantom.

"Who was he? What was his name?" Dash felt like he needed to know, badly. It was a worrying feeling.

Phantom looked nervous and doubtful for a moment, then straightened up decisively.

"Follow me," he commanded, and turned to float back behind the organ. Dash left the balcony and obeyed. Normally he would have asked why, because he was used to giving the orders, but this was Phantom he was talking to, after all. The ghost was the town hero. Dash idolized him. They'd even fought together a few times, when they'd had a common goal.

Phantom came to a stop in the storage room above the front entrance and turned towards Dash, who was just coming through the doorway.

"Look, uh, Dash," he began, "when I tell you, you've got to promise to be quiet, okay? They don't need to be disturbed down there."

"Okay," Dash agreed. "Just tell me, Phantom. Who was it?" The ghost looked like he might change his mind then, but thought better of it.

"You," he said quietly. "You were in a car accident, some drunk driver… I'm sorry, Dash. I'm sorry."

"Me?" the jock asked. "But, but I'm here, right? I can't be d-de…" Phantom stepped aside and Dash caught sight of himself in an old broken mirror that the ghost had been in front of. Green skin, pointed ears, eyes with red irises, an aura…

"Dead." Then he remembered. He'd been driving Paulina home after a date, paying more attention to her than the road. She'd shrieked and pointed forward, and Dash had spun the wheel to avoid the dog. He'd been correcting his course when a pickup had run the light, swerved, and plowed straight into the driver's door of Dash's Ford sedan. Then there was a moment of pain, and then …nothing.

Dash fell to his knees in shock, and started crying. After a few minutes he realized that Phantom was cradling him in his arms and trying to comfort him. He brought his tears to a stop, with effort.

"Paulina?" he asked in a small voice. "Did Paulina make it?"

"Yeah," Phantom answered. "She's got a broken rib, a lot of bruises, some scrapes on her face, but she's fine, Dash. You're lucky both of you were wearing seatbelts."

"Didn't help me," Dash spat bitterly. "I'm a ghost. I was about to graduate, I had a football scholarship…."

"It's not so bad, Dash. You'll get a lair in the Ghost Zone, you'll make friends, it'll be fine." Phantom smiled encouragingly. "I'll even let you come visit whenever you like, as long as you promise not to hurt people."

"What's your lair like?" Dash asked. He wasn't used to seeing Phantom out of his hero mode. Somehow it put him more at ease. The ghost was acting like a teenager. Not a jock or a nerd, but just an average teen, like that Fenton kid he used to beat up. Jeez, he should probably go apologize to the guy now. Or maybe not, since the Fentons were ghost hunters and Fenton would probably attack him first chance he got in retaliation.

"I, I don't have one," Phantom admitted. "I haunt this town. My home is here."

"I could haunt with you," Dash suggested frantically. He'd heard about the Ghost Zone. It didn't sound like a place he wanted to be. "We've fought together before. I could help."

"It doesn't work that way, Dash," the other ghost said regretfully. "I'm different than most ghosts. I can't live in the Ghost Zone. Besides, ghosts tend to surround themselves with some obsession. Fighting's mine. Yours will be different. Maybe football."

"Okay. I guess. But could I stay here a bit longer?" Dash asked. "Say my goodbyes and stuff?"

"Sure." Phantom smiled softly. "Hey, you wanna go back and watch the rest of your funeral, or you wanna get out of here, talk a bit more?"

"Talk." Dash didn't want to be reminded of his death any more. Besides, he had questions he wanted answered, about his friends, family, powers, life from now on…. Phantom nodded.

"'Kay." He helped Dash up to his feet. "So, um, imagine that gravity's not pulling down on you. Imagine you're weightless."

Dash did as Phantom said, even though he wasn't sure why. Soon he found himself moving further away from the floor. Phantom matched his pace, and when they were halfway between the floor and ceiling, he grabbed Dash's wrist and pulled him through the wall out into the open air.

They flew for awhile, and were over downtown when Dash realized that Phantom had let go and he was flying on his own. He gulped, fell a few inches through the air, then caught himself and looked over at his companion, who gave him a grin of encouragement.

