His and Hers

by Myaibou

Summary:

A series of oneshots, or oneshot pairs. Introspection from Danny's, then Sam's, perspective at various points in their relationship.

Notes:

Disclaimer: It's all Butch Hartman's fault. Then again, if he hadn't created Danny Phantom, I'd probably just be wasting my time writing lame fluff fic about someone else's characters.

Rating: Teen and up (really pretty much G-ish, except for some language)

Warnings: Spoilers for pretty much the whole series. DxS.

Yeah, I know, I'm supposed to be working on the Infinite Potential sequel. But that's not flowing, and my schedule hasn't allowed any concentrated writing periods where it's worth forcing myself to work on it, so I figured I should probably do something else to just keep writing. This is a series of vignettes alternating between Danny's and Sam's perspectives on some of the more shippy moments of canon, with a few from my own personal fanon for good measure (pre-canon—reading Lunch Club might be helpful, but not necessary—and maybe post-canon if I feel like it down the road). Since it's a series of one-shots (or two-shots, really), I won't stick to my usual routine of waiting until I write the whole thing to post, but will just write and post whenever the muse hits.

But to be clear: this is nothing but pure fluff—and in some cases, retreads of stuff I've covered in my stories with actual plots—with no redeeming value, except maybe as comfort food for us DxS shippers. Well, DxS fluff is my comfort food, anyway. So if you're looking for something with substance, move along. Nothing to see here.

Acknowledgments: As always, my undying gratitude to the fabulous DragonDancer5150, who has WAY better things to be doing with her time than beta-testing for me, but she's always willing to do it anyway. And to Lunnaei, who's also agreed to beta-test and let me bounce idea's off her. Thanks, ladies. You're the best!

Chapter 1: Defining Moment: Danny

Defining Moment
Danny

Every life has defining moments. Some you know the instant they happen: an event so cataclysmic that it is crystallized in time, forever dividing life into Before and After. The Accident was like that for me—my own personal 9/11, so significantly ending the life I knew before and beginning something completely new that it needs no other qualifiers. Not an accident. Not "that one accident I had back in ninth grade." But the Accident.

Most defining moments, however, aren't like that. They slip in, unnoticed, like a ghost in the fog, and it's only in hindsight, months or even years later, that you realize how life-changing that moment was.

Years before the Accident, my life changed forever, not in a hollowed-out tube of circuitry and ectoplasmic energy in my parents' basement, but in an ordinary middle school classroom, on an ordinary day, when my best friend and I were serving lunch detention for the most ordinary of reasons: ditching school. The girl who was stuck there with us, however, was anything but ordinary. In fact, I'd have to say she was pretty extraordinary.

Don't take that wrong, though. I'm not talking about an "our eyes met across a crowded room and I knew I'd found my soulmate" kind of gag-worthy extraordinary. Or even a drop-dead gorgeous kind of extraordinary. It wasn't like that with me and Sam, not in the beginning. If anything, I was afraid that if I got on her bad side, I would drop dead. Black hair shaved on one side, black eyeliner, black clothes, black lipstick, black army boots. You get the picture. Not exactly the kind of girl that would get my heart beating faster, except maybe out of fear. So not my type.

I'd seen her around, of course. Amity Park isn't exactly New York City, and most of the kids I went to school with were the same kids I'd been in school with since pre-K. And there was that whole incident with Tucker throwing up in her lunch box in second grade. But like I did with every other different and creepy thing in my life—and thanks to my parents, there were a lot of different and creepy things in my life—I tended to keep my head low and stay out of the way whenever I saw her. If I noticed her at all.

So I'm not really sure why I chose to talk to her when we were serving detention together. Probably because there were only three of us in the room, and it seemed rude to talk to Tucker and ignore her. Or maybe my curiosity overcame my instinct for self-preservation for one brief flash in time. But whatever the reason, talk to her I did, and my life has never been the same since.

Now, it would be easy to say it's because the Accident would never have happened if it hadn't been for her. She was, after all, the one who talked me into going into the Ghost Portal my parents had invented but hadn't yet managed to get working. Or I could just as easily say it's because she's the only other person besides Tucker I ever called my best friend. Then there's the fact that by the time we were sixteen, I had fallen pretty hard for her.

So much for not my type, huh?

But to stop there, with any one or even all of those reasons, would be to minimize exactly what she's meant to my life, and the impact just knowing her has had on me.

Most people can imagine what their lives might have been like if they'd never met someone who made a difference for them in some way, but thanks to all the weirdness that comes with being the kid with the ghost powers, I'm one of the few who got to actually experience it, George Baily style. Only, instead of It's a Wonderful Life, my little trip into a Sam-less alternate reality was more It's a Wonderful Friendship, and when I look back on that week that exists only in the memories of Sam, Tucker, and me, it isn't the fact that I didn't have ghost powers that stands out at me, or makes me cringe at what my life would have been had it not been for her. It wasn't even the way I'd drooled like an idiot when she'd dressed like a Barbie doll just to get my attention, since she was the only one who remembered our real history and the hero I was supposed to be. Rather, it was the way I did what I always did before I met her that makes me burn with shame. When there was a threat, be it the normal abuse-from-the-jocks variety or an honest-to-God ghost attacking kids in the school hallway, my response was the same. Keep your head low. Stay out of trouble and below the bad guys' radar. So long as they're not picking on you, what do you care?

But she changed all that. And she did it twice. She did it when we met for real, when I watched her stick up for a kid getting picked on outside the classroom where we had detention. When she got in trouble for the food fight that resulted, I did something I'd never done before. I stood up for her. To a teacher bent on blaming her just because she was the weird girl, and to a jock looking for anyone weaker than he was to put in his crosshairs. And she did it again when we "met" in that didn't-really-happen week, and she showed me that not only could I be a superhero, but that she already was one, even without any special powers.

Every life has defining moments, but the truth is, it's not the moment that matters. It's how you choose to respond to it. So I wonder... what would have happened if I'd never met her, but still had the Accident anyway? Would I have chosen to do more with my powers than stay out of the bad guys' radar? That is the one question our alternate-history week never answered, because then, as in reality, I got the powers only after meeting her. But I think I know the answer. And that, more than anything, is what makes me so grateful for that ordinary day, in an ordinary middle school classroom, when an extraordinary girl walked into my life... and stayed.

Chapter 2: Defining Moment: Sam

Defining Moment
Sam

Every life has defining moments. Watching a machine explode with your best friend inside, then having him stagger out of it, alive, but with his hair gone completely white, his eyes freaking glowing, and his whole body fading in and out like a bad movie effect right in front of your eyes... Yeah. That pretty much qualifies. Especially when you're the one who talked him going into the thing in the first place. It was a moment that changed everything forever, not just for him, but for me and Tucker, too. No doubt about it.

But my life changed in a much more profound way long before Danny's parents ever built that Ghost Portal. Long before we ever dreamed of super powers and fighting ghosts. It was a much simpler thing that changed my life forever. Just three little words.

No, not those three words. They came later. Much later. Back then, in seventh grade, when I was stuck with parents who were Ozzie and Harriet Nelson when I wanted Ozzy Osbourne, and I'd given up on the country club set only to find that the goth crowd wasn't quite ready to accept me as one of their own yet, it wasn't a declaration of love I'd needed or even wanted. Not from anyone, and certainly not from a guy that was so normal. And yet, it was this normal guy, the kind who usually wouldn't bother to look at me twice, who managed to find the three words I didn't even know I needed to hear until he said them. Wanna come over?

Yeah, I know. Pretty lame. But those three words changed my life. More than ghost powers. More than playing sidekick to a real-life superhero. Maybe even more than when we did finally get up the nerve to say those other three words to each other.

For a while, I lost sight of that. It's pretty exhilarating, saving the world, and in the rush, it was easy to forget all the little ways I'd been saved. Not from ghosts or megalomaniacal villains on a power trip, but from myself. From the wall I'd carefully constructed around myself with my half-shaved head and body piercings and black clothes. From the chasm that lay between my family's fortune and the macabre world that appealed to me but wasn't in and of itself enough to fill that chasm. After the Accident, I'd forgotten what it was like to have to choose between having friends and being me, because with Danny—and with Tucker, too—I didn't have to choose. I got so wrapped up in fighting the good fight on a grand scale, that when Danny wanted to stop and just be human again, I was furious. Not without reason, I suppose. When things got hard, he gave up. Not just his powers, but everything that made him special to me. He gave up himself, and he gave up caring about anything beyond his own circle of friends and family.

So I called him on it. And I don't regret that; he had it coming. But what I do regret, what I can't to this day look back on without my cheeks burning and my stomach feeling like I'd swallowed a boulder, is the words I used. You're just an average, everyday, not-special human again.

How is it that those two things became linked in my mind: not-special and human? It wasn't a ghost who turned around and talked to me just because it seemed like the polite thing to do. It wasn't a ghost who stood up for me when I'd managed to avoid getting a face full of beef goulash only to have a teacher blame me for the resulting mess just because I wore a studded dog collar instead of a letter jacket. It wasn't a ghost who asked me if I wanted to come over, just to hang out, because he'd bothered to look beneath the weird hair and makeup and clothes and see me, and he actually liked what he saw.

He was wrong when he gave up his powers, but not for the reasons I told him at the time. Not because without the powers he'd become average and not-special. He'd become lazy and lost his drive, yes. But ghost powers or not, he would always be special, not because of all the ways he'd saved the town or even the world, but because of all the ways he'd saved me.

I love being a superhero sidekick—although I'd never let him hear me use that word. I really love that we've become more than friends. But nothing could ever mean more to me than what he brought into my life when we were twelve and all I needed was for someone to say three little words to me.

Wanna come over?

Chapter 3: The Dance: Danny

The Dance
Danny

It was annoying, the way everyone always assumed Sam was my girlfriend. What part of "just friends" was so hard to understand? Sure, Sam was easily one of the coolest people I'd ever met, and hanging out with her added a certain... adventure to mine and Tucker's lives that we probably hadn't even realized was missing until we met her, but that didn't make her girlfriend material. Besides, I already had a crush on someone, and it wasn't my best friend, thank you very much.

My crush was Paulina. Which put me in pretty good company, since pretty much half the school was in love with her. The half that liked girls, that is. No small wonder, since the girl was flawless. Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect face, and don't even get me started on that body, and those half-shirts she always wore...

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Paulina. The girl of my dreams. Yeah, so I dream big. But considering I spent half my time protecting Amity Park from all the ghosts that liked to come out through my dad's Ghost Portal, was it so much to ask to be the guy who gets the girl? Wasn't that the way it was supposed to work?

The only problem was, she didn't know I was alive. At least, not until Sam pushed me into talking to her. See? Would she have done that if she were my girlfriend? No, she wouldn't. Only a friend would do that. And a really good friend, too. Not that that first try at talking to Paulina went well. I'd only had my powers for all of a month, and they seemed to go haywire whenever I got nervous, so of course everything that could possibly go wrong did. First it was my hand going intangible—the one that was supporting me as I leaned against a tree, trying to look cool. When my hand phased through the tree, I lost my balance, landing on my face right next to her. Yeah, that was cool. And it only got worse from there. While I stood there stammering and stuttering and trying to think of something to say, my pants went intangible, and the next thing I knew, they were down around my ankles and I was standing in the schoolyard in my boxers with pretty much the entire student body of Casper High laughing at me. Sam rescued me—hurling a few insults at Paulina, even though she hadn't really done anything wrong—and I figured that was that and I'd blown whatever shot I had at getting her to go with me to the school dance that was coming up that Friday night.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the next day she came up to me. And when I actually got up the nerve to ask her to the dance, she said yes. Yeah, okay, it took pretending I'd bought her this amulet that she found in my backpack, even though I had no idea how it had gotten there or who it really belonged to. The point was, she said yes! To me!

Me, Danny Fenton, resident loser of Casper High, going to my very first high school dance with Paulina. Life was good.

It got a little less good when the pants-dropping incident led to Mr. Lancer wanting to see my dad for a parent-teacher conference. Luckily, I'd just learned a new ghost power trick that allowed me to take over my dad's body temporarily, and that solved that little problem... only to create another when Lancer asked my dad to chaperone the dance. So not good on so many levels. Then, to top it off, it turns out that the amulet I'd given Paulina was actually some cursed ghost artifact that turned people into dragons whenever they got upset or angry, which meant I had to get it back from her without her getting ticked off and breathing fire down my neck. Literally.

Still, I was taking the hottest girl at Casper High to the dance. I was convinced I could still salvage what I hoped would be the best night of my life. Only one thing was making me feel bad about the evening and, ironically, it had nothing to do with ghosts or cursed amulets or even the possibility that my dad and Lancer might compare notes and figure out something was fishy.

It was Sam.

"She really wants to go to the dance," I told Tucker after Sam logged off our video chat link. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me until that moment that all her snide comments about the "stupid dance" and the "lame dress" her parents bought were really just her way of trying to make herself feel better that no one had asked her. And here Tucker and I had been going on and on about getting dates, and neither one of us had given half a thought to how she might be feeling. I suddenly felt like the world's biggest jerk.

Tucker protested. "But she said she didn't want to!"

"We're her best friends. We should've known."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now, right?"

No, not with both of us already having dates. Unless... one of us dumped his date and took Sam instead, and since I wasn't the one whose date had only said yes on the rebound... I smiled as a plan began to form.

Unfortunately, Tucker knew me too well. "No way. Forget it. Absolutely not. No!"

Taking over Tucker's body was easy. Weird, but easy. And even though neither one of us had ever been to Sam's house before, we both knew her address, and it wasn't hard to find the street. It was in a neighborhood called Eidolon Hill, which was surprisingly nice, considering it was right in the middle of the city. The houses were all fairly large and immaculate, with pretty ornate trees and perfectly swept sidewalks. For some reason, I'd pictured Sam living in something out of The Addams Family, but her street and her house were nothing like that at all. If it weren't for the shoe store right across the street, I would have thought we were in some ritzy neighborhood instead of downtown.

Sam was a little taken off-guard when she opened the door. "Tucker? What are you doing here?" Then, she looked around, as if suddenly suspicious, and I swallowed, sure she'd seen right through my ruse. "Where's Valerie?" she asked at last, referring to the girl Tucker was supposed to be taking. Right after taking over his body, I'd called her to cancel. That was awkward, but it wasn't like she really cared about Tucker. Not like my date.

I resisted the urge to scratch my head. How did Tucker stand wearing that beret all the time? It itched like crazy! Swallowing again, I told Sam, "She kinda canceled on me. Do you think we could go together? You know, as friends?"

It was surprisingly easy, asking my best friend out. Probably because I was in my other best friend's body at the time, so it wasn't like it was really me doing the asking. And when her face lit up, I knew it was worth it. She hemmed and hawed a bit, offering up a few token excuses, and I played along by turning to walk away, but before I could take half a step, she accepted in a rush of excitement, then went off to go change into her dress. Seeing her like that, so happy, it almost made me wish that it really was me asking her instead of Tucker. But then I remembered Paulina, waiting for me to pick her up, and I left Tucker's body. "See ya," I shouted with a cheery wave, ignoring his protests as I flew off, satisfied with a job well done. Tucker and Sam both had dates, which is all either one of them really wanted, and I was still going with the hottest girl in the school. Was I brilliant, or what?

---

By the time Tucker and Sam showed up at the dance, he'd completely forgiven me. And who could blame him? Sam looked amazing. I mean, WOW. I'd first noticed she was kinda pretty when she'd grown her hair out after her parents flat-out refused to let her have her Bat Mitzvah with her head half-shaved. But who knew she was actually hot? It was a little weird, thinking of my best friend that way, but I didn't have much time to dwell on it, because Paulina dragged me off to get her some punch almost before I even had a chance to say hi to Sam and Tuck, and I had to concentrate on figuring out how to get that amulet away from her. My first idea, telling her it was Sam's, wasn't going over so well, but that became the least of my worries when I caught sight of Lancer talking to my parents, and whatever he was saying had my dad frowning in confusion. Things went from bad to worse when, while I was wearing my dad's body like it was some sort of Disneyland character costume so I could do the talking to Lancer, Paulina disappeared on me—still wearing the amulet. I couldn't find her, but I did spot Tucker and Sam and got them to help, assigning Tucker to keep an eye on my dad while Sam helped me look for Paulina.

Sam found her in the girls' bathroom and paged me, but they must've had one hell of a confrontation before I got there, because the next thing I knew, there was a humongous hole ripped in the bathroom wall and ceiling, and I was in ghost form in the sky above the football field, chasing a huge ghost dragon that I thought was Paulina carrying a girl I thought was Sam.

Turns out, the girl was Paulina, which could only mean the dragon was... "Sam?"

"SHALLOW GIRL!"

"Yep, that's Sam." Great. Now I not only had to fight a ghost dragon, I had to fight a ghost dragon that was actually my best friend. Fortunately, as much of a noob as I was at the whole ghost-fighting thing, Sam was even more of a noob at the ghost dragon thing. I got Paulina away from her pretty quickly, but that didn't sit well with Dragon Sam, and she nailed me with her massive tail, sending me and Paulina both hurtling towards the visitors' bleachers. I managed to make us both intangible just in time, and we sailed through to land in a heap against the chain link fence. Dash Baxter was back there, hitting—badly—on some girl, and for a second I thought he was gonna start wailing on me, but then I remembered—ghost form. He had no idea who I was. Then he was screaming like a girl and running away, because Dragon Sam ripped out an entire section of bleachers to get to us.

Leaving Paulina against the fence where she'd be safely out of the way, I flew at Sam to try to get that amulet off her. After a few punches—which I hoped to God weren't actually hurting her real human self—a quick detour back to the school to take over my dad once more so he couldn't compare notes with Lancer, then another few more punches and the judicious use of my dad's Fenton Fisher, the whole thing was a done deal. I got the amulet off her, and she morphed back into Sam, crumpled on the ground.

