Okay, first DP fic since entering the Phandom recently. Got this idea while trying to develop my planned Dani one-shot. Maybe this'll work. Probably won't, though.

Disclaimer: DP franchise is not mine. Butch Hartman's and Nickelodeon's. If so, the series would not have ended on Phantom Planet. Or, it'd have a reboot.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

One hundred years was a long time.

Within one hundred years, humans went from being grounded to soaring the skies; from walking to driving; from sending letters to email. And, within the same period, families expanded and shrunk, generations subtracting and adding.

The entire world had changed over one hundred years, but not him.

Not Daniel.

He had remained the same through the past hundred years or so. He watched the town around him change through the windows of his 'home'. Buildings rose higher and higher into the sky; planes flew over head, cars raced by on the streets, all slowly becoming bigger and better.

But, even with all of the changes in the world, Daniel could barely recall his short childhood from days long passed. A gray sky, the flickering lanterns, and tons of puddles. Happiness and playfulness. No fear.

Then, the accident happened.

It was all so fast, Daniel had been knocked unconscious for the longest time possible. He could not recall much; an explosion, something that sounded like screaming, and whirls of red, orange, and yellow swallowing him up.

When he awoke again, Daniel found himself at a nearby hospital, people rushing around him a hurried crowd, shouting at each other. The pain was so intense; it were as if it were eating from his insides out. Moving was excruciatingly painful; even blinking hurt. So, when the movement of his chest started to slow, the surrounding crowd became even more frantic, more shouting and screaming occurring.

Then, his chest stopped moving completely.

It wasn't long after his death that Daniel woke yet again, finding himself floating in a green void, his memories pretty much gone. Bits of land floated about; dark doors hung in the air, leading to other places. Beings flew around, carrying on their days, as if their environment didn't shock them.

What Daniel hadn't realized then was that he had became a ghost, dying before he was supposed to have. Almost minutes after waking up again, he was dragged back into the world of the living, Earth, and became bound to the hospital he had died in, with no known way of passing on peacefully.

At first, Daniel watched the nurses rush about, tending for patients and dealing with the problems that they faced everyday. Invisible to the human eye, he didn't mind watching, as long as he wasn't alone.

But, that didn't last too long, as nine years later, the hospital was forced to close its doors. Everyone left, taking tools and furniture with them, moving to a newer, better building that the previous, combining with other hospitals and doctors to create one big congregation.

Now alone, and bound to the former hospital, Daniel the ghost had no where to go, nothing to do, and became lost. On the very rare occasion, a passing ghost came through. But, beyond that, the young teen remained in solitude, never aging, and filled with an endless void of sadness.

Slowly the years passed, and Danny watched them all unfold outside what became his bedroom, the head doctor's office. He watched the first cars drive on the city's roads. He saw kids walking by to school, laughing and smiling, something Daniel had almost forgotten how to do.

He was no longer happy; being forced to stay in the same building for one hundred years took its toll, and left Daniel hollowed out. He eventually came to the conclusion that he would remain at the empty building forever, watching the world progress like a spectator.

Then came the Fentons.

They were newlyweds; deciding to settle down in the little town of Amity Park, Colorado for no apparent reason. Both were scientists, and bought the one-hundred-year vacant building. They fixed the dreary and dated facade, turning it into a single family home with hopes to raise their children.

But, what Daniel learned early on was that these two weren't ordinary scientists; they were ghost hunters, and had moved to Amity Park because of recent 'spikes in ghost sightings' (at least, that's what Daniel had heard). At first, Daniel was relieved; almost happy of sorts. He could finally, possibly, rest in peace.

But Daniel's feelings towards his new roomies soon changed when one of their contraptions (something with the word 'Fenton' in front of it) tracked him down in the room above after smacking him in the head. He had then realized quickly that the Fentons wouldn't help him; they would hunt and kill him instead.

More time flew by, and, even with the addition of a single child, a daughter the proud parents named Jasmine, Daniel often found himself hiding from these Fenton Machines. Luckily for him, the daughter Jasmine, or Jazz as she told her parents, disliked ghost hunting, and stuck to her studies. The only people who were any possible threat to him were Jazz's parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton.

Eventually, Jack and Maddie started to build a large contraption in their basement. Sometimes, Daniel would watch them tinkering away at the walls, babbling about their work and how they would be awed across the globe for reaching the Ghost Zone. But, even Daniel knew, despite not being able to return to the Zone; no human could break through to the dimension. It had never been done.

Yet, here Daniel found himself, eight years after the Fentons' began the project, staring straight ahead at the (effectively named) Fenton Ghost Portal. Completed and sparkling, it sat twenty feet underground, and buried into the wall. While the Fentons had tried using it time and time again, they had found themselves failing every try.

Daniel even kept count; 71 tries within the past week of trying to break through to an alternate dimension.

