I do not own Danny Phantom in any way, it's all owned by Nickelodeon!

Lonely Souls

"Longest. Day of school. Ever," Danny sighed as he began his usual walk home from school and back to Fenton Works. It was unusually freezing cold for early November and he had, thankfully, decided to add a hoodie to his usual wardrobe for the day. Sam and Tucker had to stay behind at school to make up a quiz for Mr. Lancer, so Danny had some free time to walk around Amity by himself.

While he loves Sam and Tuck, he had to admit, the time he has to walk around and clear his mind is always the best for him.

School today was exponentially more of a hellscape than normal for him. Dash decided to rag on him, not once, not twice, but three separate times throughout the day and it seemed like wherever he went, Dash wasn't far behind.

Then, on top of that, they announced the annual Winter Ball was coming up. For about anyone else in school, this wasn't a bad revelation but for Danny, this was horrible news.

He already knew no girls from school would want to go with him and he wasn't sure about asking Sam.

'What if I ask her, she turns me down, and our friendship is ruined?' Danny thought quickly. 'Or, what if I ask, and we go, and she has a horrible time.'

Danny's worst enemy, even with all the ghosts he fights on a daily basis, always seemed to be his own mind. He tends to always overthink everything to the point that he gets himself in a mini depression about whatever it is.

As he came up to the corner, he decided to turn instead of going straight on to his home. He wasn't completely done clearing his mind and the scenery looked nice during this time of year.

Suddenly, he heard a loud crash in the alleyway that he just happened to be passing by.

Before running in irrationally, he waited a moment to scope out the situation. He didn't hear another crashing noise, but he did start to hear sniffling and faint sobs.

He started to creep down the alley slowly so that he wouldn't alarm whatever was making noise. The sobbing grew louder as he neared and it sounded like whatever it was, was crying their eyes out.

A faint blue glow caught his eye and he was starting to worry.

Finally he decided to turn invisible and approach the cause of the noises.

A blue haired teenage girl was sitting all alone propped up against the wall crying, with her face buried into her knees. Her hair was in a ponytail, but it seemed very low and not full of life. Her clothing was unusually plain looking, not what Danny was used to seeing.

He immediately recognized the girl as Ember McLain, one of his biggest enemies.

'I wonder what she's crying about?' he wondered. Normally he wouldn't care about what his enemy's problems were, but he couldn't help but feel bad for her. He of all people knew what it meant to be all alone like this.

Thinking quickly, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a notebook and pencil and began to scribble away.

Ripping out the paper, he crumpled it up and tossed it at Ember, hitting her right on the arm. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best way to approach someone who is sad and alone, throwing things and all, but he couldn't think of any other way.

Ember's head shot up reluctantly and she looked around for her attacker. The piece of paper was lying just a few inches from her feet and she slowly picked it up.

'Wow, throw paper at a girl crying, how nice,' Ember thought in between sobs.

She uncrumpled the paper and read the message left for her.

'Why are you crying?' was written in large lettering, but surprisingly, the writing was still very neat and legible.

Danny watched as she saw his words and wondered how she would react. She stayed silent at first, still sniffling every couple of seconds, but after maybe a minute she spoke up.

"What, I'm supposed to just talk out loud to no one?" she yelled.

'God do I look crazy.'

Another piece of paper flew in from the other direction of the alleyway and landed right in her hand. Danny decided to keep running back and forth from side to side, that way she couldn't anticipate where he was and try to beat him for seeing her like this.

'Damn, perfect pass. Maybe I should try sports,' Danny noted as he watched her open the new note.

This note read, 'Yes, I'm here to help you.'

Ember sat in silence. Was she really about to just spill her feelings to some random person throwing paper at her who she can't even see face to face?

"Fine, random person, since you *sniff* won't let me be...I caught my boyfriend *sniff* with another *sniff* girl," she managed to say before bursting into tears once again.

Danny felt something inside of him fall deep into his stomach, he couldn't explain it, but it felt like a part of his heart shriveled up and broke off. He couldn't place why, but in this moment, he felt so very sorry for Ember.

He began to write a more heartfelt note this time and after a couple of minutes, he passed it on the Ember.

She looked up again, this time with her makeup smudged to hell, and picked up the note. This time, half the page was filled in the neat and orderly handwriting.