My sense of victory at defeating the dragon melted into alarm. "Sam?" I changed back to human form and knelt down beside her. "Are you all right?"

She sat up, rubbing her head like she'd had one too many at a college frat party. "Wow. Did I have fun at the dance?"

Relieved that she seemed to be okay, I laughed. "Well, uh... Let's just say you had a roaring time."

She gave me a sorta sheepish smile, but looked confused, so I showed her the amulet. Her eyes widened. "Wait. I was the dragon?"

"Apparently. So. Wanna explain how you ended up wearing the amulet?"

She hesitated, probably still muddy from going ghost-dragon. "I... think she must have given it to me. She thought the amulet was mine, so I figured that's what you'd told her. I played along, and she gave it back to me."

I was surprised that she'd be so careless. "And you put it on? Sam, what were you thinking? You knew what that amulet would do if you got mad! And let's face it... you and Paulina in a bathroom together isn't likely to end any other way than with you getting mad."

Kinda like she looked right now. "How is this is my fault? She put the stupid thing on me before I could stop her, and she'd already completely pissed me off first, so it's not like I could do anything about it. And I'm not the one who gave her a cursed amulet in the first place." She crossed her arms and arched her eyebrow, knowing she had me there.

And she did. With a heavy sigh, I conceded her point. "Yeah, you're right. This whole mess is my fault in the first place. I'm so sorry you got dragged into it." I really was, too. Who knows how that stupid amulet could have affected her, or how our fight could have hurt her. I didn't even want to think about that possibility.

She accepted my apology with a shrug, however, and any irritation she'd had seemed to be gone. "Eh. It's no big. Although breathing fire is murder on the throat. I could go for a glass or ten of ice water right about now."

I smiled. Sam was fine and we were cool, so it was time to get back to Paulina and make sure she was okay, too. "Tell you what? The punch is on me when we get back to the dance. I'll meet you back there in a few minutes."

"Why? Where are you going?"

I nodded toward the visitors' bleachers—or what was left of them. "When you turned into a dragon, you grabbed Paulina. I got her away from you, and you knocked us behind the bleachers."

"What bleachers? What happened?"

"Yeah... you kinda ripped out that section. But anyway, I figured Paulina was safer back there out of the way while I distracted you—and tried to get that amulet off. Hopefully, she's still safe back there and doesn't remember anything."

I left to go get Paulina, assuming that Sam would head back towards the gym, but before I reached the bleachers, I heard her call out to me. "Danny, wait!"

I stopped and looked back at her as she started heading toward me, but then another voice behind me, dripping with anger, caught my attention. "Oh, look. It's my date. Or were you too busy going off for your fifteenth glass of punch to remember you were supposed to be my date?"

I gritted my teeth, feeling awful as I turned to face her. "Paulina, I'm so sorry. But you disappeared, and I didn't know—"

She wouldn't let me finish, cutting me off with an upraised hand. "Save it. This has officially been the worst date of my life. And believe me, I've dated more than my share of losers. I don't even know how I ended up out here!"

Again, guilt washed over me. "Paulina, I—"

"Don't. Just you and your loser friends stay away from me." She was looking over my shoulder now, towards Sam.

God, I'd screwed up. In every way possible to screw up. I screwed up my chance with Paulina. I'd screwed up by getting Sam involved. And that wasn't even getting into all the stuff with my dad and Lancer. Pressing my lips together, I tried to do what I could to make amends to Paulina. "At least let me take you home."

"Don't bother." And then she was gone.

I stood a moment, not wanting to meet Sam's eye, embarrassed that she'd witnessed the whole pathetic exchange. But she was my friend, and I knew she wouldn't rub my nose in it, so with a deep breath, I walked slowly back to where she was waiting for me. "I guess I can get you that punch now."

"Danny—"

I couldn't quite meet her eyes, not wanting to see the pity there. "Don't, Sam. I deserved that."

"No, you didn't."

"Yeah, I did." I looked right at her now. "I was too busy worrying about my dad and about the amulet to be a good date."

"Believe me, Danny. She's no prize. She—" She stopped, as if weighing her prejudice against my feelings for Paulina. "She just doesn't know a good thing when she sees it. Even when it's right under her nose."

I smiled, suddenly full of gratitude that I had Sam in my life. "Thanks, Sam. You're a good friend."

She flashed me a wicked grin. "Yes, I am."

We headed back to the dance, which was pretty much over by this point, and filled Tucker in on everything that had gone down while he'd been watching my dad. He winced at the end. "Dude, sorry your date didn't pan out. Where is Paulina, anyway?"

Sam answered for me. "Aw, who cares? Look, the D.J.'s still playing." She turned and faced me, smiling. "And I think there's time for one last dance."

It was only then that I realized I'd managed to go the whole dance without actually dancing. Well, better late than never, and Sam did look hot in that dress. "Sure, I'd love to." Turning to Tucker, I handed him the amulet. "Keep an eye on this, will you?"

He flashed me a look—Tucker's mind was always in the gutter—but I ignored it as Sam thread her arm through mine and we headed out to the dance floor.

"Promise me you'll keep your pants up?" she asked with a smirk.

Everyone always called her gloomy or snarky, but her sense of humor usually made me smile. "I'll do my best."

I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but it was really strange. One second I was grinning at her over the shared joke, and the next second I found I couldn't quite pull my gaze away from hers. Had her eyes always been that shade of violet? Had they always been so deep? My throat felt dry all of a sudden, and I had to fight the urge to lick my lips. God, she really was beautiful. And those eyes...

Whatever it was evaporated when Tucker appeared, wailing in fear as some ghost chased after him. I recognized her immediately as the girl who the original dragon had turned into, and I got her off Tucker's back by telling her she could have her amulet back if she promised to stay in the Ghost Zone and out of our world. She snatched the amulet from me, which I'd already taken back from Tucker, and phased out of the gym through the roof, leaving me to hope I'd done the right thing. I really was still a noob at this whole ghost fighting gig.

The lights came on about then, officially ending my first high school dance, and I offered Sam and Tuck a ride home with my parents, forgetting for the moment the odd little exchange that had happened between me and Sam.

---

At home, I had trouble getting to sleep. I'd had such high hopes for this dance, but I'd blown what might well have been my one shot at Paulina, the girl of my dreams.

Except... if she was the girl of my dreams, why did my mind keep drifting back to Sam and our dance? And what exactly had happened between us? She was my best friend, and yet, there I'd been, mooning at her like a lovesick puppy. Which made no sense, because I didn't feel that way about her. Yeah, we had a blast whenever we hung out, and she was probably the most important person in my life besides my family and Tucker, but not in that way. It must've been hormones. I mean, I was fourteen, and she did look incredible. And she'd stroked my wounded ego when Paulina had dumped me, and then again by asking me to dance. So it was only natural that, dancing with a pretty girl who had made me feel a little better about myself, I would get a little lost in the moment.

Relieved to have figured it out, I closed my eyes, finally ready to sleep. Paulina was still my crush, Sam was still my friend, and all was right with the world. I did not like her that way... I couldn't like her that way, end of story.

But as I drifted off to sleep, my mind added its own epilogue.

Not yet...

Chapter 4: The Dance: Sam

The Dance
Sam

It was annoying, the way everyone always assumed I was Danny's girlfriend. Yeah, we spent pretty much every second of every day together, but usually with Tucker, too, and no one ever accused me of being his girlfriend. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was racism, but there were plenty of interracial couples at our school, and no one ever batted an eyelash, so I never quite got what it was about Danny and me that made everyone assume we were the pair instead of me and Tucker.

Besides, liking Danny would only have been an invitation to heartbreak. He had lousy taste in girls. Or at the very least, pedestrian taste in girls. I mean, Paulina? Cheerleader, Most Popular Girl at Casper High—could you get any more clichéd?

So, yeah, it bugged me that he liked her, but not for the reason everyone assumed. It wasn't jealousy, just... disappointment, I guess. But then, what could I expect? With two boys for best friends—my only friends—it was a given that I'd have to spend a lot of time putting up with the drooling over how hot this girl or that girl was. For some reason, though, it didn't bother me as much with Tucker. Probably because he liked pretty much anything with two X chromosomes. But Danny... I don't know why, but I somehow expected better of him. Maybe because he was just about the only person on the planet willing to talk to the freaky goth girl, which fooled me into thinking he was above going just for looks. Or maybe it was the fact that ever since the Accident, he'd spent half his time playing superhero—not that superheroes were known for having great taste in women. Lois Lane. Need I say more?

But as irritating as all the drooling and genuflecting was whenever Ms. Queen Bee Cheerleader walked by, it was never really that big a deal. I was the one who'd pushed him—literally—into going over to talk to her in the first place, after all. It went about as well as I'd expected it would. Danny made a fool of himself although, to be fair, it wasn't really his fault that he didn't quite know how to control his ghost powers yet and they went wonky on him at the worst times. I guess that's why when Her Majesty looked down her snooty nose at him and laughed, I'd had enough. I would have loved to have told her exactly how it was that he ended up first in a heap on the ground, and then with pants down around his ankles, and that the powers that put him there were the same one that saved her precious behind—and everyone else's—from that crazy Lunch Lady ghost that attacked the school a couple weeks earlier, and then again from the creepy ghost hunter in the scary cybernetic suit. But I couldn't do that, so I settled for a few choice insults before dragging Danny off someplace where he could make himself decent again.

On the upside, I figured that that little humiliation was probably enough to keep Danny from ever wanting to come within two hundred feet of Paulina again. Imagine my joy, then, when Danny told me at lunch that Paulina had actually sought him out, and not only had he gotten up the nerve to ask her out, but she'd said yes. I wasn't sure which I felt more—aggravation with Danny for his ballooning ego after snagging the most sought-after date in the school, or surprise that someone like her would condescend to go out with someone so low on the Casper High Food Chain, especially after he'd made such a complete ass of himself in front of her and everyone else in the school. It made me wonder. Had I been too hard on her? Was it possible she wasn't as shallow as she seemed? Could she actually appreciate everything a guy like Danny—dorkiness and all—had to offer?

Of course, the fact that Tucker got a date himself shortly thereafter—and with Valerie Gray, yet another snob from the so-called "A-List," of all people—and he and Danny spent every waking minute going on and on and on about the stupid dance right up until it happened didn't exactly put me in a good enough mood to reconsider my prejudices against Paulina. Not that I cared about the dance or anything. It was just another stupid high school thing designed to reinforce all the stupid, meaningless cliques. Yeah, so my mother, in a fit of optimism that I might actually attend a "social gathering," had for the first time in the history of ever bought me a dress that I not only was willing to wear, but was completely my taste and absolutely gorgeous. It was still just a dance, and part of the lameness that was high school dating rituals. I had better things to do with my time anyway.

Until Tucker showed up at my door right before the dance. My first reaction was panic: I'd never invited Tucker or Danny to my house before, and with good reason. If they knew how loaded my family was, they'd never treat me the same. Fortunately, Eidolon Hill is sort of urban posh, with its eclectic mixture of residential and retail, as opposed to the more ostentatious mansions in communities like Polter Heights. Don't get me wrong; no one who lived on my street had less than eight figures in the bank, and that would be the lower end of the income range. We just weren't obvious about it. So when Tucker didn't make any comments about the house or the neighborhood, I relaxed a little. "Where's Valerie?"

"She kinda canceled on me. Do you think we could go together? You know, as friends?"

He sounded a little off, like he wasn't quite himself, but considering he'd just gotten dumped and was asking me as a last resort, I figured it must be nerves. He was probably expecting me to strangle him for treating me like the reserve squad, and I probably should have, but to be honest, I was actually kinda pleased. Not that I was glad he got dumped or anything, but now I'd not only get to wear Mom's first-ever not-lame dress (and maybe get her off my back about my social life for a week or two), but I could check up on Danny and Paulina as well. And since Tucker would be my date and not Danny, then maybe just maybe it would convince all those morons at school once and for all that Danny and I were not a couple.

Besides, there was that whole thing with the cursed amulet Danny had accidentally given to Paulina, and his newly discovered power of being able to take over people's bodies, which led to some complications with his dad, who was chaperoning... what more could I ask for out of a stupid school dance? So I told Tucker I'd go with him, since he got dumped and everything, and rushed inside to change.

I have to admit, seeing Tucker's eyes pop out of his head when I came back out again in my dress with the lace-up bodice and fishnet sleeves, with my hair all teased out and my makeup a little more formal than usual, wasn't exactly hard on the ego. Yeah, so he wasn't the pickiest guy in the world when it came to girls, and I knew he didn't think of me that way (thank God!), but seeing as no one else on the planet seemed to think of me that way, either, it was nice to get such a reaction, even from a friend. And as I dragged him towards the school, I couldn't help but wonder, what would Danny's reaction be?

---

It was priceless. Possibly the high point of my high school experience thus far. Not only did Danny's eyes pop out even more than Tucker's, if that were possible, but Paulina about had a cow, dragging him off with some lame excuse about wanting punch before he could even say two words to me. The plot thickened when Danny got in over his head trying to keep Lancer away from his dad, and Paulina disappeared on him, still wearing the amulet. I found her a few minutes later in the girls' room, and after paging Danny to let him know, I followed her in, trying to stall her so she couldn't run off again before Danny could get that amulet back.

"Hey, Paulina. Er... nice dress."

She turned around, a look of smug satisfaction on her face. "Yes. And it goes so nicely with your amulet." The smug look turned into a wicked smirk. "Don't you think?"

I frowned in confusion. "My amulet? That's not my—" And then I realized what had probably happened. Danny must have told her it was mine as an excuse to get it back. "Right..." I flashed her my best just-between-us-girls smile. "Listen. My grandma gave me that amulet, and—"

She was in my face before I could even finish. "Forget it, sweetie. I'm not giving up this trinket. Or your little boyfriend, Danny."

I blinked. "My boyfriend?" Laughing, I rolled my eyes. "And they say pretty girls can't be funny! Danny is not my boyfriend."

"He's not?"

Was she actually jealous? Maybe she really did like Danny, and I had been too hard on her. "He's my best friend," I told her, dropping the snark. "Maybe that's why I was so hard on you. I didn't mean to call you shallow."

Instead of looking relieved or even placated, she snorted in annoyance. "What a bummer! I only agreed to go out with him because I thought I was stealing him from you!" Then, before I could even react, she was in my face again, snapping the amulet around my neck. "Here. Take your crummy amulet. I'm going back inside to dump your dorky friend." And then she was gone in a swish of pink taffeta.

I don't think I'd ever been more furious in my life. It was bad enough when she'd laughed at him when he was trying so hard just to talk to her. I mean, it was kinda hard not to laugh at a guy standing in the school yard in red-and-white spotted boxers. But this? Using him? He actually liked her, and all she cared about was some sort of misguided plot to get back at me? Nobody treated my best friend that way, least of all that shallow little WITCH...

I don't remember what happened after that, because the next thing I knew, I was lying with my face in the grass on the football field in the middle of what seemed to be a tangled mass of... fishing wire? Then, I heard my name, and Danny was leaning over me. "Are you all right?"

I sat up, my head pounding like I'd just gone ten rounds with Samson, that purple-back gorilla Danny had spent the previous week studying for extra credit in biology. My throat felt raw as well, and it was hard to find my voice. "Wow. Did I have fun at the dance?"

"Well, uh..." He laughed, a sound of nervous relief. "Let's just say you had a roaring time."

I didn't quite get the joke, but I smiled at him anyway as he helped me up. When it became obvious to him I was still a little confused, he held up the amulet by way of explanation, and then it all clicked. Paulina had put it on me right after telling me she was using Danny... "Wait. I was the dragon?"

He nodded. "Apparently. So. Wanna explain how you ended up wearing the amulet?"

Not really, no. Not when I knew the explanation was going to hurt him. I fumbled for an answer. "I... think she must have given it to me. She thought the amulet was mine, so I figured that's what you'd told her. I played along, and she gave it back to me."

He frowned. "And you put it on? Sam, what were you thinking? You knew what that amulet would do if you got mad! And let's face it... you and Paulina in a bathroom together isn't likely to end any other way than with you getting mad."

I let out a huff of air in annoyance. "How is this is my fault? She put the stupid thing on me before I could stop her, and she'd already completely pissed me off first, so it's not like I could do anything about it. And I'm not the one who gave her a cursed amulet in the first place." I crossed my arms and arched my eyebrow at him to punctuate my point.

He relented with a sigh, looking a little guilty. "Yeah, you're right. This whole mess is my fault in the first place. I'm so sorry you got dragged into it."

I had to admit, Danny did contrite well, and I instantly was back to feeling bad for him. "Eh. It's no big. Although breathing fire is murder on the throat. I could go for a glass or ten of ice water right about now."

"Tell you what? The punch is on me when we get back to the dance. I'll meet you back there in a few minutes."

"Why? Where are you going?"

He jerked his head towards the visitors' bleachers—which inexplicably was missing a huge section. "When you turned into a dragon, you grabbed Paulina. I got her away from you, and you knocked us behind the bleachers."

"What bleachers? What happened?"

"Yeah... you kinda ripped out that section. But anyway, I figured Paulina was safer back there out of the way while I distracted you—and tried to get that amulet off. Hopefully, she's still safe back there and doesn't remember anything."

He turned and started walking in that direction, and I wasn't sure what to do. She was going to dump him, and probably in the rudest and most painful way possible. Would it soften the blow if it came from me instead, or would I just make it worse? Before he got all the way to the bleachers, I made my decision. I couldn't let him face that shrew without backup—whether he wanted it or not. "Danny, wait!"

He stopped and looked back at me, expectant, and I gathered up my skirts to run after him. But before I'd taken more than a few steps, Paulina appeared through the gaping space where the middle section of bleachers used to be. She didn't look hurt, and I can honestly say I was glad for that. Yeah, I would have dearly loved to smack her around a bit, but not with ghost-dragon strength that was enough to rip out an entire section of bleachers. She did look confused, though, and more than a little irate, which didn't improve when she caught sight of Danny. Even at the distance I was standing from them, I could hear the ice in her voice. "Oh, look. It's my date. Or were you too busy going off for your fifteenth glass of punch to remember you were supposed to be my date?"