Daniel never really cared so much about his human roommates; as long as they stayed out of his room (which, luckily for him, was completely walled off). Yes, the blinking contraptions and large mechanisms were troublesome; but nothing a 100-year-old ghost couldn't handle.

So, why was he in the basement, staring at their creation?

Was it the thought of possibly going to the Ghost Zone, where he had only been too once in his ghostly life? There were other people like him; people who died before their time, and became ghosts. They knew his situation.

Or...was it something else?

Hearing thumps slowly coming down the stairs behind him, the ghost boy quickly jumps towards the closest wall, turning intangible, and floating straight through. Poking his head out seconds later, Daniel sees a large, dark-haired man in a orange jumpsuit, walking around with another odd object in his arms.

Almost immediately, Daniel could tell that it was Jack Fenton, the 'man of the house' as he put it. It was the most ghost-prone out of the family; just a mention of the word 'ghost' a mile away would set him off.

"Today will be the day, I promise! I'll reach the Ghost Zone, and destroy every one of those pesky creatures!"

With a small sigh, Daniel couldn't help but shake his head. Every day, around the same time, Jack came down to the basement and proclaimed that very same statement. Despite the failures everyday, Jack still tried to achieve his goal; in an annoying way yes, but, he tried everyday.

Seeing how Jack was setting up for the first Portal launch of the day, Daniel decided to head up to his room and continue to wait the day away. This time, though, the ghost boy pops his invisible head in the kitchen, where he saw Maddie Fenton, decked in a blue jumpsuit similar to her husband's, waving off Jasmine who was leaving the house.

Sighing, Daniel continues his way up into his favorite room in the house: his makeshift bedroom, originally the large, almost-sealed-off attic. Originally a crawl-space of sorts when the hospital was located in the building, Daniel had adapted the open space to his tastes.

There was an old bed (one from the hospital days), blankets and pillows he had taken from the family, and other trinkets and things he had found in his one hundred years in the house. It wasn't much, since he couldn't leave the boundaries of the house, but it was enough that it satisfied him

But, what made the teen ghost almost happy, was the views he got atop the Fentons' large Ghost Shield Defense System (how Daniel remembered all that was beyond him).

It was still within the house's boundaries, but gave him the closest thing he had to freedom; something he hadn't felt since 1897. He could just sit at the top, let the breeze blow by, and admire the city and surrounding Rocky Mountains landscape. But, he could never stay out long; he didn't want anyone to see him.

Now though, the clouds hung over the town of Amity Park like a shadow, threatening the day with rain. With nothing to do, Daniel decides to stay in his 'room', day-dreaming almost of what his life could have been, had he remembered everything.*

XxXxXxXxXxX

Twelve hours surprisingly passed in a flash, something Daniel didn't even realize till Maddie and Jack decided to stop for the night (also after Jazz claimed that they were 'neglecting her'). He had been watching them tinker and test the Ghost Portal a good half of the afternoon, still wondering why he was so awed by the 'machine', before the decided to end testing.

After the Fentons cleaned up the basement area (or as Jack called it, 'The Lab'), they both went upstairs, and that was the last Daniel saw of them for the night. In fact, he would've done the same thing, if something hadn't caught his eye.

An empty jumpsuit, one of black and white, sat on the floor, unused. Earlier, Jack had used to polish something, and proceeded to throw it onto the floor. Now, here it was, almost mocking him.

And, the room was too. In fact, he was the only one awake now, and he was alone, across from the Ghost Portal.

As soon as the idea popped into his head, there was no going back. In a flash, Daniel snatched up the jumpsuit and slid it on, noticing the contrast it gave against his white hair and green eyes. An eerie green glow surrounded his body, something that just came with being a ghost. Peeling off a Fenton logo that was slapped onto the front, Daniel began to slowly walk towards the Portal.

Why was he doing this? Why did he want to see this thing so badly? Why was he risking getting caught by his human roommates, just to check out their creation?

Stepping into the large hole in the wall, Daniel grasps onto the hard metal surrounding the edges. Dragging his fingers slightly across the plates lining the inside, he takes slow steps, admiring the work as he looked about.

"Amazing," he mutters, looking around at the finished project. For some reason, he felt a giant swell in his heart, as if he finally achieved his goal. Why, the teen had no idea. What did this Ghost Portal have to do with anything?

Then, his fingers hit an indent, and then a small click.

Daniel barely had any time to look over at what he had pressed before the green light swirled into existence, surrounding the ghost entirely. The pain quickly followed; something the ghost boy hadn't felt in over one hundred years of being in his ghostly form. He felt as if he were being pulled apart and slammed back together, every single part of his body, over and over again.

The last thing he had registered before darkness consumed him for the first time in a century was a pale, peach-colored hand, which Daniel quickly realized, was his own.