She began to read to herself, 'I know that you feel alone right now, and like you'll never be able to be happy again, but trust me, things always get better. Maybe this will open the pathway to something good in your life

She finished reading and looked somewhat skeptical.

"How do you know things will *sniff* get better? My whole life I've been alone," she whispered pathetically.

Danny felt his sympathy for Ember grow even more inside of him. For the first time in his life, he finally saw the other side of one of his enemies. Gone was the image of the badass rockstar who only cares about herself, and now replacing that was a teenage girl who wants nothing but someone in her life to care about her.

He quickly jotted down one last note and passed it on to her again.

'Because, even though I can't physically show myself right now, I'm here for you and you can text me at this number if you ever need someone to talk to. I know what it's like to be alone, no one should have to experience that feeling,' Danny wrote, while leaving his phone number at the bottom. He figured there was no way she could find out it was his number so he felt safe in giving it out.

He watched as Ember read along and as she finished, she reached down into her pocket to get her phone.

'Wow, I can't believe that worked,' Danny thought incredulously. Then it hit him.

'Wait did I just give Ember Freaking McLain, my phone number, one of my biggest enemies?'

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket immediately and he quickly pulled it out to read what Ember had to say.

'Listen, this is really nice of you and all, but can't I at least know who you are?' she texted him.

As much as he wanted to tell her, he knew that if he did she would try to kill him right on the spot for hearing all of her emotions.

'I can't, really, I wish I could, but I really gotta head home right now but I can keep texting you for awhile if you want,' he responded. He began putting everything back in his backpack when suddenly Ember got up and started walking towards Danny's direction while still typing on her own phone.

He began fumbling with his notebooks and accidentally dropped it, which meant it turned visible to anyone once again.

"Huh, what's this?" Ember wondered as she bent down to pick it up. "I mean, I'd assume this belongs to whoever was talking to me..."

"I'll just have to take it and maybe find something out about my mystery therapist here," Ember said aloud, somewhat teasingly to whomever was still there listening.

Before Danny could even attempt to grab it back, Ember dissapeared in a whirlwind of flames, teleporting away from the alleyway.

Danny sighed.

"What has my life become?" he asked no one.

He began to finish his walk home. By now, his parents, if they weren't busy neglecting him because of ghost stuff, were probably worried...or at least Jazz could be. As much as he hated how little attention his parents paid him lately, he would rather that than how protective his older sister Jazz was of him. She's so annoying, and always up in his business.

He decided instead to head over to Tucker's place and talk to him about what just happened. He figured he could deal with the consequences of being home late later.

Danny reached Tuck's place in about five minutes and went to knock on his front door when it swung open and Tucker was standing in the doorway.

"Oh, hey Danny! Listen, I really can't talk right now I've gotta go run some errands. Did you wanna hang out or something?" he asked.

"Oh no, I just wanted to talk about some thing that just happened to me but if you're busy it's all good," Danny said with a tone of disappointment in his voice.

Danny moved out of the way so that Tucker could get out of his house and walked down the path leading to the sidewalk with him.

"We can talk tomorrow at school, okay man?" Tucker suggested.

"Yeah no problem. See ya Tuck," Danny responded.

And yet again, Danny was left alone.

'How come I'm always the one left by myself?' he asked himself. Even though he had two really good friends, he still felt really lonely a lot.

"Wait, that's it! I'll talk to Sam," he realized and pulled out his phone to text her.

After a minute or two, she responded. It just so happened that she was busy too.

"I hate my life," Danny said somewhat sarcastically. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

Suddenly, a blue whisp of air crept out of Danny's mouth, which was plastered with a grin.

'Just what I needed, misplaced aggression.'

He ducked into an alley and transformed from Danny Fenton, to Danny Phantom.

Soaring into the air, Danny did a 360 to try and find the cause of his ghost sense going off.

"BEWARE!"

"You again? Haven't I put you back in the Ghost Zone like ten times already?" Danny asked the Box Ghost, who was throwing cardboard boxes at him.

Some of them were so flimsy, that they literally hit Danny, then fell to the ground, not even affecting Danny.

Without saying another word, he pulled out the Fenton Thermos and sucked The Box Ghost back inside for now the eleventh time.

This time, Danny flew right home. He burst through the front door and made a beeline for his bedroom door, ignoring the hundred questions Jazz was throwing at him about why he was home so late. He slammed his bedroom door closed and locked the door.

Plopping down on his bed, he let out a huge sigh and didn't move for at least an hour, just getting lost in his thoughts again.