"Paulina, I'm so sorry. But you disappeared, and I didn't know—"

She held up her hand, impatient. "Save it. This has officially been the worst date of my life. And believe me, I've dated more than my share of losers. I don't even know how I ended up out here!"

"Paulina, I—"

"Don't. Just you and your loser friends—" At this point, she threw a glare in my direction. "—stay away from me."

Danny made one more attempt. "At least let me take you home."

"Don't bother." She turned on her heel and stomped off, not even sparing me a glance as she breezed by. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to deck her, or at least stick my foot out and trip her. While I'd never had a high opinion of her, I now loathed her with something bordering on passion for how she'd treated Danny. But doing anything now would only have humiliated Danny further, and that was the last thing I wanted, so I let her pass by unhindered.

When she was gone, Danny and I stood a moment, awkward, before he finally came over to me. "I guess I can get you that punch now."

"Danny—"

"Don't, Sam. I deserved that."

"No, you didn't."

"Yeah, I did." He looked me in the eye now. "I was too busy worrying about my dad and about the amulet to be a good date."

"Believe me, Danny. She's no prize. She—" I stopped, unsure if the truth would make him feel better because he'd stop kicking himself, or worse because it was just mean. Finally, I decided to just let it be. He didn't need to be kicked any more than he already had been tonight. "She just doesn't know a good thing when she sees it. Even when it's right under her nose."

He smiled. "Thanks, Sam. You're a good friend."

"Yes, I am," I replied with a cheeky grin. And together, we headed back towards the gym and what was left of our first high school dance.

Which, as it turned out, wasn't much. By the time we found Tucker and explained what had happened, the gym was already clearing out.

He shook his head, sympathetic. "Dude, sorry your date didn't pan out. Where is Paulina, anyway?"

I caught sight of her at the other end of the gym, pinned against the wall as Dash Baxter was trying a clumsy pick-up line on her. You'd think the star quarterback and most popular guy in the school would be more smooth around girls, but his lines were worse than Tucker's. I was going to point this out to Danny, but decided it wouldn't make him feeling better and switched tracks instead. "Aw, who cares? Look, the D.J.'s still playing." I turned around to face him, smiling. "And I think there's time for one last dance."

He smiled back. "Sure, I'd love to." He handed the dragon amulet off to Tucker. "Keep an eye on this will you?" Then, I took his arm and the two of us headed out onto the otherwise deserted dance floor.

My hands on his shoulders and his on my waist, we started swaying to the slow song that was playing. I smirked at him. "Promise me you'll keep your pants up?"

He looked like he was about to laugh. "I'll do my best."

And that's when something weird happened. Our gaze held longer than normal, his goofy grin fading into something almost... intense, and something like a small spark of electricity started at the back of my head and traveled all the way down my spine. It lasted for what seemed like hours as we just sort of stared at each other, barely even remembering to dance. And then, Tucker was there, with some sort of ghostly Maid Marian chasing after him, and the spell—or whatever it was—was broken. Danny yanked the amulet from Tucker's grasp, told her she could have it back if she promised to stay in the Ghost Zone and out of our world, and that was pretty much that. By then, the music had stopped, the lights had come on, and Danny's parents were waiting to drive us all home, so we left the dance without so much as an awkward glance to confirm that anything strange had passed between us in those few long moments we were staring at each other on the dance floor.

---

That night, sleep refused to come. Even though everything had been normal between me and Danny on the way home, as if the weirdness during that one dance had never happened, I couldn't stop thinking about it anyway. What was that all about? Danny was my friend. Just my friend. And just-friends didn't give each other intense looks when they were dancing, and they didn't keep staring for a really long time, either. And they certainly didn't feel sparks. So what was that? And why did thinking about it make me feel it all over again?

I sat up, shaking my head. "Snap out of it, Sam," I told myself aloud, hoping the sound of my own voice would jar some sense into me. "You cannot like Danny, not like that." Yeah, he was fun and sweet and goofy in a way that was actually kinda charming. And, of course, there were the ghost powers. They were undeniably cool. He was completely unique; no other human in the entire world could do the things he did, and he'd chosen to use those awesome abilities to protect people from the ghosts that seemed to leak out through his parents' Ghost Portal like cold air seeping into a house through the cracks around a windowpane. Just because he could.

But it was more than that. Even before the powers, he'd been a really caring guy. The kind of guy who'd speak up against the jocks even if it meant getting himself in trouble with them and with a teacher. The kind of guy who'd speak at all to the freaky girl that no one else ever bothered with. Yeah, he was lazy and could be a colossal ass, but he was mostly just a really good guy. And he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes, either. Not in human form, nor in ghost form...

Realizing where my treacherous mind had taken me, I grabbed my pillow and buried my face in it so I wouldn't wake my parents when I screamed. When I'd emptied my lungs into the pillow, I slammed it down in my lap. "You cannot like Danny," I reiterated, since I seemed to have missed it the first time. That way led to heartache, guaranteed. He liked girls with long, flowing hair and big, round eyes and big, round... well, you get the picture. He liked girls that giggled and wore pink, not girls who dressed all in black and wore army boots and had deep, grating voices and short tempers. We were great friends, would always be great friends, but he would never, ever see me as girlfriend material, and the sooner I realized it and got over this... temporary insanity, the better.

"I do not like Danny Fenton."

But as I lay back down and closed my eyes, trying once more to fall asleep, it wasn't those words that kept running through my head. It was what I'd said earlier. I'd been talking about Paulina, but suddenly the words took on new meaning, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shut them out of my head.

She just doesn't know a good thing when she sees it. Even when it's right under her nose.

Chapter 5: The FakeOut MakeOut: Danny

The Fake-Out Make-Out
Danny

I'm not exactly sure why she did it. I guess I was pretty panicked, what with an unruly ghost dog to contend with, and now some ghost hunter girl, who'd appeared out of nowhere, was after me with weapons that made my dad's inventions look like squirt guns. The crazy mutt had saved me from her, dragging me back to the place in the park where we'd left Sam, but that wasn't exactly helpful. The last thing I needed was for the ghost hunter to see me and Sam together and wonder why she was hanging out with a ghost kid. So, yeah, I panicked. I could have gone invisible, or intangible, but instead I shouted at her.

"Sam, hide!"

"No time!"

And then she tackled me.

"Change to human!" she ordered as we fell into some bushes and, without even thinking, I did as she instructed. By the time I hit the ground, I was human again—just in time for Sam to come crashing down on top of me before rolling off to land beside me. I started to sit up, but without warning, she'd shoved me back down again and pinned my shoulders to the ground. And then she did something I never in a million years would have ever expected.

She kissed me.

And I'm not talking a peck on the cheek. I'm talking a full-on, pressed-up-against-me kiss on the mouth.

I don't think if she'd have unzipped her head and shown me a little blob-ghost inside, like Skulker in his cybernetic armor, I could have been more shocked. So shocked that I stared up at her, as if expecting my eyes to tell me something different than what my lips were telling me. But no. They both agreed: Sam was kissing me.

I'm not sure, but I think I tried to back away. She had me pinned to the ground, however, and I was too stunned to get out from under her. Then, a roar of jet turbines drowned everything else out as the hunter girl's sled hovered into view. There was another high-pitched whine, which a small part of my brain recognized as an ecto-weapon powering up, as the girl's voice shouted over the din. "No escaping me now, Ghost Boy!"

That was when Sam finally let go. She screamed, looking up at the hunter girl with a look of surprise that melted into irritation. "Do you mind?"

I should have been worried about the hunter girl, but all I could do was gape at Sam as my mind tried to grasp what had just happened. Sam kissed me. My first kiss with a girl ever, and it was Sam. My best friend, the person I hung out with and who knew all my secrets—that Sam. The girl who'd shown up at that dance a few weeks ago looking really hot. The girl with the really deep violet eyes that I hadn't been able to stop staring into, and ohmygod she kissed me, and it was actually kind of awesome...

"Danny?"

I was staring at her again, I realized. The hunter girl was gone, and I hadn't even noticed she'd left, but Sam was still there, watching me with those violet eyes, and she'd kissed me, and—

"Danny? Uh... y-you didn't think it was a real kiss..." She paused as I snapped back to reality. "Did you?"

And then I did what any guy who'd just been tackled and kissed by his best friend who he did not like as more than a friend no matter how good that kiss felt or how pretty her eyes were would do...

I panicked again.

"No!" Grasping at something—anything—that would salvage the situation, I turned it back around on her. "Why? Did you?"

Well, of course she didn't. It had only been a ploy to distract the ghost hunter girl who, Sam seemed to think, was actually Valerie Gray, the girl Tucker had been crushing on lately. That was a significantly weird enough development to get my mind off the kiss and how I'd reacted to it. After all, it was just a fake-out make-out.

Although, as Tucker pointed out the next day at school when we told him, that did still have the words "make" and "out" in it. And, fake or not, Sam would still always be the first girl I ever kissed.

Chapter 6: The FakeOut MakeOut: Sam

The Fake-Out Make-Out
Sam

I'm not exactly sure why I did it. All I knew was, Danny was in trouble. That ghost hunter chick who'd appeared out of nowhere was after him, and it was better if she didn't see him with me, at least not while he was in ghost form.

"Sam, hide!"

"No time!"

It wasn't like I'd planned it in advance. There just wasn't time to think, let alone plan, and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Not one of any number of his ghost powers he could have employed, like invisibility or intangibility, no. What ran through my head at that moment wasn't disappear so much as distract. I didn't want to hide Danny from the girl on the sled so much as I wanted to shock her into abandoning the chase altogether, at least for long enough that she would think Danny had actually gotten away. So my mind glommed onto the oldest and most ghost-power-free distraction in the book.

I tackled him.

"Change to human!" I hissed at him before we even hit the ground.

To his credit, despite being caught completely off-guard by my sudden attack, he had the presence of mind to hear what I'd said and follow my instructions. As he landed hard on the grass, those now-familiar twin rings of light passed over him, and he was Danny Fenton again. I came down on his chest mid-change, almost knocking the wind out of both of us, and then my momentum carried me off of him to land on my back to his left. Before he could even sit up, I rolled back over and, pinning his shoulders to the ground, planted a long, hard kiss right on his mouth.

Although my eyes were closed, I could feel his surprise and confusion as he struggled beneath me. Play along, Danny, just play along! I urged him silently, all the while keeping him pinned to the ground so he couldn't wriggle away from me. Above us, I felt more than heard the turbines of the hunter girl's jet sled as she glided to a halt just outside the clearing where we'd landed. There was the whine of an ecto-weapon powering up, and a sort of husky girl's voice cried out, "No escaping me now, Ghost Boy!"

Feigning surprise and then indignation at the "interruption," I let Danny go with a scream as I turned to look up at her. "Do you mind?"

"Oh, gross! Loser love! I always knew you two geeks would end up together!" And then, with a blast from her turbines that sent a rush of hot wind over us, she took off into the sky.

I frowned as I watched her go. I'd heard that voice before. "That sounded like Valerie," I told Danny. But when I looked over at him, my eyes widened in alarm. "Danny?"

He was sitting up now, leaning back on his hands, with a glazed look in his eyes and the goofiest smile I'd ever seen on his face. And that's when it occurred to me what I'd just done. I'd kissed Danny. My best friend. My first ever kiss with a boy, and it was with Danny. It had just been a ploy, but... did he know that?

"Danny? Uh... y-you didn't think it was a real kiss..." But that glazed look he had suddenly brought back the memory of that weird little electric moment we'd shared at the dance a few weeks ago, which I'd managed to successfully forget until that second. And in that brief instant, against all good sense and reason, I found myself actually hoping. "Did you?"

That woke him up. In all the ghost fights he'd been in over the past couple of months, I'd never seen such a look of terror in his eyes. "No!" And then he frowned, eyeing me with something like suspicion. "Why? Did you?"

Well, that settled that. Grimacing, I clenched my fist, and it was all I could do to keep from using it to beat myself about the head. Repeatedly. What was I thinking? Of course he didn't think it was a real kiss, and of course he didn't actually want it to be. We were friends, he had a crush on Paulina, and one fake-out make-out to distract a ghost hunter—who, in an odd twist of fate, just so happened to be Tucker's latest crush—wasn't going to change any of that.

So I started talking. Fast. I don't even remember what I said, although it was something about how that hunter girl sounded like Valerie, and how did a girl whose dad had just gone bankrupt get her hands on a really high-tech battle suit and jet sled? But the one thing I know I didn't say was that it wasn't a real kiss. Not that I thought it was—I knew better than that. I was the one who'd dreamed up that particular ill-advised ruse, after all. No, I knew it wasn't real.

The problem was, I wanted it to be.

Chapter 7: Falling Stinks: Danny

Falling Stinks
Danny

For a while after our fake-out make-out, things sometimes got a little awkward between me and Sam. Like, for example, a few days later when I decided to map out the Ghost Zone. Tuck and Sam followed behind me in the Specter Speeder, communicating with me over these little wireless earphones, the Fenton Phones, which my dad had invented to filter out ghost noise. We ran into this ghost named Klemper, who had to be the clingiest nerd on either side of the Ghost Portal. In his quest to get me to be his friend, he attacked me with those weird ice powers of his, and by the time I got him off me and locked back into his domain in the Ghost Zone, I felt like I'd taken a long trip to Antarctica. In my underwear.

When I phased into the Specter Speeder, breathing on my hands to try to warm them, Sam took pity on me. "Oh, here. My hands are warm." And she took my cold hands in her warm ones.

Now, a week ago, we wouldn't have thought anything of it. She was just helping me warm up after nearly getting frostbite. No big, right? Except now, after having been kissed by her, all I could think was, we're holding hands. Yeah, I knew we weren't really holding hands, but what if she thought I thought we were holding hands? And maybe she was thinking exactly that, because she blushed, which made me blush, and then we were both blushing and holding hands.

And yet, we didn't let go.

Well, not until Tucker amped up the volume on the obnoxious song he was singing, and I needed my hands to cover my ears. I wasn't sure whether I should slug him for subjecting us to that hideous noise, or thank him for distracting Sam and me from the awkward moment.

And that's only one example.

The next day at school, when everyone was going nuts over the same awful pop singer that Tucker had made me want to rip out my ears over, Paulina came up to us. While I was admiring the view, she and Sam were getting into it, like they always did, and she commented on the Fenton Phones, which Sam was still wearing because she thought they looked like techno-goth earrings. Sam shot back something about them being a gift from me, and immediately Paulina sniped about how she always knew we'd "end up together." Now, we were both pretty used to people thinking we were a couple, but I was even quicker to deny it this time, not just because I didn't want Paulina to think I was taken, but because I was afraid Sam would think that I thought...

Yeah. You can see where all this awkwardness could get old really fast.

I could name a half a dozen more examples all within the same week. When that awful pop singer, Ember McLean, turned out to be a ghost that could mesmerize people into worshiping her, Sam and I were the only ones not affected. We were trying to physically restrain Tucker so he wouldn't ditch school along with the rest of our classmates, and I had him by the arm, and Sam had her arms wrapped around my waist...

Or when we were trying to figure out why we were the only two not affected, and I guessed it was because of my ghost powers and her individuality, or maybe her intelligence. Just that one compliment had us both blushing. Again.

I think the weirdest, though, was when were flying together towards Bucky's Music Mega Store, where Ember was giving a free concert to all her mesmerized "fans." Flying, or at least floating, was kind of like my invisibility and intangibility powers in that I could transfer it to other people as long as I was touching them. It came in handy, because otherwise anyone I wanted to fly with would be dead weight and I wouldn't be able to fly hand-in-hand without them dangling from my grasp like a hiker who'd slipped off the edge of a cliff. In this particular case, Sam and I had our arms around each other's waists, which was a little more stable than just holding hands—the power transfer did only last as long as we were touching each other, so even without the dead weight being an issue, there still was a risk of her falling if I lost my grip. I looked back at Sam to make sure she was comfortable and wasn't slipping or anything, and she had the weirdest look on her face. I don't think I'd ever seen Sam look like that before, and I was worried that maybe she'd been mesmerized after all.

"Are you okay, Sam?"

"Huh?" And then she seemed to snap out of it, and she suddenly looked mortified, like the millions of other times I'd seen her blush since that stupid fake-out make-out. "Oh! It's just... really nice up here, that's all. Flying's... nice." She sort of laughed, embarrassed, and then I was embarrassed, too, because I realized that, yeah, flying with her arm-in-arm like that was kinda nice.

At least until I crashed into a huge Ember billboard because I wasn't watching where we were going. We smacked headfirst, then landed in a heap on the roof of Bucky's.

"Falling stinks," Sam said, as if I needed it pointed out to me. That's what I get for letting all the weirdness distract me like that.

After that... well, to be honest, I don't really know what happened after that. It's kind of a big fuzzy blur because Ember zapped me with her guitar. And, apparently, the adoring crowds chanting her name made her stronger, so the music could affect me even with my ghost powers, but instead of making me obsessed with her music, it made me obsessed with Sam.

I don't remember much about what happened when I was under Ember's spell. It was kinda like being under the gas at the dentist's office, with the happy, giddy haze blocking everything else out. Only, in this case, the haze had a shape, and it looked like Sam. I do know that I must've been pretty whacked out, because when the whole thing was over and I was back home in my room, I found a stash of stuff on my bed that was beyond creepy. Pictures of Sam, old notes she'd passed me in school, one of those studded collars she used to wear when she dressed more punk. There was even some hair clippings and a wad of chewing gum. What the heck? I have no idea how I even had any of her hair or her gum, but if I had found a collection like this in some other guy's bedroom, I would've beaten him within an inch of his life for stalking my best friend.

