Based upon Apricity # 62 (Eulogy) and #83 (Rage)

Eulogy

September 8, 2013

The morning was dark, overcast, and although they were protected from the inclement weather inside the gymnasium, the light from the fluorescent lights didn't seem to make the place much cheerier than it was outside.

Not that it mattered much. No one was looking for cheer. Not today. Not when they were gathered for the commemoration ceremony. For all intents and purposes a funeral, because the actual burial would be close friends and family only and so if anyone from the general community or the school wanted to pay their respects, now was the time to do it. And there were several speakers who would celebrate the life that had been lived.

As if there were reason to celebrate once it had ended.

A lot of people showed up. Most of the school. Because even if none of his classmates had actually been his friend, they knew who he was. And deaths in the school hit everyone hard because they didn't happen often. Fortunately, drugs and gangs weren't much of a problem for Amity Park and the school was small enough that everyone at least knew of everyone else.

But ghost attacks were a problem and they were getting worse as time went on. There hadn't been any casualties at all until just last month.

They were up to four and counting now. The entire city was rallying together to support the victim's families. And now that the son of the town's resident ghost hunters was dead, everyone wanted to show their support even if they had never heard of the family until their faces had taken over the news when the ghosts first appeared.

Also, everyone shows their compassion for the kid who had been picked on as soon as he was dead and gone. Even if no one would stand up to the bully when it was happening.

Dash Baxter, at least, had the courage to come, and stood with his head bowed. Even though he hadn't had a hand in Danny's death, everyone knew this shook him. He was pale and had left his trademark letterman jacket behind him.

Casper High would probably have a lot less bullying over the next few years. At least until they had graduated and the next wave of teenagers inundated the school and didn't remember the black haired boy that had been shoved into his locker nearly every single day of his high school career.

The affair passed on with fitting silence and sobriety, accentuated occasionally by sniffles from around the room when one of the speakers recounted a particularly fond memory.

There was shuffling and some quiet murmurs of sympathy when Sam Manson walked up to the stage. Everyone knew how close she and Danny had been. There had even been a betting pool throughout the school on when they would finally get together as a couple, despite their protestations of not being lovebirds.

She had always dressed in black, but now she looked deathly pale. With no color at all to break up her dark look. Everyone winced when they got a good view of her. Wondered how she had the strength to get up out of bed, let alone take the stage now.

Sam looked out over the crowd with dimmed eyes circled round with days-old mascara trails that refused to wash away. She had a speech all written out on the paper in her hand, but she eyes it almost uncomprehendingly before she let it fall through her fingers. Everyone watched it flutter softly to the ground.

Violet eyes blankly looked out at them. She didn't say anything for long moments, but then, a flat hoarse voice began.

"Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom," she said, without ceremony.

Everyone stared at her, not knowing what was happening, what kind of joke this was and why she would be trying to pull it over on anyone at his funeral. But she looked serious.

Tucker leapt from his seat at the words and looked like he was about to come up on stage to stand next to her, but she waved him away and turned back to the audience which was now hanging on her every move.

"It was the accident at the beginning of school last year," she explained, matter-of-factly. If they hadn't been so riveted by the revelation, people might have been looking at each other for an explanation for this bizarre speech. "When he got electrocuted in his parents' portal and missed a couple days and came back all skittish and weird." She paused for a moment. "I'm sure you all remember."

And it was true. Teachers and students alike paused to reminisce over the change they had noticed and dismissed in the student. Could it actually be that the reason for his change in attitude and grades was because of… this…? Was it possible?

"We never found out exactly what happened." She didn't have to elaborate on who the "we" was there. Everyone knew that Sam, Tucker, and Danny functioned as a single unit. "We don't know the science behind it. But Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom. They were the same person. He could switch back and forth between them. Kinda like a superhero," she spared a laugh that didn't sound at all humorous. "Black haired loser by day, white haired ghost fighter by night."

Everyone leaned forward in their seats.

Sam's eyes became hard as she accused the assembly at large, "He would save your sorry lives five times over before getting up in the morning and trying to limp his way through school," she said, some heat creeping into her dead voice for the first time.

"Most of the time he was injured," she nodded tersely. "Concussions, that made it hard to remember what his class schedule was let alone who was president in what year." Lancer visibly cringed.

"Bruises and cuts and burns and scrapes he had to hide because if anyone saw, he wouldn't be able to explain his way out of it, no matter how meaning they might have been. Pulled muscles and broken bones a couple of times. They healed a lot faster than a normal person's injuries. Probably because of the ghost thing. He was lucky, because no one could have gone through what he did if a broken arm didn't at least start pulling together within a couple days. Well, when he wasn't getting stuffed into his locker, anyway."

