I think it would be really cool if there was an AU where the whole of Amity Park was convinced that Danny Fenton died in the lab accident. After all, who gets shocked with an entire dimension’s worth of electricity and lives? Nobody. Nobody could survive that.
So they pity the Fenton family, particularly the parents who, for some reason, refuse to believe their son is dead. They send him off to school and make him meals just like a regular living boy, but somehow remain confused when their perfectly functional ghost-hunting equipment locks in on him. They somehow never suspect that their own son is the very thing they spend their lives trying to dissect and destroy.
But Danny… the ghost of Danny… he’s clearly not malevolent. And it’s obvious he doesn’t know he’s dead.
The second month of freshman year, when Danny Fenton came trudging through the halls like a typical teenager too tired to be at school on a Monday morning, the whole school froze. The boy (ghost?) didn’t seem to notice as he grabbed his schoolbooks from his locker, and headed towards first period like it was normal.
The news of the Fenton Works lab accident had been on every Amity Park news station the week before. A tragedy, someone so young and hopeful meeting such a miserable end.
And yet, the Fentons did not appear to grieve.
The ghost of Danny Fenton acted as he did before his untimely demise, and if one didn’t know better, they’d be convinced he was still alive.
However, little things gave it away.
Every room Danny entered was immediately the temperature of a meat cooler. Students took to having jackets on hand if they shared a class with him. He didn’t have a pulse either, which Coach Tetslaff found out one day when Dash Baxter hurled a ball just a bit too hard at the smaller teen, apparently knocking the boy out.
The most damning evidence of all, however, was the fact that Danny Fenton didn’t age.
One could consider him a late bloomer, but it was obvious something was up by junior year as his best friends, Tucker Foley and Samantha Manson had gained inches on him, starting to look more like young adults and less like the awkward duo of adolescents they were at the beginning of freshman year. Yet Danny looked the same as always, face as young and bright as it was at the beginning of high school, never aging past the edge of fourteen.
But Danny was no beast or monster as the Doctors Fenton claimed. He was quiet, and peaceful, and although a bit of a slacker from Mr.Lancer’s perspective, a good kid who just wanted a second chance at life.
So no one acknowledged his miraculous return from the dead.
They treated him like any other student or teenager. Dash Baxter shoved him into lockers like normal, students ignored him in the halls, and teachers called him in for detention if he had late work or missing assignments.
It was the least they could do. The longer they delayed the Fenton’s finding out about their son, the longer they could keep him safe, allow him to live his second chance at a normal adolescence.
After all, there were other benevolent ghosts too, like Phantom. Surely it was the right thing to do to protect this one innocent spirit?