Fortunately, that was the only real indication I had of how bad the spell was, because the rest was such a blur. Except for one thing. One memory that stood out, and that was of how Sam finally was able to break the spell. Dash Baxter and a couple of his cronies were playing security guard at Ember's concert and were holding me, Sam, and Tucker backstage to keep us from stopping Ember from going global with her mojo music. I vaguely remember Sam trying to get me to do something to stop her, but I hadn't been willing to leave her side, like she was a damsel in distress in some B movie. Gag me. So, before I even knew what was happening, she'd turned around in the arms of the guy holding onto her, who happened to be Dash of all people, and she kissed him.

It was like the fake-out make-out all over again, only instead of her kissing me, she was kissing the biggest jerk in the entire school. That I remember clearly, because the pain was so sharp, it cut through the haze like Freddy Kruger through a blonde coed's dream. Sam was kissing Dash.

"Sam... how could you? How...?" And then the anger hit. "Hey! Get away from her!"

By then, the kiss had broken off, and it was a tossup whether Sam or Dash looked more grossed out. And for some reason, one kiss from a "goth geek" was enough to scare off not just one huge football jock, but all three of them, leaving Sam, Tucker and me alone.

Sam turned to me, oozing guilt. "Danny, I'm so sorry. I-I..."

"You and Dash? But we were..." Then I saw the expression on her face, and I knew I'd been suckered by Ember's music. And it felt awful. The fog was gone, but all that sort of giddy happiness that came with it was gone, too. I felt like she'd actually just dumped me, even though I knew it wasn't real. I sighed. "But... we weren't, were we?"

Despite not having been under the spell, she looked as bad as I felt. "No, Ember did that. It's just... this is so hard, because part of me... part of me really liked this, and..."

She didn't finish but, as I turned to look towards the stage where Ember was playing, rage washed over me. Not just because of what that hack had done to me, but because of how she'd messed with Sam. I knew I wasn't going to really remember much of what happened while I was under her spell, but Sam would, and after the weirdness with the fake-out make-out, she didn't need to have her head messed with like this. A growl rose up in my throat as I clenched my fists. "Ember!"

I felt a hand on my arm. "Danny? Are you okay?"

I could have lied to her, but this whole day had been a huge, ghost-powered lie, and I was sick of it. "No. I feel like my heart's been ripped out." And spell or not, the image of her kissing Dash was burned into my brain, and I did feel like my heart had been ripped out. "But I know who I can take it out on!"

I went ghost and hurled myself toward Ember, finally beating her by getting Tucker to sing, thereby horrifying the crowd out of their spell the way Sam kissing Dash had horrified me out of mine. Without them chanting her name, her strength was gone.

When it was over and she was safely tucked away inside a Fenton Thermos, I went backstage and changed back into human form just in time for Sam to envelope me in a huge bear hug. "Danny, that was awesome!" It was another one of those moments that a week ago I wouldn't have thought anything about, but with everything that had happened lately, it was hard not to feel a little embarrassed. Again. But for once, I didn't care. I was so happy to just hug my best friend without any stupid spell mucking things up that nothing else mattered.

She was the one who pulled back first, her cheeks bright red, and only then did I blush, too. She coughed, and hemmed and hawed a bit. "Uh... I guess Ember's spell hasn't quite worn off."

Tucker, who had just returned from being booed off the stage, picked that moment to butt in and point out that she'd never been under Ember's spell, getting an elbow to the ribs for his trouble, but it just made me smile. Everything felt normal again, for the first time since before we kissed. It was as if Ember's musical mojo had made things so out of whack that everything that had happened before seemed like no big deal in comparison. Whatever weirdness there had been seemed to evaporate, as if that horrible kiss with Dash had broken not only Ember's spell, but the sort of strange spell we'd both been under ever since she'd kissed me.

Ironic, that awkwardness that started with one fake kiss would be ended by another.

Nevertheless, if I thought about that kiss with Dash too much, it would hurt just as badly as it had when it had first happened, and it made me think that Sam was right. Falling stinks.

Chapter 8: Falling Stinks: Sam

Falling Stinks
Sam

For a while after our fake-out make-out, things sometimes got a little awkward between me and Danny. A simple gesture, like trying to warm his hands after a fight with an ice-powered ghost, became loaded with meaning. We're holding hands. Only, I knew we weren't really holding hands, but my rebellious, hormonal teenage body decided to ignore my more sensible brain and react to his touch as if it actually meant something. So I blushed, which made him blush, and then we were both blushing and holding hands.

And yet, we didn't let go.

Then Tucker, being Tucker, ruined the moment—which wasn't really a "moment" anyway—by singing the most obnoxious song ever with all the tunefulness of a dying sea cow. Danny let go of me to cover his ears, and that was that.

Except, that wasn't really that, because stuff like that kept happening.

The next day at school, everyone was mooning over the same pre-packaged corporate bubble gum garbage that Tucker had assailed us with. Paulina, who couldn't stand it when anyone didn't fall all over themselves to follow her, lemming-like, into whatever the fad du jour was, made it a point of coming up to me to find something to mock. This time, she picked the Fenton Phones, those little wireless earphones Danny's dad had invented. We'd used them the day before to communicate in the Ghost Zone, but I kinda liked their funky, sort of techno-goth look, so I was still wearing them. When she made some crack about a sale at the Eighty-Nine Cent Store, I shot back, "For your information, Paulina, they're a gift. Danny gave them to me."

I'm not sure why I said it. It wasn't like she actually cared about something coming from Danny. But seeing him start to drool the second she walked up, and knowing how she'd used him that one time, I felt an overwhelming sense of territorial-ness.

Predictably, Danny reacted by panicking, while Paulina reacted with disdain. "Really? He gave you earrings? I always knew you two losers would end up together."

"We're not losers!" I countered.

"We're not together," Danny added.

Right. We're not together, I reminded myself.

And I had to remind myself of that a lot, so it seemed. When the corporate bubble-gum "singer" with the stupid pop diva name—I mean, Ember, how lame is that?—turned out to be a ghost who had her "fans" literally under a spell, Danny and I found ourselves having to physically restrain Tucker to keep him from ditching school to go get free Ember tickets at Bucky's Mega Music Store. Danny grabbed Tuck by the arm to stop him and, when that wasn't enough, I wrapped my arms around Danny's waist to help, and suddenly we were both hyper-aware that I had my arms around him and, hello with the awkwardness. We did manage to get Tucker into one of the school's new Cram-Tastic Mark Five machines to deprogram him, which smoothed over the moment, but when we were trying to figure out why we seemed to be the only ones who were immune from the spell, Danny suggested it was because of his ghost powers and my "individuality, or intelligence."

"You really think I'm smart?" I asked, like some giddy preteen whose hot teenage next door neighbor had just waved at her. Give me a freaking break, Manson! Could you be any more pathetic?

Apparently, I could. With Tucker safely tied down in front of the Cram-Tastic, Danny and I flew off together to Bucky's to go after Ember, and that's when I hit an all-time low.

In my defense, part of it was the flying. I can't even describe what flying is like. Because Danny could sort of transfer some of his powers to others when he touches them, it wasn't like he was carrying me so much as we were both gliding together, arm in arm. Looking down at the yards and the trees with leaves that had just turned shades of gold and red but hadn't yet fallen, I felt this amazing sense of freedom. I could go anywhere, do anything. Then I glanced up at Danny, who had a look of power in his eyes and a smile on his face that told me he was feeling the same thing, and the autumn sun was glinting off his white hair, and he looked so stunning, I actually gasped. Gasped! I just couldn't stop staring at him.

Until he noticed. He looked back at me, blinking in bewilderment. "Are you okay, Sam?"

"Huh?" And then I woke up, and was mortified. What was wrong with me? It wasn't bad enough that I was having all these new and confusing feelings about my best friend, but he actually had to catch me mooning over him? It was all I could do to not let go of him, which would have sent me plummeting to my death. Kind of tempting at the moment, actually, but instead, I covered as best I could. "Oh! It's just... really nice up here, that's all. Flying's... nice." A nervous titter escaped my lips, and I knew I hadn't fooled him, because then he was blushing too, and could someone just kill me now?

And, because the universe was not done enjoying its cosmic laugh at my expense, someone almost did. Ember, to be exact. Or, rather, a gigantic cardboard cutout of her, which we slammed face-first into while Danny was distracted by his embarrassment at his best friend mooning over him. Our momentum gone, we no longer could stay aloft, and we tumbled to the roof below.

When I could breathe again, I raised myself up on my elbows. "Falling stinks."

In so very many ways.

But if I thought me mooning over Danny was bad, it was nothing in comparison to him mooning over me—courtesy of some sort of love spell from Ember's guitar. Apparently, the fawning from her zombified fans didn't just pump up her ego, it pumped up her powers as well. One blast from her guitar was enough to knock me, Danny, and that ridiculous giant cardboard cutout of her back across the roof, landing me on top of the cutout as it dangled over the parapet like a see-saw.

That was when I first noticed the truly gag-inducing puppy-dog look Danny was giving me. Now, I'll admit, when I commented that it was the kind of look he usually reserved for Paulina, and he responded by asking, "Who's Paulina?" that could have qualified as one of the sweetest moments of my life. Unfortunately, the drooling and babbling that followed not only had me back to wishing someone would kill me now, but Danny himself almost ensured that it happened. He was so busy gushing over how "pretty" I looked when I was "about to fall off a building" that he couldn't even be bothered to go ghost so he could fly me off the teetering cutout, even after the thing toppled over the edge. If the Amity Park P.D.'s S.W.A.T. Team hadn't been there, I'd have been a pancake on the sidewalk, and he would have just watched it all with that loopy grin on his face.

Was that how I was looking at him when we were flying together? If so, I think I might hurl.

Even after all that, however, I don't think I got how serious the spell was until I snuck over to his house later that night. I'd gone there so we could go after Ember, who was planning a televised concert to broadcast her hypno-music all over the world so she could make everyone into drooling fans, but Danny wasn't the least bit interested in Ember, or anything else except me. When I got to his house, I found this collection of stuff on his bed that I would never have imagined he'd even have, let alone lay it all out like he was preparing a shrine. The pictures were cool—old photographs of us from middle school and the first few weeks of high school. There was even one of me from that dance. But did he really save dumb notes we'd written to pass the time in class? And how the heck did he get one of my old dog collars, or a tube of my lipstick? Or... was that clippings of my hair? And a wad of chewed-up gum?

I shuddered. "Okaaaaay. Even the part of me that's kind of liking the attention is really freaked out by this."

He rushed to my side with that same stupid grin on his face he'd had since Bucky's. "It doesn't matter, just so long as we have each other."

If this was what being more than friends with Danny would be like, I was so over it. "SNAP OUT OF IT!" I grabbed him by the wrists and pushed him off of me. "You don't really feel that way about me, and I don't feel that way about you." And in that moment, it was the God's honest truth. I'd never been so squicked out in my entire life.

My response didn't faze him, though. "So why are you still holding my hands?"

Grunting in disgust, I shoved him away again and spun on my heel to leave.

"And why are you still wearing those Fenton Phones I gave you?" he finished, as if that proved his point.

I stopped short and turned back on him. "Danny, they're not even real earrings. They're just some stupid communicators that—" I stopped short, my eyes widening as it hit me. "Filter out ghost noise."

Danny completely missed the detour I'd taken as his spell-addled brain continued on its one track. "Does this mean that we're breaking up?"

"Don't you get it, Danny? That's why I haven't been affected by Ember's music! I've been wearing the Fenton Phones the whole time!"

"So... we're not breaking up?"

I wanted to throttle him. "How can we be breaking up? WE WERE NEVER TOGETHER!" I decided we needed to get him deprogrammed, like Tucker—

It was only then that I remembered that we'd left Tucker at school, tied down in front of the Cram-Tastic Mark Five. Twelve hours ago.

Fortunately, Tucker was forgiving, and the three of us made it to the place where Ember would be broadcasting her concert. Unfortunately, twelve hours of intensive standardized test prep made Tucker's brain almost as addled as Ember's magic had. He accidentally announced our presence over the in-house PA system, and the next thing we knew, Dash Baxter, along with two of his sycophants, Kwan and Dale, all dressed in yellow backstage security shirts, had grabbed us. Ember went out to start the show, and I tried to get Danny to go after her, but he kept going on about how he wouldn't leave me, like the hero in some lame 1930s action flick. Gag me. Casting around for something, anything, that would break the spell, a thought occurred to me. If I could replace the lovesickness with something else, the way we'd replaced Tucker's Ember obsession with useless test prep information, then maybe that would do it. But what would would be powerful enough to replace love?

When I figured out the answer, it almost made me want to hurl more than the stupid spell did, but desperate times, and all that. "I hate to do this to you, Danny." Or to myself. "But if I can't break Ember's spell, I'm gonna have to break your heart."

With a jerk, I twisted out of Dash's grip and turned to face him. He towered over me by at least a foot, but using his arms as leverage, I jumped up, threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him.

It was like the fake-out make-out all over again, only instead of kissing Danny, I was kissing the most obnoxious moron in the entire school.

But it had the desired effect. Behind me, I heard Danny's stunned voice. "Sam... how could you? How...?" And then he sounded furious. "Hey! Get away from her!"

Dash managed to get over his surprise by this point and push me away from him so that we each ended up on opposite sides of the room, reeling in disgust. The funny thing was, that one kiss had been enough to rattle not only Dash but all three of those hulking idiots. They ran away in fright, as if I might kiss all of them and, I don't know, give them goth cooties or something. But they were gone, and Danny, Tucker and I were alone.

I turned to Danny, and when I saw the look on his face, even knowing it was because of a spell, I felt awful. "Danny, I'm so sorry. I-I..."

"You and Dash? But we were..." He sighed. "But... we weren't, were we?"

I should have been glad he was finally coming back to his right mind again, but I couldn't stop feeling like I'd betrayed him somehow. Like I'd betrayed me. "No, Ember did that." But there was more to it than just Ember, and I felt compelled to say more, to be honest with him, as if that could make up for what she'd done. "It's just... this is so hard, because part of me... part of me really liked this, and..."

Danny turned away, toward the stage where Ember was playing and, when he caught sight of her, he clenched his fists and growled. "Ember!"

Alarmed and more than a little worried that I'd pushed him too far while that spell was controlling him, I put a tentative hand on his arm. "Danny? Are you okay?"

"No. I feel like my heart's been ripped out. But I know who I can take it out on!"

And that's when he finally went ghost for the first time since the whole stupid spell thing had begun. He flew off to go after Ember, and I found myself smiling as I watched him. I'd been kidding myself when I thought the creepiness from the spell was enough to get me over whatever it was I'd been starting to feel about him. Watching him do whatever he had to do to stop her, I was right back where I'd been the last few weeks, when a simple dance sparked something new in me, and a single fake kiss fanned the ember and turned it into a flame.

And speaking of Embers... once Danny had her trapped inside a Fenton Thermos, he flew backstage, changing back into human form as he landed in front of me. I was so glad to have him back, kicking ass and acting like himself again, I couldn't help but throw my arms around his neck. "Danny, that was awesome!"

For a moment, everything else faded away, and it was just me and Danny holding each other. It was only when that now-familiar electric thrill traveled down my spine that I realized what I was doing, and I pulled back from him, my cheeks burning in embarrassment. Danny was blushing, too, and I coughed, looking for some excuse that would make the situation less awkward. "Uh... I guess Ember's spell hasn't quite worn off."

"You were never under Ember's spell." That was Tucker, whom I hadn't even realized until that moment was standing right behind me. I elbowed him as hard as I could to shut him up, but I relaxed when I saw that Danny was smiling at us. Not an embarrassed, sheepish smile, or a let's-pretend-I-didn't-hear-that smile, but an amused smile, laughing at Tucker's big mouth and at my quick temper.

That was when I knew, for the first time since before that fake-out make-out, that everything was going to be okay. It was almost like Ember's spell had taken all that awkward crush stuff to such a ridiculous extreme, the kiss we'd shared and the discomfort that followed no longer mattered. Whatever weirdness had been there before was gone now, washed away by a single kiss with Dash—and the gallons of antiseptic I'd no doubt be gargling with as soon as I got home.

Ironic, though, that awkwardness that started with one fake kiss would be ended by another.

So things were back to normal after that, but it wasn't really the same normal. It was a new normal, a normal where I could no longer deny to myself, even if I would still deny it to everyone else on the planet, that I was crushing pretty hard on my best friend. And he, barring the influence of creepy love spells, was clearly not crushing at all on me.

Falling really does stink.

Chapter 9: Maybe: Sam

Notes:

I know I said these stories were going to come in pairs and this one seems to be a single one-shot, but it's not. Danny's "maybe" just comes along a little further down the road. Typical guy. Takes him longer to figure it out. ;)

Maybe
Sam

I hadn't been expecting the question, so I wasn't prepared to answer.

It was the middle of the whole Ember mess, when Danny was still under the spell and we'd just remembered to go back to the school to rescue Tucker from standardized test prep hell. I was feeling terrible that we'd left him stuck there for twelve hours. Danny wasn't feeling anything but spell-induced lovesickness. "You're beautiful when you're wracked with guilt."

Tucker looked at us like it was Christmas morning and an entire electronics store was under his tree. "Man, it's about time!" Throwing his arms around the two of us, he pulled us into a gleeful embrace. "Always knew you two would end up together!"

Have I mentioned how much I hated that stupid spell?

With a grunt of annoyance, I shoved Tucker off of me. "We're not together! Ember put him under some kind of spell."

That's when Tucker asked The Question. "So you don't wanna end up together?"

