Set Alight

Epilogue

"I love your new house," Ashton declares, jumping on my bed.

"It's the same house you've always seen," I remind him. "Jack lives here, remember?"

He snickers. "Yeah, but now you live here." It'd taken me a little while to move in here, not because I had a lot of stuff, but because I wanted to get rid of the stuff I had and replace it, which took a while to find. Now, my room is a white room with gold and red decorations. My bed is the same as the one in the Ghost Zone's, and my bookshelf holds all the same books.

Covering my room are nails, some with pictures but some still empty. Danny was ecstatic when I agreed to move in, and for the first week Sam popped in every fifteen minutes to make sure I was making myself at home. They've accepted I need time to move into the role of Jem Fenton, but I already think of them as my parents, though I still call Danny by his first name because the word "Dad" left a bad taste in my mouth.

Benedict left me with a phone number and a fond farewell, disappearing to be some security guard or another. I've seen him on TV at political happenings sometimes.

Lindsey is finishing school in a couple weeks for her senior year, and she's decided to move here to be with Jack. Truth be told, I think they've already discussed getting married. That's probably going to be happening pretty soon.

"So how long do you have before you have to go to the Ghost Zone?" Ashton asks, collapsing on my bed after jumping.

"Like an hour," I say, collapsing beside him. "The Council is still pretty paranoid that Vlad has connections somewhere in the Ghost Zone, and they've been calling me nearly non-stop with justice house calls."

"Well, you are big bad Ms. Justice."

I smack him with a pillow. "It's Keeper of Justice, get it right."

"You're right, sorry." He gives me a wet kiss on the cheek. I stick my tongue at him and wipe off my cheek, but move to give him a kiss anyway.

Before I can, he phases off the bed and lands in a heap on the floor.

Oh, did I mention?

Ashton's part ghost now. He got it from sticking his hand into the inner workings of the machine powered by ghost energy. Not full half-ghost, not enough to go ghost, but he has powers like intangibility, invisibility and flying. Though he sucks at controlling it.

But which one of us was good when we first started?

Ashton begins sinking in the floor, and he scrambles to find purchase enough to pull himself up with his semi-intangible hands.

"Ashton!" shouts Sam from the kitchen. "Get your feet out of my ceiling!"

I chuckle, pulling him up so his legs can get their corporeal form back. Ashton gives me a deep kiss and I giggle again as he starts sinking once more.

"It's so hard to concentrate on staying tangibile when kissing you," Ashton complains, crossing his arms until I help him up again.

"There is a solution. You could stop kissing me."

He grimaces. "Never." To prove his point, he kisses me again.

At the worst moment, Danny pops his head in. Immediately, he shouts, "Don't you dare kiss my daughter in this household!"

"ASHTON'S KISSING JEM!" screams Jack from another part of the house.

"STOP KISSING ME AND GET THE CAMERA!" screams Lindsey back.

"Why does Lindsey get to make out with Jack?" I whine.

"He's not my daughter. He's my son. Son's do that. I've accepted it."

I face-palm.

"Sir-" Ashton begins. Danny made him start calling him that after we started officially dating. "It's important to maintain a healthy relationship. Otherwise the government may deem us unfit to raise a child."

"Mon-tree-gomery needs us," I add solemnly.

Danny rolls his eyes. "Not this again."

"Speaking of which, we need a nanny for him when we start school."

"Mmhmm," I agree sarcastically. "Wouldn't want him being left unattended. He's such a wild tree."

"Exactly!"

When I moved here, Ashton planted a tree in the backyard. He said he got the sapling from the original Mon-tree-gomery, and though we named him Mon-tree-gomery the Sequel, we mostly just call him by the original's name.

"Okay, Danny, get out," I demand.

"Why, what are you going to do?" he taunts.

"I'll give you tree guesses," Ashton jumps in.

Danny rolls his eyes again. "Get out, Ashton."

"No, you make puns all the time! This is just payback!"

"Ashton..."

I spread my intangibility over the floor and Danny sinks through it. "Jem, you are in so much..." I hear him hit the ground and Sam laughing.

"Shall we?" I ask, holding out my hand. Ashton takes it, and I summon the golden hula hoop to switch me to my ghost form. It's changed a little. Around my neck hangs the Phantom emblem, white in my human form and black in my ghost. Danny gave it to me as a "welcome to the Phamily," sort of thing. Yes, pun very much intended.

Sovaĝa Fajro also gave me a token for becoming Keeper of Justice. It's a thin gold circlet that runs across my forehead in a whirling metal pattern. She says it's important because it conveys the justice part of my title as well as the fact that I'm related to Phantom.

I don't care. It's just pretty.

Ashton and I fly right through the ceiling and into the open air. Ashton winks at me as I let go of his hand and he starts shakily flying. He tries for a minute before seizing my hand again.

"Scared?"

"Of falling? Maybe. But I'll take any chance to hold your hand, Milady Justice."

I give him a sloppy kiss on the forehead and swing him into open air. He flails but maintains his altitude, somehow flipping upside down.

I approach him with a cocky grin. "Scared?" I ask again.

"Of you?" He pecks me on the cheek. "Or your fire? I'd have to say mostly your fire."

"Well, we are wild." I wink.

His humor drops. "Stop that. Don't ever say that again."

My fire just laughs.

THE END