Hey guys... I'm kinda depressed about the end of this. I'll miss it a lot. I'm gonna choose to dedicate one author's note to all of you because if it takes too long, I'll cry, and if I cry, I get blurry eyed, and I make mistakes... it's just better this way.

I wanna thank you guys so much for supporting me. I was so surprised that an amateur writer like me (who couldn't even spell amateur before the spell check taught me =P) could get this good of a reaction. I just love you guys so much, and you've made me feel so amazing with your support. Thank you guys so much for all of this.

I'll miss you guys.

"Danny Phantom..." The rest of what Valerie said was missed by the reporters, for her voice trailed off.

"Come again?" One of the reporters tried, pushing a microphone closer to her.

The teen looked uncomfortable at the pushiness of the reporter, and uncertain of how to say exactly what she meant. Nevertheless, she plunged in.

"Danny Phantom is..."

Then her eyes widened, as though she realized exactly what she needed to say. A smile graced her face all of a sudden as she looked down towards her feet.

"A hero."

The reporter holding the microphone furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Excuse me miss, but I thought you were going to-"

"Just," Valerie interrupted, gently taking the microphone from the reporter's hand. "Hear me out."

She turned to the news camera and smiled nervously.

"A lot of you have been trying to find out his identity. And don't get me wrong, I have too." She paused for a breath. "But... here's the thing. We don't need to know his identity in order to know who he is. If you ask me, who you are should be more than just a name. I know that because... I used to be just a name too.

"The girl you see right now is nowhere near who she was several months ago. Several months ago, I didn't even believe Danny Phantom was a hero. I had my own prejudiced opinions about him, and I know a lot of you did. Maybe some of you still do. But... you shouldn't. Because they aren't true."

She sent a small smile up towards Danny, who watched in confusion, then turned back to the camera.

"And if Danny Phantom has taught me one thing, it's that you need more than a name to identify yourself. You need a passion, a story, and thoughts you can call your own. Thanks to him, I have all of those things."

"So, instead of focusing on a name, or rumors, or any of that, why don't we accept him for who he is? For the hero he is."

Danny smiled down at Valerie, who returned it.

"What you're implying is that he wants his identity to stay a secret?" Another reporter asked. Valerie gave her an 'are-you-even-being-serious-right-now' look.

"If he wanted everyone to know, wouldn't he have told everyone a long time ago?" She asked sarcastically. None of the reporters said anything.

"Now go on. Get outta here." Valerie shooed the reporters away, smiling smugly at the effectivness.

Once they had left, Danny flew down towards her.

"Um... thanks. For, um... for a moment there I thought that you would... you know..."

"Why would I do that? You never blew my secret. And besides, I wouldn't do that to a friend."

"I didn't know if you would even want to be friends after all of this. I mean, with your opinions on my ghost half and all that-"

"Hey, I meant every word I said. And I wasn't exactly honest with you either."

"Yeah, but I already knew you were... you."

"That doesn't excuse lying. You had a reason to lie to me."

"Well I'm done lying." He realized what he had just said. "To my friends and family, anyway."

Just then the sound of tires squealing sounded behind them, and they both whirled around to see the GAV park on the edge of the road. Valerie raised her eyebrow quizzically as one by one, the gang piled out of the RV and headed towards the two.

"Hey guys!" Danielle rushed toward the two, followed by Jack, Tucker, Jazz, Maddie and Sam.

Once they all made it over, Danny glanced around suspiciously.

"Coast is clear." Tucker stated, and Danny changed back into his human form.

"So... you know Danny's secret?" Jack asked Valerie.

"Yep, and I'm totally cool with it." She replied. "I was gonna ask him if he had told you yet, but that question's already been answered."

"Speaking of answering questions..." Maddie started in. Danny rolled his eyes and smiled.

"Ask away."

"Well, we're kind of up to date on the Walker thing, and on how you got your powers- save it-" She added as he opened his mouth, knowing he was going to ask how she figured it out. He closed his mouth again. "But... who is Danielle, and how did she get here?"

Danielle smiled up at the two.

"Well... you know that ghost Plasmius I told you about?"

"Yeah," Jack replied, wondering where this was going.

"He's also a half ghost. He thinks that because Danny's half ghost he's gotta have him as a son/student or something like that," She explained, while Danny made a gagging motion behind her.

"And, when he realized that Danny wasn't going to agree to that... pop, out comes plan B."

Danny stepped forward to continue the explanation.

"He attempted to make a clone of me, but none of them were... well, me. And they were all destabilizing as well."

"Since I was female, and younger, I wasn't a perfect clone of Danny. But he figured since I was the only one with a mind of my own, he could use me to get to Danny by pretending to be my dad. And unfortunately, I believed him."