The denials that usually sprang so easily to my lips when anyone questioned my relationship with Danny wouldn't come. Tucker didn't ask what people usually asked or make the accusations people usually made. He wasn't asking if I was Danny's girlfriend, and he didn't call us "lovebirds." Those were easy to deny, because I wasn't his girlfriend and we weren't lovebirds—at least not when one of us hadn't been zapped senseless by ghost music. No. What Tucker asked was what I wanted. He asked if I wanted to end up together.

What was I supposed to say to that? Before the fake-out make-out, before the dance where we'd locked gazes for that brief moment, I would have said no without hesitation. But now? If I answered that question, out loud, to Tucker of all people, who would never let it die—never mind that Danny was standing right there, because he was so lost in his spell-induced fog, I doubted he'd remember any of this later—if I answered Tucker's question with anything other than a resounding no, the feelings I'd been pretending I hadn't been feeling for the past few weeks would no longer be vague and without form. They'd have a shape and a name. They'd be out there in the universe, tangible and real. If I said anything but no, I could never again pretend that Danny had never been anything more than a friend to me, that I'd never hoped for more. I could never go back.

But I hadn't been expecting the question, so I wasn't prepared to answer, and the denials that usually sprang so easily to my lips wouldn't come.

"I don't know," I replied, giving voice to the truth that, up until that point, I'd been trying to deny. "Maybe."

Chapter 10: Suds: Danny

Suds
Danny

Ever notice how when you really dread something, it gets so built up in your mind that when it actually does happen, it turns out nothing like you thought it would? My biggest fear in life was someone finding out my secret—other than Sam and Tucker, that is. I was already seen as a freak just because of who my parents were and the house we lived in. The last thing I needed was to add "half ghost" to the label. But when it actually happened, when someone did find out the truth about me, not only was it not the end of the world, it ended up being totally awesome. Because the person who found out was Paulina—she'd seen me revert back to human after fighting a ghost at Floody Waters water park—and not only did she not think I was a freak, she said I was hot. Me! Hot!

The next thing I knew, she was announcing to the whole school that we were dating. Finally, I was getting my karmic reward for all the good I'd been doing ever since getting my powers. The hottest girl in the school liked me, and we were dating. The cherry on top of my Karma Sundae was that dating Paulina was an instant ticket to being on the "A-List," with all the benefits that hanging out with the most popular kids in school entailed. Life was sweet.

Until it all went to hell.

Turns out, the girl I thought was Paulina wasn't her at all. She was being overshadowed by a ghost named Kitty, who was using me to try to get her ghost boyfriend, Johnny, jealous.

When, exactly, did my life become a soap opera?

Not only that, but I found out about half a second before I was finally going to get to kiss Paulina, too. How's that for bad timing? Although, in retrospect, I was really kinda glad. The thought of kissing Paulina when she had no control, no say in the matter at all, was about as sick and nauseating as anything I could imagine.

Furious with Kitty, I brought her back to my parents' lab to get the story. Apparently, she'd gotten mad at Johnny for scoping out other girls when he brought her to the Human World. She took off, ending up at Floody Waters while we were there, which is where she got the idea to go after me to make Johnny jealous.

"I remembered how much Johnny couldn't stand you, so you were the perfect person to make him jealous," she told me. "I was gonna overshadow your friend. The spooky chick in black? You like her, don't you?"

My tongue suddenly felt three sizes too big for my mouth. "Sam? I-I... well... uh..." Why was I stammering like that? How hard is it to just say no? One little syllable, and I couldn't make it come out of my mouth. I mean, not that I don't like Sam. She is my best friend. But not in the way Kitty was implying. Right?

And then I realized Kitty was just diverting my attention from the real issue, which was her overshadowing Paulina. I glared at her, but she just arched Paulina's eyebrow at me before going on to explain how Paulina and Sam had had a confrontation in the bathroom—something I remembered Sam mentioning when I'd first told her and Tucker that Paulina had seen me change from ghost to human—and that Sam had stomped off before Kitty could overshadow her, which is how she ended up taking over Paulina instead.

A part of me was relieved. The thought of Sam being overshadowed and used like that, or of Kitty making her come onto me just to get Johnny jealous... It was too close to Ember's spell in reverse for comfort. But my relief was short-lived when I remembered that even if Sam had escaped that kind of horrific invasion, Paulina hadn't.

Not that Kitty seemed to think it was a big deal. "I ended up in this body. Go fig! But the good news is, you like her too. Johnny's furious, I'm pretty, you're popular. Everybody wins!"

"Except Paulina." The whole thing made me want to strangle her. She'd been overshadowing Paulina ever since Floody Waters, which was, like, almost a week ago. An entire week controlling someone else. Yeah, I'd overshadowed people before, but never for more than a few minutes, and certainly not for days at a time. What would that do to Paulina? Would there be any long-term effects? Would Paulina remember any of this, or would she have this huge, week-long, gaping hole in her memory?

Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do about it. While I'd forced ghosts out of people they were overshadowing before, it was never someone who they'd been occupying for so long. From my own experience, I had this vague idea that the longer you stayed in someone's head, the more bonded to their body you became, and I was afraid that just ripping the ghost out of Paulina would hurt her in some way, doing more harm than good. The only way to make sure Paulina would be safe would be to convince Kitty to let her go willingly. I hardened my glare. "You realize you're going to have to stop this, right?"

She flashed me Paulina's best smile. "Maybe..." And then the smile turned to something more sinister. "Or maybe Paulina might slip up and tell the whole town that Danny Fenton is the Ghost Boy."

So... she wasn't going to go on her own, and now I not only had to worry about hurting Paulina if I tried to force her out, I also had to worry about her blowing my secret.

Welcome to Screwed. Population: me.

It was Sam who came up with the solution—once I was able to disentangle myself from Kitty-as-Paulina long enough to tell her and Tuck the story, that is. I got Johnny to stage a fight with me, one where he lost. Badly. Kitty was so upset, she released Paulina to protect Johnny from me. Worked like a charm. Paulina seemed none the worse for wear, thank God. And she didn't remember the past week, including my secret.

Of course, it also meant she couldn't remember liking me, and that was the end of our "relationship." Although she did seem to remember liking the other me.

So, to sum things up: Danny Fenton likes Paulina, who likes Danny Phantom, who is Danny Fenton, but she can't ever know that because I'm so not going through that whole fear-of-being-blackmailed thing ever again. How's that for a karmic reward? Now, if I could only find a girl who liked both halves of me, someone I could trust completely with my secret, then I wouldn't have to worry about stuff like this happening.

Yeah, right. Like I'd ever meet a girl like that. I'm just not that lucky in love.

Chapter 11: Suds: Sam

Suds
Sam

Ever notice how when you really dread something, it gets so built up in your mind that when it actually does happen, it turns out nothing like you thought it would? My biggest fear in life was someone finding out Danny's secret. Not for the same reasons Danny was afraid of that happening. He just didn't want everyone to think he was a freak. I didn't care about that, but ever since that ghost warden, Walker, had made sure that Amity Park hated ghosts in general and Danny Phantom in particular, I worried about what people would do if they found out who he really was. People with irrational fears did irrational things, and people were irrationally afraid of anything that was different. That Danny Phantom was a ghost was different enough for them to hate him. But if they knew he was ghost and human? Then, he wouldn't only be a freak, he'd be a vulnerable freak, and visions of mobs with pitchforks and torches gathering outside of FentonWorks plagued me.

So when the nightmare was realized and someone found out the truth, I prepared to do everything in my power to protect him from the masses. Only, as it turns out, it wasn't the masses he needed protecting from. It was a single, teenaged fangirl. Paulina, to be specific.

Personally, I would've preferred the pitchfork-toting masses.

It happened at Floody Waters water park. Danny had just fought off a ghost, and when it was over and he found me and Tucker again, he was half crazed from panic. "Paulina saw! She knows I'm half ghost! I finally get to see her in a bathing suit, and I can't even enjoy it!"

I could've done without that last part. Grimacing in disgust, I spat out her name. "Paulina. I just had a nasty run-in with her in the bathroom. She's the rudest little—"

"Danny!"

Speak of the she-devil, and she will appear—waving and smiling like we were her BFFs. "Sam! Whatever-your-name-is!" That would be Tucker. "Hi!"

I jumped in front of Danny, stretching out my arms to shield him behind my bat-cloak bathing suit cover-up. "Listen, you..." None of the descriptors that popped into my head utilized language appropriate for a family-friendly water park, so I left them unspoken. "I don't know what you think you saw, but if you do or say anything to hurt Danny..." What I would do to her was best left unspoken, too.

Paulina scoffed at me, her hands on her hips. "Oh, don't get your bat wings in a bundle." Then, she was all smiles again as she waved at Danny over my shoulder. "Danny? Why'd you run? I know it freaked you out that I discovered your secret, but I won't tell."

She was oozing with enough honey to make even a bee wanna hurl, but Danny was a sucker for a sweet smile and batting eyelashes. He stepped out from behind me. "Really?"

At least Tucker saw through the act. "Oh, come on! How can we trust you?"

"You can trust me, because it's my secret now, too." She leaned in towards Danny, brushing his nose with her finger like he was a little baby she was cooing over.

"Oh, great," I groaned when Danny's face lit up at the attention. As far as I was concerned, bring on the pitchforks. I was outta there. "Excuse me while I find a nice dark place to throw up."

It got worse. At school, she announced that they were dating, and suddenly Danny was on the so-called "A-List," with Tucker and I shoved off to the side. Again. But somehow seeing him together with her made this time so much worse.

"Are you okay?" Tucker asked me after Paulina dragged a bedazzled Danny off to the cafeteria.

Oh, yeah, just peachy, thanks. "Of course I am. Why would I not be okay?" I gritted my teeth together to force out the rest. "Look how happy he is." And just to prove how okay I was, I punched a locker.

The thing was, while I'd managed to prepare myself for rioting mobs going after him, somehow it never occurred to me to prepare for the inevitable time when Danny started dating someone. Even though I hadn't fooled myself into thinking we would ever be anything more than friends, watching him with someone else—with her—was hard. The abstract knowledge that he didn't like me that way was worlds away from actually having the reality of it shoved in my face every time I saw her draped all over him.

And it wasn't just the jealousy, either. Whenever I saw them together, I would hear her snooty voice in my head from our other infamous bathroom run-in at the dance. What a bummer! I only agreed to go out with him because I thought I was stealing him from you! I'm going back inside to dump your dorky friend. I knew whatever she felt for him was shallow and fleeting, based only on an image of a hero with special powers. She would never appreciate his sense of humor, or the way he would stammer whenever he was nervous, or how his eyes lit up whenever he talked about NASA, or the new Morbid Anti-Social Youth single, or even something stupid like his latest score on Doomed. No, she only wanted a hero, and when she realized that was just a small part of who Danny really was, she'd get bored and move on, crushing his heart under her heel in the process.

There was a part of me—a small, petty part that I didn't like to admit existed—that took some grim satisfaction in that knowledge. It wouldn't last, and Danny would maybe learn to dig a little deeper than a pretty face and batting eyelashes. Only, it didn't exactly end like I thought it would. Oh, it ended, but not because Paulina got bored and dumped him but, rather, because she wasn't Paulina at all. She was a ghost named Kitty who was overshadowing Paulina to use Danny to make her boyfriend jealous. Talk about your soap operas. It was a regular Days of Our Afterlives for a while there.

But, as these things tend to go with us, when it was over, everything went back to normal. Paulina not only didn't know Danny's secret, she barely recognized his existence. She had developed a crush on "The Ghost Boy," however, which was nauseating in its own right, but Danny didn't seem inclined to capitalize on that. Maybe he'd figured out that a girlfriend was only worth having if she liked him for him. So it was all good.

Right?

Except... the whole thing made me realize something. One day, he'd get bored of crushing on the girl who was all looks and no substance, and then what? I wasn't stupid enough to even entertain the fantasy that he'd turn to me, so who would he turn to next? And what if she wasn't shallow like Paulina? What if the next girl was the one who did appreciate him for who he was? The one who didn't care about ghost powers and dramatic rescues, but just liked the way he made her smile? What if the next girl actually made him happy?

What then?

Chapter 12: How Should I Scare You?: Danny

How Should I Scare You?
Danny

The images haunted me. Brief, disconnected moments of clarity, like patches of sunlight breaking through a thick fog.

A shapeless shadow that resolved itself, for a moment, into a face I knew.

Sam?

What is that? Is that... is that free will? Obey me, minion!

The heft of a scythe in my hands as I swung. Laughter, dark and satisfying, bubbling up within me when blade met rope and sliced through.

A scream, and then the bitter, acrid tang of fear, sharper than my scythe, cutting through the fog and through my heart. The fog, the dark glee, the voices—Obey me, minion!—all shredded to nothing in the wake of the overpowering fear and the one thought driving me now: Save her. Get to her in time and save her...

The feel of her weight settling into my arms as I caught her mere inches above the ground. The fear giving way to relief when I set her down safely but, without the fear, there was nothing to hold back the fog. It coalesced around me, thick and suffocating, turning form into shadows and feeling into emptiness. She spoke, and I understood the words, but her voice had no meaning for me.

Danny! Don't scare me like that?

How should I scare you?

Later, the same voice, carried on the wind. Danny, it's us! Sam and Tucker! Your best friends, remember?

Shapes in the mist, this time becoming two faces—faces of people I loved. Tucker? Sam? But their faces flickered in and out of the fog as war raged inside me.

Love... I...

Apathy.

Connection... I...

Isolation.

Human... I...

GHOST! ...am a ghost. I have no friends.

Then, more fog, and the feel of my hand closing around a narrow staff.

Way to go, man! Now, gimme five!

Green light as I blasted the intruding voice away.

More voices: Very good, drone. Now, bring me my staff. Come on! Bring it!

Isolation...

Fight it, Danny! He's not holding the crystal ball anymore. You are!

Connection...

A gasp as he knocks her away from him. Silence! Obey me, ghost! Give me my staff! Come on...

Apathy...

I saw you up on that high wire. You were fighting him the whole time. Fight him now, Danny! You're not just a ghost! Fight him!

Love...

The war in my head was unbearable, tearing me up from the inside out. Quiet! All of you! I need to think!

Stop her! NOW!

A train whistle, and the air pressure changing as the ground dropped out around us.

Well, it's the crystal ball or your friend, Danny. Your choice! Then, another gasp as her boot slipped on the edge of the train roof. I didn't mean that to be so literal!

A scream, then another voice, Tucker's voice, shrieking her name. SAM! NO!

Sam? And then the fear hit me again, unrelenting, tearing through the fog and the voices and rendering the war in my head moot. SAM!

It was the high wire all over again, but the fall was so much longer, and she was so far away from me. Panic driving me, I threw aside the staff and put every ounce of energy into my dive. Save her... you have to get there in time, you have to save her...

And then she was in my arms, clutching at my neck, her head pressed against my shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. At that point, I felt something like glass shattering in my head, and the fog was gone. I was flying up toward a train on a trestle high above, cradling Sam in my arms, my heart pounding relief into every cell in my body. She's alive... I didn't lose her... she's alive... I didn't want to ever let her go again.

"Danny? Are you okay?"

"I... think so. It's all a blur." I winced, trying to remember the last several hours. "I did some bad stuff, didn't I?"

She smiled at me, a warm spring sun melting the last bit of dirty winter snow. "Nothing you can't fix."

By the time we reached the train and landed on its roof once more, I remembered enough to know what had happened. A human named Freakshow had been using a staff with some sort of glowing, red crystal ball to control a whole bunch of ghosts—including me. Now that we were free, the other ghosts and I made short work of him, and when the train pulled to a stop at a police blockade, Freakshow was arrested, and Sam, Tucker, and I (back in human form) were declared heroes. Grounded heroes for skipping out on detention, but heroes nonetheless.

I didn't feel like a hero, though. Once Tucker filled me in on what I'd done while under Freakshow's control and the images started trickling back... images of Sam screaming, of me nearly killing her... I could barely live with myself, let alone think of myself as anything close to heroic. She told me later that it didn't matter, that the fact that I broke out of the stupor long enough to save her—twice—meant that our friendship was stronger than anything that any villain could throw at us. But it mattered to me. She was one of the most important people in my life, and I almost lost her forever. She could have died because of me, not just as collateral damage, but by my own hand. If she had... if I hadn't...

No. Best not to think about that. She was right. It was over, and our friendship was what broke through the fog. But I suspected it would be a long time before those images would stop haunting me.

Notes:

She told me later that it didn't matter... This comes from a one-shot I wrote, By a Wire, about Danny wrestling with what he'd almost done to Sam in Control Freaks. It would have fit nicely with this collection of DxS fluff, but since I'd already written it and didn't want to cover the same ground twice, I tried to come at this one a little differently and stick mostly with Danny's impression of the events themselves.

Chapter 13: How Should I Scare You?: Sam

How Should I Scare You?
Sam

This was going to haunt me. Not the fall—I was never afraid of heights, and since Danny's Accident, I'd developed quite the taste for flying. Still, finding myself twice in as many months teetering fifty feet in the air with Danny an arm's length away but mind-whammied out of helping me, was almost enough to put me off high places for life. This time wasn't quite the same, though. Ember's love spell had been dangerously distracting and really annoying, but I would've taken that spell in a heartbeat over Freakshow's crystal ball and what it was doing to Danny. That's what was going to haunt me—Danny's eyes as he...

As he attacked me.

I can't even begin to describe what that was like, my best friend—the person who meant more to me than almost anyone on the planet, except maybe my grandmother—attacking me. Thank God that hood was covering his face, because all I could remember were his eyes, and they weren't even his eyes. They were something else, red and glowing and malevolent. Not Danny's eyes, never Danny's eyes...

I'm not sure what he did to me, but the next thing I knew, I was blindfolded and perched on some kind of wire. I heard a laugh—Danny's laugh but, like the eyes, not his laugh at all. It was a dark, cold sound that froze my soul as he cut off my blindfold. The ground was so far below my boots, and my balance so precarious.

