I'm not your Hero, I'm your King

Chapter 20 - The cousin

"Of course, just a moment." With that, I turn back to my guests.

"I'm sorry for the interruption. Please follow me upstairs to go to the Guestrooms." After that, I walk outside the living room and upstairs, the group following right behind. Danielle floats above me, asking questions I don't plan to answer. But after a few moments, the class begins to ask questions too so I give up in the end and say:

"Dani, this is Mr. Lancers English Class. They are here for a... Field Trip and will spend the night here, but tomorrow morning they'll go back home."

"Aww, so soon? But I want to get to know each and every one of them, pleaaase?" I try to ignore her pleading look and turn to the class.

"May I introduce you to Danielle Phantom, my younger Cousin."

"Your Cousin? You could be siblings, you look alike!" Kwan says surprised and I scratch the back of my head.

"Yeah... We hear that a lot. But let's continue." I want to change the topic, Danielle is a... difficult topic. She is not my biological cousin, more like... a clone. We don't talk often about this, we prefer to keep the past how it is and just... go on. We can't change what happened anyways.

*

After the class parted into pairs and went into the different rooms, I walked down to the playroom, Dani's room. Even though she is my clone, she acts more like a child. She likes to collect plushies, loves to draw with crayons and plays with toys. But she is a smart girl and I am happy to have her, she isn't a replacement for Jazz, I miss my older sister, but I love Dani just as much. Danielle is like a younger sister to me.

"There you are. Took you long enough!" Dani says jokingly and grins at me as I enter her playroom.

"Sorry again, some things didn't go as planned and I hadn't the time to tell you." I say and rub the back of my neck, I forgot that her playdate with Youngblood ended at the time I finished talking with Mr. Lancer and Maddie, so I was quite surprised when she came back.

"Oh it's okay, don't worry! It's totally fine, I know that you have a lot of stuff to do nowadays." While saying this, she looks a little sad. It's true that I don't have as much time for her as I used to, but hopefully, this will change after the humans are gone.

"Uhm- by the way, why do you let them stay here? We both know what happened back then, there is no reason to help them." Dani tilts her head slightly and I sigh a little. Mr. Lancer asked that too, everybody wonders why I allowed them to sleep here. I know exactly why, but I don't want to accept that reason. If I don't say it, it doesn't need to be true, right?

Ah, bullshit. I can't change the fact that I... that I still have that part in me that misses the human world. That misses the life I had before I became King. The life of... Danny Fenton.
I know, this sounds stupid. I mean- it is. Back then, I got bullied, had bad grades, and was always scared that someone might find out that I am also Phantom. But still... I miss Sam and Tucker. I miss waking up at 6 am in the morning, after a sleepless night full of ghost fights, preparing for school, and walking down the street with Sam and Tucker.

I miss living the life of a normal teen, going to school, having detention, going home... Even though the last years of my half-life weren't really the life of a normal human teen. They still were important to me, I learned so much and developed a lot. Even if it was very exhausting, I had fun and... If I had the strength to do so, I would have continued my life how it was.

Flashback 1 year and a few months ago

He sat on the hill near Amity, looking into the stars. He couldn't sleep and there luckily weren't any Ghost attacks this night. Nowadays, he rarely had time to watch the stars. Every time he looks into the endless night sky, Danny remembers his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, but now he knows that he'll never be able to achieve that dream. It is kind of sad, if he wouldn't have stepped into the Portal back then, he maybe could get better grades now and go to college soon. All these dreams shattered the moment he realized he was a Halfa and decided to fight ghosts.

"What are you doing out here?" He heard Sams calm voice and jumped slightly, Danny didn't expect to meet anyone up here.

"Oh, hey Sam. I'm... just enjoying the view. But what about you? How did you find me...?" He replied and looked at her questioningly while Sam set down, right next to him.

"I was about to go home when I saw you out here." She explained, and Danny remembered that Sam told him something about her Aunt and that she had to go to her this evening. He wondered why she was out this late but didn't question it. He was too tired anyway.

"Ah, I see." He nodded slightly and looked back into the Sky. He felt Sam's gaze but didn't dare to look back at her. He missed spending time with her and Tucker, but every time they wanted to meet up, a ghost attack got in between. He can't even remember the last time they actually hang out together for a whole day without interruptions, it must have been months ago.

"Danny?" Sam asked him after a while. With a quiet "Mh?" he showed her that he listened.

"What is going on right now? You are not yourself lately." That is because deep inside of him, he knows that he is Danny Phantom, Daniel James Fenton died long ago, but he never dared to tell her that.