Sam didn't look at Dash, but everyone else did.

"But even though he got beat up every day by ghosts who were trying to kill him, he tried to come to school and be a normal kid. So he took the pop quizzes and the bullying and the double detentions because that was all he ever wanted," her voice wavered as she remembered how fiercely he had fought for some sense or normality no matter how fleeting it was. "To be normal. To have his biggest problem be his midterms and finals and not trying to survive. To not be a half ghost freak who was hunted and hated by every single person in this town until he saved you a thousand times," she ground out, clearly accusing the people that he never would have.

"And then you turned on him when he made a single mistake!" she yelled, her voice ringing against the empty walls until everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats at the subsequent silence.

"Anyone else would have given up," she stated. "I know we all think we could be the hero if we were ever put into that situation but let me tell you that none of you would have been able to do what Danny did," her conviction was emphasized with a slender finger jabbing out into the air in front of her. "Tucker and I were right there by his side every single day and we saw it. We saw what he did and I know that there were days when I couldn't take it and I wasn't the one who had to get up at three o'clock in the morning because the ghost alarm Tucker rigged up was going off and if he didn't get up someone… one of you… would have died."

Sam clashed the edges of the lectern in front of her until the knuckles turned white and breathed in raggedly as she fought to compose herself.

She bit her lip as she looked up again and her eyes threatened to spill as she began to explain that, "He should have been sleeping in on the weekends and going out to a movie with us on Friday nights and enjoying his life.

"And he did," she allowed. "As much as you let him. But not nearly as much as he deserved. And do you want to know why?" She let the silence grow, setting up the punch line for a cosmic joke that no one found funny. "Because he had to learn how to sew stitches into his side by himself because he didn't want to bother Jazz when she had a big test the next day. Because he would always fly home even when he was barely conscious instead of crashing on my couch because he didn't want to get me in trouble if my parents walked in. Even though he was the one bleeding.

"And he never tried to make excuses for when he came home after curfew. Never yelled at his parents when they didn't understand the reason he hadn't taken out the trash yet was because he was running on a single hour of sleep and had spent the night wrapped up in one of Skulker's nets. He took it all without a word. Because he knew he deserved to be grounded when he didn't do his job at home. Even though he was killing himself trying to do his job in the town too.

"And he never fought back against the bullies," she sniffed, gracing the A-lister's small huddle with a passing glance before ignoring them entirely. "I know you've seen Danny Phantom fighting. I know you've seen the way he can punch another ghost through the air and the way one of his blasts can crack cement," she let the implications of her words and the images she knew they were all replaying in their heads sink in. "Yeah. That was the guy that you picked on every day, that you hung from the flagpole and stuffed in a locker and gave swirlies and wedgies to. He could have put you in your place; he could have beaten you in any kind of fight you wanted. He could have even killed you without much trouble at all. But he didn't even stand up to you. Never complained. Never fought back.

"Now just think about that for a second. You bullied Danny Phantom and he didn't lift a finger.

"Because that's the kind of person he was. He was good. And he would have been a hero even if he'd never gotten the powers that let him fight off the other ghosts. But he did and they were really great because it meant that he actually could protect us the way he wanted instead of worrying about us every second because there was nothing he could do."

Sam looked down and waited for a beat. "And I just wanted to tell all of you this. Because I want you to know what he did for you and what he sacrificed and what you took from him." When she looked back up, she seemed to be looking into every single person in the room.

"He made all of us promise to keep his secret," she admitted. "That's why his parents never knew," here her eyes traveled to the first row where Jack and Maddie sat with jaws agape and teary eyes, "and I'm really sorry that this is how you're finding out about it," she apologized to the couple, grieving before she had added myriad layers of guilt onto their shoulders.

"But it doesn't really matter any more," she claimed with a toss of her black hair.

Suddenly, her stance changed. She no longer looked fragile as a leaf and ready to start weeping at the slightest provocation. She had become brash, almost uncaring as she left them with one final word before she clomped off the stage: "Because now that he's gone, we're all screwed, so enjoy the few days you have left."

Got the image of Sam spilling Danny's secret to everyone when he's dead and gone and she just couldn't care less anymore and it expanded and turned into this rant and just yeahhhh.

Also, because I have a random pet peeve that worked its way into this story (not really so random considering I competed in speech and debate for a several years, but anyway), a podium is a platform you stand on and a lectern is the thing you put your notes on. They're not interchangeable terms.