Turning as carefully as I could so not to topple off the wire, I faced Danny—not Danny, never Danny—and tried to reason with him, to break whatever hold Freakshow had on him. "Danny, listen. You don't wanna do this. You're being controlled."

He paused, and I thought maybe he'd managed to fight it off, but then he laughed again, and swung the scythe he was holding in his hands...

I thought I was dead. I really did. I thought the last thing I'd ever see in this world was Danny cutting the wire I was standing on to send me plummeting to my death.

And then, he was catching me and setting me safely on the ground. My legs were like water. He's back, oh thank God, he's back... "Danny! Don't scare me like that!"

He pushed his face up to mine, his eyes—not Danny's eyes—empty and menacing once more. "How should I scare you?"

That right there pretty much qualified. But then, if he was still being controlled, why did he save me?

The answer came when Danny backed off, and Freakshow was there. "Consider that a warning, girl."

Apparently, he figured a warning was enough. Either that, or the huge circus audience watching him was a deterrent to him doing anything more to me. But for whatever reason, Freakshow left me alone. The only problem was, Danny was gone, and I didn't have a clue where he was.

Tucker appeared at my side, his eyes wide with panic. "Geez, Sam! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Can we take a time out from your 'goth-a-palooza' and actually look for Danny?"

"That was Danny," I told him, trying to catch my breath. "Under the hood. Freakshow's controlling him with some kind of crystal ball. Come on!"

We ran out of the circus tent—and straight into my parents. Because things weren't bad enough.

I was, of course, grounded for pretty much the rest of the millennium, since I was supposed to be serving detention at the time. Fortunately, my folks were more interested in their Circus Gothica protest than in monitoring me so, while they were at Freakshow's free show for "concerned parents," my grandmother was left home with me to play warden.

Poor choice on their part. My grandma was nothing like my parents, and she was probably the only reason I knew I was actually born into this family and not abducted away from my real parents. She was the one person in that house who bothered to actually try to understand me, and she knew without my ever telling her how much Danny meant to me. When she caught me sneaking out of my bedroom window down a rope ladder, as soon as I started explaining how my friend was in trouble and needed me, she cut me off by showing me an old picture of herself from the forties and telling me about the "wild streak" she'd had at my age. With an air of wistful confusion that I knew better than to believe, she eyed me over the top of her photo album. "Maybe I'm old and babbling. Or—" And her expression shifted into a sharp and wicked smirk. "Maybe you should sneak out and help your friend while I'm... lost in my memories."

My grandma so seriously rocks.

That hurdle passed, I met up with Tucker at the train yard where Freakshow had pitched his circus tent. We climbed up onto the last car of the Circus Gothica train and used a hatch on the roof to get inside, where we landed right in the middle of what could have been the set of a pirate movie. Gold, sacks of money, paintings, jewels—the place was one big storehouse of stolen goods, courtesy of the ghosts Freakshow had been controlling. And there, in the middle, was the staff with the crystal ball. Before we could get it, however, we were blasted back out of the train by a ghost ray.

Danny's ghost ray.

The train started to pull away, and Tucker and I ran after it, calling out to Danny, but it was no use. He was completely under Freakshow's control.

"Sam, stop!" Tucker called out as the train picked up speed. He was hunched over, panting. "It's a train. We can't catch up."

"Oh, yes we can. Come on." I grabbed his arm, dragging him after me as I cut across the yard back towards the circus tent, grateful that I'd spent so much time scouting the place out that morning when Circus Gothica first arrived in town. I knew exactly how to catch back up with that train.

Tucker, however, was confused. "Where are we going?"

"That track they're on isn't the main one. They'll have to switch back through the yard where all those tracks cross over back by the tent, see?" I pointed beyond the circus tent to a labyrinth of tracks. "The main one goes under that bridge there. We can get on the train that way."

"We can... wait. What?"

But I didn't stop long enough for Tucker to complain. We made it up onto the bridge just as the train was passing underneath, picking up speed. "We have to jump," I told him.

"Are you crazy? I can't jump!"

Maybe I was crazy. It was pretty much the most insane thing I'd ever even considered doing, jumping off of a bridge onto a moving train. But I couldn't shake the image of Danny's eyes, cold and threatening. How could I leave him like that? So I responded with the only answer I had. "And I can't abandon Danny!"

Before I could think better of it, I grabbed Tucker's hand, and the two of us jumped together, screaming all the way down until we landed hard on our stomachs on top of the train. Once I realized we were okay, I tried to brush it off with a joke. "Plus, I'll never hear the end of it if my parents learn they're right about him being evil."

After taking a minute to catch our breath, we got up and started running across the top of the train toward the car we'd last seen Danny in, which was at the front of the train now that it had switched back the other direction through the yard. Before we reached the front, however, three of Freakshow's ghosts appeared, phasing up through the roof of the car, blocking our way. We started to turn back, but hemming us in from behind...

Danny.

Not Danny, never Danny...

Desperate, I tried once more to get through to him. "Danny, it's us! Sam and Tucker! Your best friends, remember?"

For a second, I thought maybe it had worked. His expression changed, and the old Danny—my Danny—was back. He blinked at us. "Tucker? Sam?" And then it was like he was fighting something in his own head. "I... I... I..."

I knew it the instant he lost the battle. The hardness, the not-him-ness in his eyes, was back. "...am a ghost," he finished. "I have no friends."

My heart sunk like a stone. Please, Danny. Don't do this. Come back.

Behind the other ghosts, we heard Freakshow's slimy voice. "Don't waste your breath, children. He's under my control now."

I gritted my teeth as we turned back to face him. We'll see about that.

It was another battle of tug-of-war, with Danny's mind as the rope. While Tucker and I pleaded with him to come back to us, Freakshow kept ordering him around. "Don't just stand there! Finish them!"

I shuddered as Danny glared at us, but Tucker got a gleam in his eye. "Why don't you try holding that thing up a little higher?" he suggested to Freakshow.

I frowned—until I saw where Tucker was going with that. We were coming up on another bridge. He'll never listen to us, I thought but, impossibly, it worked. Freakshow raised the staff, trying to get a better vantage point on Danny, just as we passed under the bridge. The staff collided with the bridge and went flying out of Freakshow's grasp. Tucker leaped into the air to grab it but couldn't quite reach it, and the staff continued to sail back toward the far end of the train... and right into Danny's hand.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and Tucker rushed up to Danny, holding up his hand. "Way to go, man! Now, gimme five!"

Danny answered by using his ghost ray to blast him backwards, right into the arms of the big muscle-bound ghost. My relief evaporated—he was still under the crystal ball's control. Dammit, Danny, where are you in there?

Freakshow beamed, praising him like he was a puppy who had learned a new trick. "Very good, drone. Now, bring me my staff. Come on! Bring it!" He even made kissing noises to complete the dog-calling image.

Burning in fury at the humiliating scene, I pushed Freakshow aside and stepped towards Danny. "Fight it, Danny! He's not holding the crystal ball anymore. You are!"

I thought it might be working, but then Freakshow grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me, hard, off to the side. I gasped, stumbling as I caught my footing right at the edge of the train.

"Silence!" he shouted at me, then turned back to Danny. "Obey me, ghost! Give me my staff! Come on..." He rubbed his fingers together, making those kissing noises again.

Oh, no you don't, you son of a... I turned my attention to Danny. "I saw you up on that high wire. You were fighting him the whole time. Fight him now, Danny! You're not just a ghost! Fight him!"

He looked like he was fighting off the king of all migraines as he pushed back his hair away from his face. "Quiet! All of you! I need to think!"

Freakshow, tired of waiting for Danny to do his bidding, started ordering around his other two ghosts, the ones who weren't holding Tucker. "Stop her! NOW!"

The train's whistle blew, punctuating his order, and I made a decision. Back at the circus tent, Danny had chosen me over the spell. Just now, when he first saw me and Tucker, he'd almost done it again. If anything was going to get through to him, it was me and Tuck, only Tuck was a little indisposed, which left only me. Danny would choose me—our friendship—over any lame mind-whammy Freakshow could put on him. I would bet my life on it.

I was betting my life on it.

"Well, it's the crystal ball or your friend, Danny. Your choice!"

Freakshow's two ghosts advanced on me, and I took a step back, and it was only then that I realized two things—I was already at the edge of the train, and the ground was no longer just below us. We'd crossed onto a trestle over some gorge that looked about a million feet deep. My boot slipped on the edge as I backed away from the ghosts, and I gasped, pinwheeling my arms to try to regain my balance. "I didn't mean that to be so literal!"

Before I even finished my sentence, I fell, plummeting down from the train and the trestle, my words turning into a scream lost in the rush of wind as I fell to my death—

And then there were arms around me, and I wasn't falling down, I was rising up. Without even thinking, I clung to my rescuer's neck, pressing my face against his chest, praying that this was real, that Danny had really come for me, that he hadn't let me fall and that I was safe, we were safe...

I felt a shudder run through him, and that's when I opened my eyes and looked up, first at him, then at the ground below us to assure myself that it was real and that we were, in fact, flying up and away from the ground rather than hurling down toward it. When I'd confirmed that to be the case, I looked back at Danny, almost afraid of what I'd find there (How should I scare you?), but his eyes didn't look dead anymore, just... confused.

And I dared to hope. "Danny? Are you okay?"

"I... think so. It's all a blur. I did some bad stuff, didn't I?"

I don't think I was ever so happy to see Danny, my wonderful, clueless Danny, in my entire life. I must have radiated relief as I smiled at him. "Nothing you can't fix."

I wanted to stay like that forever, with Danny himself and holding me safe in his arms, but too soon, we were back on the train roof. After setting me down, Danny and the other ghosts, also free from Freakshow's control, went after him, phasing him down through the train roof into the car below.

It was only then that I figured out what had happened. Danny had dropped the staff. He'd dropped the staff to come after me. It was exactly what I'd gambled on him doing. I'd bet everything on the fact that he would choose me over that crystal ball, and he did. It was lying somewhere at the bottom of the gorge, and I was safe on the roof of the train.

Because Danny chose me.

Maybe this whole thing wasn't going to have much power to haunt me after all.

Chapter 14: Zuzu's Petals: Danny

Zuzu's Petals
Danny

I've always liked It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, it's corny and completely lame, but mostly I've always liked it because it was one of the very few Christmas classics that didn't prominently feature Santa Claus. That made the time our family spent watching it, which we did every year, the only remotely enjoyable part of the entire holiday season. One hundred and thirty blissful, Santa-free minutes where my parents didn't fight over whether or not he existed. A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Carol were the only other classics that could even come close to making that claim, but Charlie Brown was so short, it barely counted, and Christmas Carol had ghosts, so it definitely didn't count. While my parents didn't argue with each other about ghosts the way they did about Santa, hearing them go on and on about how real ghosts would never be so benevolent and helpful because everyone knows real ghosts are purely evil and would just blast Scrooge with ectoplasm rather than try to get him to mend his ways didn't exactly make for a fun movie-watching experience.

Imagine how much more fun it was going to be this Christmas, my first one as a ghost.

That left It's a Wonderful Life as the undisputed highpoint of any given December. I knew the movie so well, I could practically quote every line of dialogue along with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, but I'd never given any real thought to the story itself beyond the basics. George Bailey wishes he'd never been born, an angel grants him his wish, and he gets to see how horrible a George Bailey-less life would have been for his loved ones. George learns his lesson and recants his wish, the world goes back to normal again, and they all sing Auld Lang Syne. The End.

But... what if George hadn't been the one who needed to learn the lesson? What if it had been Mary Bailey instead who had taken him for granted, never realizing how much of a difference he'd made in her life? Or Martini? Mr. Gower, the druggist? What if the story had been theirs instead of George's and, when it was all set right again, they actually remembered that George-free alternate timeline? What would that have been like for them, to look back on the empty and meaningless lives they would have lived, had it not been for that one, special individual?

In all the times I'd seen It's a Wonderful Life, it never occurred to me to wonder about the other characters, until the day I became them. That day, I took my best friend for granted and decided to blame her for every stupid, petty thing that made my life seem more difficult. I don't know why I said the things I did to her. Maybe it was because I was tired of being the punching bag of the Ghost Zone, and Tucker had just reminded me that she'd been the one who had talked me into going into my parents' portal on the day of the Accident in the first place. Maybe it was because I'd backed out on my promise to go see Trinity of Doom with her on opening night so that we could all go to Paulina's Quinceañera instead, and it was easier to lash out at Sam than feel guilty. Or maybe it was because of the much deeper guilt I was trying not to feel over what I'd almost done to her just a few short days ago, and how I'd almost lost her forever because of a stupid crystal ball...

Whatever the reason, I was a complete jerk to her that day and, as a result, I got to see first-hand what it would have been like to be Mary Bailey, or Martini, or Mr. Gower. Because Sam, like George Bailey, made a wish. She didn't wish away her own life the way George had but, rather, wished herself out of my life. Danny, I swear. There are days I wish I had never even met you. And when she made the wish, it wasn't an angel who heard her, but a ghost. A ghost who grants wishes.

And so began my not-so-wonderful life.

---

The day began pretty much like every other day in my life, which is to say that absolutely nothing happened. Oh, there was the usual stuff going on around me, like Dash and Kwan trying to shove four nerds at once into a single locker, but nothing that involved me or Tuck. We were minding our own business at my locker down the hall from them, secure in our invisibility to the jocks. Only the lowest on the food chain, like the band geeks or the AV squad or kids who had gotten in Dash's way or otherwise called attention to themselves made Dash's bully list, so Tucker and I had always made it a point of staying off his radar. It's not like we'd ever had any reason to get in his way or put ourselves in his sights, after all, and what did we care if he picked on the other kids, so long as he left us alone?

The downside of being invisible to the jocks, however, was that we were also invisible to the cheerleaders. That meant that, while the rest of Casper High was talking about Paulina's Quinceañera, which was sure to be the party of the century, Tucker and I had no hope of ever making the guest list. Paulina was the most popular girl in school and, although I had a massive crush on her, she didn't even know my name.

Not that that was new to me. I'd stayed home from our first high school dance a couple months ago because there wasn't a girl in the school who would look at me twice, and I got too weak-kneed whenever I tried to talk to them to make much of an effort at it. Tucker, on the other hand, wasn't quite as reluctant to ask a girl—or fifty—to the dance, but he never was one to push me out of my comfort zone. So while he'd lucked out by catching Valerie Gray right when Kwan dumped her to take someone else, I'd spent the night home alone. From Tucker's description afterwards, however, it was just as well. Valerie had been too busy trying to prove to Kwan she was having more fun than he was, and she hadn't said a single word to Tucker since the dance, so it's not like I missed anything special.

But Paulina's massive birthday party at the country club... that I would have done anything, even selling out my best friend, to get myself an invitation. There was no chance, though, not with our complete non-existence at Casper High. Even Tucker's boldness at approaching any and all girls wouldn't help in this case, since it was a private party, and Paulina was the one who had to do the asking. Resigned to a party- and Paulina-free weekend, I asked Tucker, "So, whaddaya wanna do tomorrow?"

"I don't know. According to my PDA, we're free every night through college."

No surprise there. But what happened next was.

"Hi."

I looked up to find a girl standing behind Tucker. Talking to us. Talking to me, specifically. She was kind of pretty, but a little... dark for my tastes. Her face was pale, but everything else about her was black, from her chin-length hair half pulled back into a ponytail on the top of her head, to her half shirt and mini skirt, to her thick-soled combat boots. What wasn't black was purple, including bright purple tights and dark purple lipstick that made her face look even more pale. She looked like the kind of kid that liked to hang out at that weird bookstore across town, the Sulk and Lurch, or whatever it was called. But she had the most amazing violet eyes, and there was something about them that seemed almost... familiar.

Which was weird, because I had no idea who she was, and girls did not ever just walk up to me out of the blue to say "hi." Weirder still was the way she'd said it, then smiled at me, expectant. It wasn't like how a new kid might say "hi" before asking for help finding their classroom or something. It was almost as if her "hi" was the continuation of some conversation we'd already been having, and she was waiting for me to finish it. Except... I'd never seen her before in my life, let alone spoken with her.

A little thrown, I blinked at her. "Do I know you?"

Her response was even stranger. Instead of looking embarrassed or explaining who she was, she barked out a mock laugh. "Oh, very cute. I said I wished we'd never met, and now you're pretending we didn't meet." She let out a huff of air, clearly annoyed. "You're hilarious."

"No, seriously. Do I know you?"

Tucker, however, wasn't about to question a gift from the gods like a pretty girl, dark or not, coming up and talking to us. "And more importantly, would you like to know me?" He stepped closer to her, giving her what he no doubt thought was his most suave smile. "Hi! I'm Tucker. Tucker Foley. That's 'T.F.' as in 'too fine.'"

I stifled a groan and waited for her to roll her eyes or scoff at his lame come-on like most girls did. But she didn't. She actually seemed... disturbed. "Oh, gross! Are you hitting on me?" It was like she never in a million years would have expected such a thing from him—another indication that she was new around here.

Before Tucker could answer, a loud roar cut him off. We looked down the hall to where Dash and Kwan had been terrorizing those nerds. Only, now Dash and Kwan were the ones who were being terrorized. By a huge, green, glowing monster.

Dash and Kwan screamed, and then I saw something else, another... well, I don't know what it was. It wasn't a monster, exactly. It was more like a woman, with long black hair, dressed in some kind of harem outfit. Only she wasn't a woman, because she was larger than a normal woman, her skin was green and glowing, and she was flying.

Right toward us.

She stopped, hovering in the air before me. Tucker ran off, screaming, but I just stood there and stared at her, completely frozen in fear. Then, she smiled. "Boo!"

I lost it. Covering my head with my arms, I whimpered, realizing what it was. Fourteen years living with my parents, and now I was standing face-to-face with the thing they'd spent their whole lives obsessing over. "Ghost!"