"His plan from there was to try and make me go ghost so he could get my merge DNA to make another clone. However, he made one big goof-up. He got on Danielle's bad side when he accidentally revealed his true intentions."

"He had no idea I was right behind him..."

"So then Danielle got me out of that weird... machine thing, and I managed to take the lab down with my ghostly wail, she and I destroyed the "perfect clone", etc."

"But he wasn't happy about us destroying the prime clone, and we only made it out of there alive thanks to Sam and Tucker."

"And the Boomerang..." Danny commented under his breath.

"So then I flew off to do my own thing, but quickly realized I was destabilizing too and needed to come back. I was trying to find Danny in hopes that maybe he could help me, but then I found out that V- Plasmius, had hired Valerie to-"

"Wait, hired Valerie?" Maddie asked.

Valerie looked exhasperated.

"Oh, I'm a ghost hunter, okay? I was led to believe that Plasmius was the good guy and I was wrong, but I didn't know it at the time. I've been keeping my "status" a secret."

The two nodded in thought.

"Anyway," Dani continued. "I found out that he had hired Valerie to bring me back to his lab to *ahem* 'dissect me so he could study my remains.' He still wanted to learn how to make a good clone of Danny, one that wouldn't destabilize."

"Thanks to Valerie, and the faulty Ecto-Dejecto, we were able to stabilize Danielle again. She flew off for a while, and now she's here." He said, gesturing towards Danielle.

Jack, Jazz, Maddie and Valerie looked shocked at this story. Even Valerie had never known that THAT has been the reason he had tricked her.

A long silence filled the air as the group exchanged nervous glances.

"So, uh... I guess I better head off now." Danielle turned away, looking ready to transform.

"Danielle, wait!" Maddie called out from behind. Dani paused to turn towards the two, who sent her a warm smile.

"Why don't you stay here with us?"

Danny looked to his former "cousin" questioningly.

"Well 'cuz, do you want to become a sis?"

Danielle smiled and nodded her head furiously. "Yeah, I'd like that."

The Fenton parents looked at the group ahead of them, their kids and their three secret-keeping friends, with just a hint of confusion in their eyes.

"Just... one more question." Jack looked toward them, and they all nodded.

"Well you kids keep talking about this guy named Plasmius, and- well... who is Plasmius?"

The group sent knowing looks back and forth between each other.

3...

2...

1...

The gang all burst into laughter as they realized how much explaining THIS one would take. Jack and Maddie looked over the group wondering what on Earth was making them laugh so hard.

"What's so funny?"

Danny looked up slightly from his doubled-over posture.

"It's- it's just that-" Another wave of laughter overcame him, preventing him from finishing his sentence.

"Look at Danny, getting interrupted again!" Sam commented, sending the gang into another roar.

"Alright," Tucker managed, attempting to settle himself down to no avail. "Everybody just calm down!" That only made everything worse.

After a moment or two they finally calmed themselves down. Danny turned to face the rest of the group.

"Alright? Who wants to take that one? 3.. 2.. 1..."

"Not it!" They all called out at once, bursting into laughter once again with Jack and Maddie joining in this time.

Okay, so this one would take a bit more explaining than they would probably ever manage between breaths. But hey, it could wait. For right now, Danny was just happy to be having this moment. Here, with the people he cared about the most. And the best part was that now, he knew that whatever came next, whatever was around the corner, they'd be there to share it together.

No matter what.

Wow. It's... it's over. Wow...

Alright, here's my policy on sequels: I only do them if I can come up with a GOOD idea, and if I feel that adding it won't ruin the original (I've seen fanfics before where the sequel ruined everything because the original was good but the second wasn't as good... no names here.) And I'm not the kind of girl to update her bio often, so if I DID do a sequel, I would add the advertisement on the end of whatever previous fanfiction as an additional chapter. I probably won't do a sequel for this one, though.

And now... fun facts about this fanfiction!

1: I came up with this idea on the ride home from summer vacation earlier this year, I was originally planning a humor for this one but decided it would be better if I gave it an emotional side.

2: I gave Valerie an important role because I had watched Reality Trip and I got mad that they NEVER showed Val's point of view during that.

3: I originally was just going to keep it a "try to keep your secret and then everything's okay" fanfiction, but then I wasn't satisfied with that. I thought it would get too boring and let's face it, it would have.

4: For a moment after writing chapter 13, I was actually considering REALLY letting Danny die (sorry Danny!) because it was 2 am and I was exploring the different possibilities of it. Then I decided it would be more fun to trick you than to just leave it with death. This is my cruel sick joke.

I hope you enjoyed this fanfiction. I look forward to seeing some of you in my other stories, I hope! I'll miss you all until then!

See you next time and best wishes,

-CC.