"See? Told you things would be fine. We're heading over to the beaches. Race ya?"

"You're on!"

The two teenaged ghosts set down on a secluded beach away from the public areas, Phantom first but only by a second or two. They were both grinning, and the white-haired ghost gave Dash a high-five before sitting down above a boulder. He ran a nervous hand through his hair as Dash came to rest beside him.

"So," he said.

"So."

"Ummm…."

"How are you different?" Dash asked slowly. "You said you can't live in the Ghost Zone. Why?" Phantom laughed nervously.

"You just had to ask the hard question first, didn't you?" Dash stared at him blankly. How could that be a hard question? It probably just had to do with different ectoplasm or something. Phantom sighed.

"Well, I guess since all the other ghosts know now and I don't want you hearing this from them…. I'm not fully dead, Dash. I'm still human."

"You look like a ghost to me," the jock stated dubiously.

"Yeah, well, I can look human too. I just didn't want to go to your funeral as a human. People wouldn't have understood."

"So, are you, like, overshadowing someone?" Phantom shook his head and rubbed his neck a little.

"No. I fried myself in the Fenton Portal just before high school. Got ectoplasm in my DNA."

"How'd you get in the Fenton Portal?" He knew neither Fenton kid had many friends. The chances of someone as cool as Phantom hanging out with them were pretty slim. Phantom shrugged.

"I walked into it."

"Right." Ask a stupid question…. "You went to Casper, then?"

"Go to Casper. I'll graduate this June, like you would have." Dash thought back to the start of his conversation with the ghost. Half-ghost.

"You, uh, we weren't on good terms, were we?" he asked unhappily. If he'd been beating up Phantom… Now that was a scary thought. The teen could have wasted him in thirty seconds. If he'd held back, what did that mean? And what did it say about Dash that he could have done such a thing in the first place?

"Heh, no. You pushed me around daily, took out your low grades on me, shoved me into lockers…. I'd say I'd miss it, but I think I'd be lying."

"I understand." Dash looked over at his hero. "But you still came to my funeral?"

"It felt like the right thing to do," Phantom explained. "I mean, you were a classmate and everything…" Dash nodded, then hugged his knees and stared at the water in thought.

"I wasn't very nice, was I?" he asked after a moment. He couldn't remember a single kind thing he'd done in life. He was feeling guilty about it.

"No. Sorry."

"I should be the sorry one. I picked on so many people, even the guy I worshipped without knowing it…. Which one were you, Phantom? Which geek?"

Phantom sighed. "I don't know if I want you to know."

"I've seen you fight, Phantom. I've fought beside you. You've wasted some pretty powerful ghosts, and I'm new at all this. If I attack you, take me. God knows I deserve a pounding or two."

Phantom laughed briefly. "Yeah, I guess so. You really wanna know?"

"Yeah."

"You're not going to tell any human? Promise?"

"Of course not. I owe you for today."

"Okay…." Phantom stood up, scanned the area quickly, then stood where Dash could see him fully. Two rings of light appeared at his waist and zipped apart. Dash's mouth dropped when the upper one passed over his friend's chest, because he recognized the t-shirt from all the times he'd picked the boy up by it. His amazement and fear were clinched by the time the last of the rings disappeared.

"Fenton?" he stammered out after a moment. He should have seen it before. He'd known Fenton had started faking his fear of Dash sometime in Grade 10. He'd started fighting alongside Fenton, only to finish with Phantom, and vice versa. There'd been that time when they'd gotten shrunk and Phantom had kept making excuses for why he was starting to look like a human teen….

As his companion was searching for a response, Dash got to his feet as well so he could be eye to eye with the half-ghost. The two teens ended up looking into each other's eyes, blue and red, for a full minute, making sure the other one wasn't going to attack. Then the tension broke and they started laughing at the same time.

Finally, wiping tears from his eyes, Danny Fenton, Dash's idol and former punching bag, thrust his hand forward. "Friends?"

Dash reached out with his cold, green arm and placed his hand in Danny's firmly.

"Friends."