I thought I was dead for sure, but instead I heard a voice, a human voice, in my ear. "That's Desiree! The wishing ghost! Danny! You've gotta do something!" It was the new girl, who I'd completely forgotten was there. And how the heck did she know my name? She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "Why aren't you going ghost?"

Going... what? Okay, pretty girl or not, this was a little too much weirdness for one day, thank you very much. I pushed her away. "Look, kid. I don't know who you are or what you're talking about. All I know is, I am outta here!"

I ran off, leaving the girl and the ghost and the monster and all the day's weirdness far, far behind.

---

By the time school ended, I'd forgotten about the strange things that had happened. Tucker and I were walking together toward my house, discussing what to do after school.

"So, you up for the Nasty Burger?" I asked him.

He threw his arm around my shoulders. "Forget the Nasty Burger, Danny. Let's get some ice cream at Elmer's."

"Dude, it's November. I'm not really in the mood for ice cream."

"It's not about the ice cream. I overheard Paulina and Starr talking in seventh period. They're meeting at Elmer's at four o'clock."

"So?"

"So? If we go there too, maybe we can wrangle ourselves an invitation to Paulina's party tomorrow."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, like she's suddenly going to notice us because we're eating ice cream a few tables over."

"Well, it's worth a shot. I—"

"Hey, Danny! Tucker! Wait up!"

We turned around to find the new girl running after us. Tucker nudged me with his elbow. "I think she likes you. She knows your name."

"She knows your name, too, Tuck."

"That's because I told her my name. Yours she already knew. And considering the fact that she found us a block away from your house, I'm guessing she knows where you live, too." He gave me a knowing grin as the girl caught up to us.

"Danny, we need to talk. It's important."

Tucker's grin widened. "I'll catch you later. Elmer's, at four." Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the strange girl who knew my name and who, judging by the way she'd acted earlier, had a thing for ghosts.

And that's when it hit me. She had a thing for ghosts! She must have heard of my parents or something, and that's why she knew my name and where I lived. Well, if that was the case, I wanted no part of it. "Listen. If this is about that thing in the school—"

"It was a ghost," she replied, confirming my suspicion. "And it is about that. But more than just that—"

"Well, I'm not interested. Ghosts and creepy things are my parents' deal, not mine. I'm not into that kind of stuff."

I started walking down the street toward my house, but she followed after me. "I know, I know. You just wanna be normal." She said it like it was a dirty word. "But you're not normal, Danny. You're special. You just don't remember."

I looked over my shoulder, frowning at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means..." She trailed off, looking like she wasn't quite sure what to say. "Danny, I know this is gonna sound pretty out there, but none of this is supposed to be like this, and it's all my fault."

"None of what is supposed to be like what? And how do you know my name, anyway? Did you look up my family on the internet or something?"

"I know your name because we're friends. Best friends, in fact. You, me, and Tucker. Only, we're stuck in some kind of alternate timeline where we never met, because I made a stupid wish, and that ghost at school, she grants wishes, and—"

I stopped long enough to let her catch up to me. "What are you talking about? I've never seen you before in my life."

"You just think you've never seen me, because of that ghost. Trust me, we're best friends. And... there's more."

I raised my eyebrow. "More? You mean, in this alternate timeline of yours, we're more than just friends?"

She actually blushed at this. "What? No! We..." She shook her head, flustered. "We're just friends, Danny, but we're really good friends. And you... you're kinda, well... you're supposed to have these powers..."

Okay, now I knew she was messing with me. "Powers? What do you mean, 'powers'? Like, super powers? Yeah, I'm a regular Superman. Wanna see me fly?"

"I have seen you fly."

I sighed. "Trust me. I can't fly, and I don't have super powers."

"I know. I said you were supposed to have powers. But you don't, because we're in some kind of—"

"Alternate timeline," I finished for her. "Listen, I know you goths or whatever you are like all this weird fantasy roleplaying stuff, but it's not my thing, okay? Just leave me out of your little game."

I picked up my pace to get away from her, but she caught up with me. "It's not a game, Danny! I'm telling you the truth! Why won't you believe me?"

"Believe what? That I had super powers? That you and I are best friends, even though I never met you? And you're the only one that knows it?"

"Yes! Isn't that crystal clear?"

I'd reached my house by this time, so rather than bothering to answer her, I just walked up the steps and went inside, slamming the door behind me. Figures, the first time a girl is actually interested in talking to me, and all she wants to talk about is ghosts and alternate timelines and super powers. Why couldn't it have been somebody normal?

---

When I got to Elmer's, Tucker was waiting for me, wearing a huge grin. "So. Have a nice walk with your new girlfriend?"

I shook my head as I sat down at the table next to him and took a lick of my black cherry ice cream. "She's not my girlfriend. I don't even know who she is. All she wanted was to play some stupid roleplaying game or something. She kept talking about all this weird alternate timeline stuff and—get this—I'm supposed to be a superhero."

Tucker's grin widened. "You? A superhero? And guess who wants to be your Lois Lane."

I groaned. "She doesn't like me. She just thinks I'm into ghosts and all that weird stuff, like my parents."

"Please. She's totally into you. And she's cute. What more do you need?"

"Just because you'd date anything with a pulse..." I rolled my eyes. "I dunno, Tuck. She is cute, I guess."

"And she's into you," he repeated. "That's kinda key."

Shrugging, I took another lick of my ice cream. "I guess she did sorta seem like she liked me."

"So, next time she comes by, go for it!"

"But all that weird stuff she's into. If she were more normal, maybe."

And then a shadow fell across our table. "Hi."

I looked up and almost dropped my ice cream cone. It was the same girl, only she looked completely different. Instead of the black clothes and combat boots, she was wearing a pink sweater and skirt, and her hair was tied up in a pink bow. Her makeup looked more normal, too—regular lipstick, with some color on her cheeks. Ask and ye shall receive...

"Mind if I join you?" she asked, and there was something a little weird with her voice. It was a little higher, and she kinda sounded a bit like Paulina. And she was looking straight at me.

Deciding that Tuck was right—who was I to turn down a pretty girl who was into me?—I shoved Tucker out of his seat, dropping my ice cream cone in the process. She sat down in the chair Tucker had just vacated while I hastily moped up the spill. "You want some ice cream?" I asked her, leaning my hand on my chin. She really was prettier than I'd given her credit for.

She shook her head. "I don't eat dairy." Hoisting her backpack up on the table, she dug into it, pulled out two pictures, and laid them on the table in front of me. "So. This is a photo I have of the three of us. From eighth grade. This is the same one you have in your locker. Notice anything?"

I frowned, looking at the pictures. The one on the left was indeed my picture, the one I kept in my locker. It was me and Tuck in eighth grade. The one on the right was the same picture, only the girl was between us, dressed in black like she had been earlier. "Yeah. You broke into my locker and doctored an old photo of me." A thought occurred to me, and I leaned my chin on my hand again, giving her a knowing smile. "You must really like me." Then, on the heels of that, came another thought. "Or, you're nuts. You're not nuts, are you?"

She'd just finished pulling a big scrapbook out of her backpack, and she grunted in annoyance as she dropped it on the table and grabbed me by the shoulders, pulling me over to look at the book. "Focus!"

I blinked, looking at the pictures. On the left page were four pictures, one with me, the girl, and Tucker, and the other three of just me and her. They were Polaroids—who the heck used Polaroid anymore?—and were the kinds of candid shots three friends goofing off would take. She sure went to a lot of trouble to photoshop herself into a bunch of pictures with me. Although... Polaroids. Was it even possible to photoshop Polaroids?

Then, I looked at the one on the right, and frowned. "Wait a minute..." This one was another one with her, me and Tuck, only we were standing in front of a big metal door with black and yellow stripes across it. My parents' Ghost Portal! I looked up at her. "That's my parents' lab!" How on Earth did she get a picture of that? And it, too, was a Polaroid. Curious about what else she had in this book, I flipped backwards through the pages. The next one had a picture that looked kinda like me, but not like me at all. It was a guy with a face more or less like mine, only with green eyes and white hair. Not white like an old man might have, but white like snow. He—I?—was wearing a jumpsuit that looked kinda like the extra hazmat suits my parents kept in their lab, only this one was black with a white collar, gloves, and boots, while my parents' suits were white with black collars, gloves, and boots, and had my dad's face on them.

But what was really weird was that the guy in the picture had a tail instead of legs. Not like a dog's tail, but like a ghost. And he was flying. My skin started tingling and broke out into goosebumps, and I could feel a prickling sensation at the back of my neck. The superhero...

Flipping back further, I found a picture of... me and Tucker sleeping on the floor curled up together? Greeeeeeat. I quickly turned one more page, to find another Polaroid of myself in my parents' lab. I was holding one of those white hazmat suits in my hands and standing in front of some of the control gauges next to the Ghost Portal. The blast doors were open this time, revealing the wind-tunnel-like tube that my parents had installed in their basement wall. It didn't work—they'd been trying for three months to activate the sucker, but for some reason, it wouldn't power up. But how did this girl, this complete stranger, get a picture of it? A Polaroid picture? No one outside of the family had ever seen that Ghost Portal. Well, I'd brought Tucker down once, but I'd been too afraid of my parents catching me to do more than just poke my head in. So how did this girl get a picture of it?

I looked back at her, more than a little creeped out. "Who are you?"

"I'm Sam Manson," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder as she flipped to a different page of her scrapbook. This one showed the white-haired guy who looked like me floating about a foot off the floor of my parents lab. Behind him was the portal, but it didn't have either the closed blast doors or the tube of circuitry. Instead, there was this sort of swirling green vortex of light. "A few months ago, I convinced you to go into this." She pointed to the portal. "You went in there, there was an accident, and you got—"

I saw where she was going with this. "Super powers?"

"Actually, ghost powers. But we had a fight, and I wished we'd never met, and that ghost in the school made it happen. I was wearing this." She pulled something else out of her bag. It was a thick, white belt with a lot of green circuitry on it and looked a lot like the kind of stuff my dad invented. "Which, I think, is why the ghost didn't affect me. But you don't have your powers anymore—"

"PAULINA!"

A green glow lit up the wall at the far end of the drugstore as what looked like four glowing, green razors carved a circle out of the wall as if it were made out of Styrofoam. When the circle was complete, the slab of wall fell into the store, revealing a heavy-set woman with a scarred face wearing a red-and-black striped sweater, a black fedora, and two iron gloves with claw-like knives for fingernails. Was that... Nightmerica? From that new movie, Trinity of Doom?

Behind me, people were screaming and rushing from the store as the monster woman stomped in, throwing people aside as she headed straight for Paulina and Starr, but I was, once again, completely frozen in fear. The only one who wasn't panicking, though, was that freaky Sam Manson. She turned to me as if this was something she saw every day in her life. "Danny, you gotta—" Then, she stopped herself, a determined look crossing her face. "Actually, I gotta."

She took the belt-thing, the one that looked like something my dad would've dreamed up, and belted it around her waist. Then, she reached for Tucker, who I only just now saw on the floor against the wall. Grabbing his red felt beret off his head, she hastily used a knife from a nearby table to carve two holes into it, then put it over her head like a ski mask. Next, she reached into her backpack which, apparently, had the storage capacity of Mary Poppins' carpet bag, and pulled out something that looked a little like the handle of a lightsaber. When she switched it on, however, instead of a blade of light, a sort of whip-like thing came out from the end. She swung it around, hitting Tucker by mistake, uttered a hasty apology, then hurled the thing toward Nightmerica, who had cornered Paulina and Starr by an emergency exit that wouldn't open. The whip-thing expanded as it flew, releasing a whole lot of tentacle-like tendrils with—holy crud, was that my father's face in the middle of them? I didn't get a long enough look to tell for sure, because then the tendrils were wrapping around Nightmerica just as she was about to make sushi out of Paulina and Starr with those knife-hands. Sam jerked back on the handle, reeling in Nightmerica like Moby Dick.

I gaped in amazement. "That," I told Tucker, who had just made his way over to where I was, "might just be the coolest girl on the planet."

"Or she's nuts," Tucker replied. "Really, really nuts."

Before I could respond, Nightmerica broke herself free of the whip-thing with a roar, and Sam rushed back to her Mary Poppins bag, this time procuring a... was that a soup thermos? Apparently not, since she aimed it at the monster and, with a bright blast of blue light, sucked her inside.

When it looked like the crisis was over, Tucker and I joined her. "That happen a lot?"

She took off the mask-beret. "More than you remember."

"Okay. You've got my attention."

She grinned, victorious. "Finally!" Then, oddly, she pulled off her sweater, revealing the same black clothes she'd been wearing earlier underneath. Grabbing my arm, she dragged me toward the exit. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?"

"To your house. I have an idea how to fix this."

Tucker, who had followed behind us, pulled another beret exactly like the one Sam had destroyed out of his backpack and jammed it on his head as we headed towards my house at a brisk pace. "Hold up, Danny."

I rolled my eyes at him. "How many of those berets do you own?"

"Never mind that. What the heck is going on?"

As we walked, I filled him in on everything Sam had said and shown me. When I finished, Tucker slowed down a little, letting Sam out-pace us, then leaned toward me, his voice low. "You don't seriously believe this, do you? That this girl is our best friend from some alternate timeline, and you had some sort of super powers?"

"Ghost powers," I corrected.

He arched an eyebrow at me. "I know I'm the one who said you should go for it but, dude, this is crazy."

"I know, Tuck. Believe, me, I know. But... I think it's true."

He shook his head. "Why? Because she showed you some photos? Photos can be doctored, Danny."

"Polaroids?" I challenged. "How do you doctor Polaroids? And how would she have gotten pictures from inside my parents lab to doctor them with? And what about those weapons she had? That one thing had my dad's face on it. The only way any of it makes any sense is if she's telling the truth. And what about the ghosts and monsters? Where do you think they came from?"

"That's exactly what has me worried. Don't you think it's strange that all this weird stuff starts happening at the exact same moment she shows up?"

"That's exactly the point, Tuck. Think about it. If I'm some ghost-fighting superhero, where are the ghosts coming from that I'm supposedly fighting?" I answered my own question before Tucker could even hazard a guess. "From the Ghost Zone, that's where. Through my parents' portal. Only, my parents' portal isn't working, so how did these ghosts get out?"

Tucker shrugged.

"If she's telling the truth, then they were already here whenever that one wishing ghost changed things so that none of that ever happened."

"I dunno, dude. I think it's a lot more likely that she's putting on a show for your benefit."

"I don't think so."

"Why? Because a pretty girl came onto you and told you a bunch of stuff about yourself you want to believe?"

That one hit pretty close to home. Yes, I did want to believe her. This amazing girl walks into my life out of nowhere and, while I couldn't be bothered to so much as try to stop a bully from stuffing kids into a locker because I didn't want to become the next target, she lays the smack-down on ghosts with huge, glowing razors for claws, and she does it without batting an eyelash. And not only does this completely awesome, kick-ass, and pretty damn hot ghost fighter show some interest in me, she tells me that I'm like that, too. That I'm the one who stares down monsters from the Ghost Zone without even blinking. Hell yes, I wanted to believe her. Just hearing the story made me ashamed of my entire, pathetic, don't-ever-stick-my-neck-out existence.

But it was more than that. "It's those pictures, Tuck. I can't explain it, but they just... they gave me the weirdest feeling." I was a little at a loss as to how to describe the feeling I'd had, looking at those pictures. It was almost like looking at my destiny. But I couldn't say that to Tucker. It would only further prove I'd completely lost my mind over a girl. "It's like... I dunno. Déjà vu, but not exactly. There was something special about those pictures. Something important. Like..." And then I knew exactly what they were like. "Like Zuzu's petals."

He blinked. "The zoo's pedals?"

"No. Zuzu's petals." Sam interjected. "From It's a Wonderful Life."

I hadn't realized she'd slowed down to let us catch up, and I was torn between being embarrassed that she might have overheard us, and surprise that girl like her would be familiar with such a sappy movie. She gave me a look I couldn't quite interpret but, when Tucker still seemed lost, she rolled her eyes at him. "You know, It's a Wonderful Life. That old Jimmy Stewart movie they show every Christmas? You must've seen it."

Tuck shrugged. "I guess. Don't really remember it."

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart plays this guy that's having a rough time of it, so he wishes he'd never been born, and an angel grants him his wish, showing him how awful life would've been without him?" When Tucker gave her a non-committal nod, she continued. "Well, just before he wishes he'd never been born, he goes home and sees his little daughter, Zuzu, who's in bed with a cold. She has this rose, and some of the petals fall off, so she asks him to paste them back on, and he slips the petals in his pocket while pretending to fix the flower. Later, after his wish changed everything, he looks for the petals in his pocket. They were sort of... his connection to the reality he knew. Proof that he wasn't crazy, that he existed, that he had a family that knew him and loved him." Then, she turned to me with that same sort of scrutinizing look she'd given me when I first brought it up. "The thing is, the petals weren't there. Not until everything went back to normal did he have the petals again. So how is that like the pictures I showed you?"

I tilted my head, not sure I could explain it to her, either. "They're a connection to this other reality. I might not remember it, but the pictures feel... real. Important. Part of the life I was supposed to live. Like Zuzu's petals."

She smiled, and I felt my cheeks getting warm. Even in something as small as liking a stupid, cheesy movie, we just seemed to connect. Tucker rolled his eyes. "Riiiiiiight. Hope you two are happy together... in the insane asylum."

Now she was blushing, too, but she shot Tucker an irritated glare. "It's not just Danny, you know. We were best friends, too."

"Somehow, I'm having a hard time picturing it."

She gave him a wicked grin. "Too bad. 'Cause I was gonna get you the Smart Tech 4000 for Christmas. You know, to replace those PDAs you lost fighting Skulker. But since we're not best friends, and we didn't fight Skulker anyway, I guess there's no point..."

I had to admit, if she were making this all up, she'd done her homework. Tucker's eyes lit up, and he elbowed me out of the way so that he could slip his arm around Sam's shoulders. "Now, now, let's not be hasty. What's a little alternate reality between best friends?"