Just A Short Time Ago

Ember appeared in her realm's living room, still clutching the notebook that her mystery therapist dropped. Her living room was fairly large for the Ghost Zone and featured various sofas and chairs, and sporting a purple and blue color scheme all over. She's called her realm home ever since...well, you know.

'Now, let's go through this notebook,' she thought as a grin donned her face.

She opened it up, starting at the very beginning. Most of what she saw didn't surprise her, there was some school work, not much mind you, but more prominent was the doodling that adorned the various lined pages. There were some doodles of ghostly looking things, comic book looking things, and the one Ember enjoyed the most, a guitar that looked an awful lot like her own. She even found where the pages had been ripped out just a awhile ago.

But overall, there was no sign of who ever's book this could have been.

'Which means no sign of who talked to me today,'Ember sighed. 'I honestly can't tell if it was nice or just creepy.'

After thinking for awhile, she decided to ask Kitty for some advice. Maybe she could help her out in this weird situation.

Naturally, Kitty took absolutely forever to get over to Ember's which gave her more time to get lost in her thoughts.

'Maybe I should text whoever this is?' she wondered before a loud knock was heard on her realm door.

"Alright! Alright! You don't need to knock the door down," she yelled. However, it was not Kitty, in fact, it was the person she wanted nothing less, than to never see again. Skulker was standing right on her front doorstep.

She attempted to slam the door closed on his face but he got his hand up in time to block it.

"Listen, Ember baby, I'm so sorry," he said pleadingly. For a moment, Ember almost believed him. Then it hit her.

"You're only sorry because you got caught!" Ember screamed, feeling the threat of tears in her eyes once again. "Listen, I don't want to see you ever again, and if you come to my realm one more time, I won't hesitate to end your sorry ass," she said firmly.

Skulker looked taken back. Ember was able to catch him off guard and finally slam the door shut on him.

"And stay out!"

Since it probably wouldn't be a good idea to stick around if Skulker was gonna, Ember decided to just teleport to Kitty's realm.

"AHH!" Kitty screamed as she walked into her living room to find Ember. "What are you doing here! I was coming over now."

"I asked you to come over forty-five minutes ago!" Ember countered.

Kitty knew she wasn't gonna win this argument.

"Okay fine...what's on your mind girl?" Kitty asked, sitting down opposite of her best friend.

Ember began retelling the events of her past couple hours, starting with finding Skulker with another girl, and ending with the alleyway incident.

"So, I found their notebook in the alley, but I can't figure out who it was just based off of it because there's no name and no personal info," she explained.

"Oh wait, and they gave me their number too."

Kitty's eyes shot open and Ember had a feeling she knew where her mind was going.

"Don't go where I think you're going."

"SOMEONE LIKEY," Kitty screamed gittily.

"Come on, I don't even know if it was a guy or not, chill out there."

"Ember come on, of course it's a guy, he gave you his number and thinks he can swoop you up while you're down like he's Superman or something," Kitty explained.

Ember didn't want to believe that the only reason the person helped her was because they wanted to have a shot with her but she had to admit, it did make sense.

"Listen, here's an idea, flip this on him. You text him and try to get some info about him. Then you can come back here and tell me I was right," Kitty said in abraggadocios tone.

Ember rolled her eyes and decided she had nothing to lose.

"Fine, but when I'M right, you have to help me dust my entire CD collection for the rest of the year."

"Fine. Hope you enjoy dust," Kitty joked while sticking her tongue out at her.

After a couple more minutes, Ember figured it'd be safe to go back to her realm now and teleported home.

'Okay, let's text whoever this is,' Ember decided as she began getting ready to go to bed. 'Oh God, what do I say?'

After debating for literally thirty minutes, she finally decided what she would text.

'Hey.'

'Wow I'm pathetic,' Ember sighed. She fell back into her bed, covering herself and never really taking her eyes off of her phone. She stayed like this for a long while, just waiting for any sign of life from her mystery helper.

'Just a little longer, I'm sure they'll te...' was all she could say before she finally let the sleepiness overtake her.

Surprise! I'm still alive! Lmao. So that's Chapter 1! I'm really excited for you guys to read this story, and I'm not quite sure how many chapters there'll be, but I pretty much have everything planned out. Anyways, if you guys enjoyed, leave a review and tell me what you think! 'Till next time!