---

My house was quiet when we got there. My sister was staying late at school to tutor some kid in math, and my mom had gone out to do some early Christmas shopping. My dad had been working up in the Op-Center since before I left for school this morning, which could either be a good thing or a really bad thing. If whatever he was working on kept him busy up in the workshop on top of our roof, he wouldn't hear anything going on down in the basement lab. But even putting aside the likelihood of something he'd been working on for that long exploding or setting the whole house on fire, if he needed some tools or chemicals or something from the lab...

For now, however, the lab was empty. While Tucker stood watch at the bottom of the stairs, Sam headed straight for the portal and the set of control gauges just to the right of the open tube my parents had installed in the wall of their basement. I watched her a moment. She'd changed back into the purple tights and combat boots as soon as we'd arrived, and fixed her makeup back to the way it was when we first met her at school, too. I decided she was prettier this way after all. The black clothes and the purple lipstick suited her. And I was amazed at the confident way she moved around my parents' lab, like she'd been here a million times. It certainly gave further credence to her crazy story.

"My parents finished the portal about three months ago," I explained as she checked out all the controls, "but they could never get it to work. It has this double-safe power system, where it has to be turned on from the inside first, to get the ectoplasm flowing through the circuitry. Then, you turn on the external power and, boom, it's supposed to open up a portal into the Ghost Zone. But they never could get it to power up."

Sam shrugged. "That's what you told us the day of the Accident, too. But when you went inside and turned on the internal power, there was this flash of green light and, all of a sudden, the thing was working. And when you came out..."

"Ghost powers."

"Yep."

Tucker seemed to be chewing on this. "Danny. You said it had a double-safe power system?"

"Yeah. The external power would only work if the internal power was turned on first."

"So whenever they tried to turn it on, they flipped the internal power on first, then came out and turned on the external power, and that was supposed to start her up?"

I nodded.

Tucker rubbed his chin, thoughtful. "What if they wired it backwards? What if the external power had to be on before the internal power would work? Then, the internal power wouldn't go on, so when they turned on the external power... nothing happened. But what if you hit the internal power with the external power already on? Then, it would power up..."

"...with Danny inside," Sam finished. "That could be what happened. After you got the portal working, your folks never did figure out why you were able to power it up when they couldn't. They didn't know you'd actually been inside it. We told them you'd just been near it when it activated."

"And when they get focused on something, they do kinda miss the obvious," I agreed. "It sounds like the kind of simple thing they might overlook."

A noise in the kitchen startled us, and Tucker crept upstairs to peek out and see what it was. "Your dad's getting a snack," he reported back to us in a hushed voice.

I stifled a groan. "He could be there for hours."

"No, wait," Tucker said. "He's bringing stuff back out with him." He watched a moment more, then let out a sigh. "All clear, Danny," he reported, resuming his post at the bottom of the stairs.

"Cool. How's it going over there?" I asked Sam.

She was looking at the photo of me standing next to the portal gauges, holding the white jumpsuit. "Pretty good. I'm guessing if we set everything the way it was when it happened, it'll happen again." Then, she stopped what she was doing and looked at me and, when she did, her expression changed to something... uncertain. It was the first time since I'd met her that she seemed hesitant. "Are you sure about this?"

She's asking me? "No. But you saw those things. Those... monsters, ghosts. Those ghosts were attacking our school!" I looked inside the hollowed-out tube that had been the focus of my parents' life for the past two years it had taken them to build it. "Besides. I always wanted to go in here. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"

The strangest sense of déjà vu washed over me as I said that, and Sam gave me an odd look, but she tossed over one of the white hazmat suits with my dad's face on the chest. I pushed my sneakers into the rubber boots, then pulled on the suit over my jeans and t-shirt while Sam pressed a few more buttons on the control panel. When I finished zipping it up, I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. "Well, here goes everything."

"Wait a minute," she said, coming toward me. She then ripped the patch of my dad's face off the front of the suit, replacing it with what looked like some kind of black logo.

"Uh, what is that?"

She smiled. "Just trust me, okay?"

And the weird thing was, I did.

Still, as I walked into the tube, my heart was beating so hard, it felt like it was echoing around the whole chamber loudly enough for my dad to hear it all the way up in the Op-Center. Looking around, I reached out and leaned on the power button—

The entire world turned a green so bright, it was burning through my retinas even with my eyes squeezed shut. And the pain. I can't even describe the pain pouring through every molecule in my body. Would've been nice if she'd have warned me about this part, I thought bitterly, although in retrospect, she had called it an "accident," and accidents usually tended to involve pain.

I'm not sure how long it lasted but, when the pain and light subsided to bearable levels, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was that my hazmat suit had changed from white to black, and my formerly black gloves were now white. I held them up, and my hands sort of faded away, revealing my bones for a second before the gloves came back into view. I had to bite on my lip to keep from screaming again, because I cannot even begin to explain how gross it is to see my own skeleton through my hands. Feeling woozy, I staggered out of the portal, collapsing to my knees when I was back in the relative normalcy of the lab.

Sam was at my side in an instant, helping me to my feet. "Danny, are you—?" And then I couldn't feel her hands on me anymore. She stumbled backwards, staring at her own hands, which had gone right through me like I was made of smoke. Then, she smiled. "You're a ghost! Again!"

Oh, my God, this is all real. She was telling the truth, and it's all real. "You're right. I am a ghost! Cool!" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized what I'd just said. I was a ghost. Like those creepy things at the school and at Elmer's. A real, live, dead ghost. "Is this cool?"

She came up to me and put her hand on my chest, where the black logo she'd placed there had turned white. Her eyes were lit up in the most amazing smile I'd ever seen. "Oh, it's very cool."

I think at that moment, I would've walked into that portal and gone through all that light and pain and creepy skeleton thing a thousand times just to get this girl to look at me like that.

Until reality hit—in the form of my dad. "What's going on down there?"

Oh, crud. Tucker had been over by the portal with Sam when I went in there instead of watching for my dad. He raced back to the bottom of the stairs, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

Sam looked panicked. "Oh, man. Your dad! You've gotta change back to normal!"

What? "Change back? How?"

She threw up her hands. "I don't know! You just... think about it or something!"

Oh, that was helpful. Not knowing what else to do, I closed my eyes and imagined myself normal, with solid skin, and bones that didn't show through. When I did, an odd cold feeling started in the center of my chest, then spread outward, both up toward my head and down toward my feet and, when I opened my eyes, I was in jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers again, and Sam had a victorious look on her face. Small problem, though. We were standing in front of a now completely operational, glowing, green Ghost Portal. My dad was going to freak... unless I gave him something else to freak about.

I don't know if it was the new powers making me feel strong and, well, powerful, or if it was the way she'd looked at me—Oh, it's very cool—but something emboldened me to do something I'd never done before. I grabbed Sam around the waist, dipped her backwards like we'd been dancing the tango, and kissed her. Me, Danny Fenton, the guy who had hardly ever even spoken to any girls, let alone kissed one, and here I'd gone all Clark Gable and just laid one on her like I was the most suave guy on the planet.

And it was awesome.

She tasted exotic, like cloves and some kind of winter fruit I couldn't quite name. Even knowing it was just a ruse to distract my dad from the big-ass glowing Ghost Portal behind us, and even in the wake of just getting my very own version of the radioactive spider bite, kissing this girl felt better than anything I'd ever done in my life ever. In the back of my mind, the part that wasn't screaming ohmygod, I'm kissing a girl!, I could hear my dad thunder down the steps, and I knew I had to let her go. Reluctantly, I pulled back, then smiled at how completely shocked she looked and whispered, "I call that a 'fake-out make-out.'"

She smiled back, blushing deep red, and man did she look beautiful. In a breathy voice that almost made my heart stop, she replied, "Yeah, I know."

I pulled her back up on her own two feet and took a step away from her as my father stomped toward us, looking pissed. "You're in a lot of trouble, mister! And who the heck are you?" he asked Sam.

"Uh... I'm... Paulina?"

"Then Danny Fenton is never, ever allowed to see you, Paulina."

Another victorious look crossed Sam's features—right up until my dad dragged her and Tucker upstairs and kicked them out of the house before sending me to my room so he could go back up to finish whatever he was working on in the Op-Center.

Two hours later, there was a scream from the basement. My mother had returned home from her shopping and discovered the now-working Ghost Portal. When she asked my father about it, he just shrugged and said he'd been up in the Op-Center all day, and no one else had been down there. When my mom wasn't looking, he leaned toward me. "Tell you what. You don't mention that I didn't notice the Ghost Portal was working, and I don't mention that you were down in the lab with some strange girl. Deal?"

I smiled. "Deal."

---

The next day was spent trying to accustom myself to the new powers, which were actually kinda hard to get used to, and planning what to do about Desiree, the ghost who had started all this in the first place. Sam had figured out that the meteor shower that was expected that night would be getting a lot of people wishing on "falling stars," and that Desiree gets more powerful when she grants wishes, so we had to try to stop her. We set up shop on a hillside facing the Amity Country Club, where the real Paulina was having her Quinceañera party and, when Desiree showed up, our fight was mostly a comedy of errors, since I didn't have the first clue what I was doing. I was pretty much getting my butt handed to me, including turning myself back into human form without meaning to, when I heard Sam behind me begin to shout.

"I wish Danny and I had never had that fight! And I wish Danny, Tucker, and I remembered everything, and his costume stayed the way it is because I really really like it!"

Desiree raised her hands in the air, and they began glowing pink. "So you have wished it, and so it shall be!"

When she shot me with her pink ghost ray, it was a little like the thing in the portal all over again, only instead of light and pain, it was memories that burned into me. Memories of the Accident—not the recreation Sam had set up yesterday, but the real Accident, three months ago. Memories of ghosts I'd fought—Skulker, Vlad Plasmius, Walker, the Box Ghost—their images and names all came to me. My powers, how to use them, everything that had happened since Sam and I first became friends in seventh grade came back to me, and when it was over, I knew exactly how to do everything I needed to do, from changing to ghost form, to flying, to using my ghost ray and my dad's Fenton Thermos. With barely another thought, I had Desiree sucked into the Thermos, and the last thing I heard as I capped it was, "I've gotta stop granting every wish I hear!"

When it was all over, Sam came over to me, and images fought in my head—the real time, our real friendship, and the alternate timeline, where I thought I hadn't known her. It was a confusing, jumbled mass, and I had a feeling it was going to take a while for me to sort through it and make sense of it all. The one thing that stuck out was the big, white logo on my chest. It looked like the letter D, with a P in the negative space in the middle, and I was pretty sure that was new. "Did you do something to my costume?" I asked her.

She gave me an innocent shrug, the kind that said she was so not innocent. "No. It's... always been like that."

---

It didn't take as long as I thought for things to start making sense again. By the time Paulina's party below us got back into full swing, she and her guests never knowing about the ghosts that had threatened, I remembered everything. A huge part of me was mortified at how attracted to Sam I'd been when I didn't remember that she was my best friend, but an even bigger part of me was feeling terrible for causing the fight in the first place by having taken her for granted. Even worse was seeing exactly how apathetic and useless I'd been without her to push me into making my life into something more. And I'm not talking about the ghost powers.

So, when she reminded me that I should keep my promise—meaning the one I'd made to Paulina that the "Ghost Boy" would show up at her party—I agreed that, yes, it was high time I kept my promise. Only that wasn't the promise I was thinking of.

Half an hour later, the three of us were at the Amity Park Cineplex watching Femalien, Terminatra, and Nightmerica—on film, not in the ghostly not-flesh, thank goodness—duking it out in Trinity of Doom. But I was thinking of a different movie, where a man was pulling rose petals out of his pocket and thanking God that he was alive and that everything was as it was supposed to be. And I couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like for his friends and family if they had remembered that life without him.

I glanced sideways at Sam. She really was the coolest girl on the planet. "I never realized how different my life would've been if I hadn't met you. I gotta say, it's sorta cool to know."

She smiled, looking a little sheepish. "Still. Sorry about that stupid fight. Can we forget it ever happened?"

As she finished, her eyes met mine, with just a hint of something there that was almost... flirtatious. Even knowing she was my best friend and not... whatever it was I was thinking in that alternate timeline, her eyes sent a jolt of electricity down my spine, and it was just so good to have her back in my life, I couldn't help but grin like an idiot. "So you have wished it, so shall it be."

Chapter 15: Zuzu's Petals: Sam

Zuzu's Petals
Sam

I've always liked It's a Wonderful Life. I know, it's not exactly what most people think of as goth fare. It's corny and sappy, with the cheesiest happy ending ever. But it's a Christmas classic, and I love Christmas—another thing that's not what most people think of as goth fare, especially when the goth in question happens to be Jewish. The thing most people don't get about being goth, however, is that it isn't about following a set rule of what's cool and what isn't. It's about honoring individuality and personal expression, and this Jewish goth happens to love Christmas and all its trapping, including a fairly cheesy movie called It's a Wonderful Life.

The other thing I think a lot of people don't really realize, particularly if they only have hazy memories of a tearful Jimmy Stewart with all his friends and family around him singing Auld Lang Syne is that It's a Wonderful Life is actually pretty dark. It's about a man on the brink of suicide, a man who lived his whole life without fulfilling a single one of his own dreams because he was too busy fulfilling everyone else's, and now this man is about to go to jail for someone else's mistake. Even his inability to follow through with killing himself is only due to his slavish sense of responsibility towards others. Realizing that his death will only bring more pain to those he loves, he instead wishes he'd never been born. An angel grants his wish, showing him a dark alternate reality where the lives of everyone he knows and loves have come to ruin because he wasn't there to help them. Taken for a madman by the entire town, and even beginning to believe himself that he must be insane, he's beaten, chased, even shot at before he finally comes to the very place where, hours before, he'd nearly taken his own life. Tormented by the things he's seen, he cries out in anguish, "I wanna live again! Please, God, let me live again!"

If that isn't goth, I don't know what is.

Still, when I made my own hasty wish, it never occurred to me that, like George Bailey, I might find myself magically living the existence I'd wished for. I hadn't even meant it. It was just one of those things people say in the heat of anger. Danny and I had been fighting, mostly because I was really irritated that he'd blown off a promise to me just so he could go to Paulina's Birthday Party of the Century. And this not two days after he'd been wracked with guilt over nearly killing me while under Freakshow's control, then told me that I was one of the most important people in his life. Some way to show me how important I was. Then, to top it off, he was being a total jerk about these two ghosts that had come out of nowhere and started attacking Paulina, claiming it was somehow my fault.

Yeah, okay, they looked like the two of the three villains from Trinity of Doom, the very movie Danny had promised to see with me. And yeah, they both said my name when he defeated them. But I didn't send them after Paulina, and I certainly didn't deserve all the other accusations he laid at my feet, either. (Note to Danny: selling your dad's stuff was your idea, not mine.) But if I was being honest with myself, I was being kind of a jerk, too, refusing to even entertain the idea that maybe, sometimes, I did make things a little rougher for him.

So, we were both being jerks, and I said the kind of thing people say when they're angry and being jerks. Danny, I swear. There are days I wish I had never even met you. I didn't really mean it, of course. I couldn't imagine my life without Danny in it, and the last thing I would want would be to wish myself out of his. But that was exactly what I'd done.

Somewhere, I think, Jimmy Stewart was looking down and having a really good laugh at my expense.

---

I didn't realize right away what I'd done, of course. When I first saw Danny in astronomy class the next day, the fact that he and Tucker didn't sit by me and completely ignored my existence wasn't entirely unexpected. Deciding I should be the bigger person and apologize, I looked for my opportunity to talk to Danny and, when I finally got the chance and he acted like he'd never seen me before, I just figured I'd probably had that coming.

My first clue that something was seriously wrong should have been when Tucker hit on me.

Tucker. Hit. On me.

While Tucker was the kind of guy who would hit on anything in a skirt, the only time in the entire two years we'd known each other that he'd ever shown any indication that recognized that I am, in fact, a girl was when he'd asked me to that school dance. And even then, other than his eyes popping out when he saw me in my dress, it had been a strictly just-friends affair. So to say that Tucker hitting on me was a little odd was like saying that Paulina was a little on the narcissistic side.

Still, alternate reality isn't the first thing that pops into one's head when one's friends start behaving in strange ways, even if one's friends are constantly facing all manner of ghost-related weirdness. Any number of things could have made Tucker do something so completely out of character. A spell from Ember, for example. Besides, I was too busy being completely squicked out by the thought of the closest thing I had to a brother hitting on me to even begin to contemplate why he might be doing so and, before I could even get past ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod Tucker is hitting on me ohmygod, a scream from down the hall distracted me.

It came from Dash and Kwan, who were staring down the throat of a gigantic green monster that looked vaguely like a cross between a dragon and a horse. Behind them was another ghost, this one a woman who had long, black hair and was dressed like some sort of harem girl, or maybe a genie. I'd never seen her before, but something niggled at the back of my brain, like I should know who she was. She glowed pink for a moment, growing in size, then she flew towards us. Tucker ran off, squealing in terror, and the ghost woman stopped just short of Danny who, inexplicably, just stood there and stared at her, as if frozen in fear. Sticking her face right into his, she smiled. "Boo."

Boo? Was she kidding us with this? The Box Ghost's "Beware!" was scarier. And yet, Danny was absolutely petrified. He shrieked, "Ghost!" as if he hadn't spent every single day of the last three months of his life fighting ghosts, and then covered his head with his arms, trembling like a rabbit before a hungry wolf. I couldn't begin to imagine why he'd be so terrified by a ghost that looked like a genie—

Genie.

That's when I figured out who she was. Tucker and Danny had told me about a ghost they'd come up against once when I was home sick with the flu. She'd been a jilted harem girl in life and, denied her heart's desire, in death she used her ghost powers to grant wishes as a form of revenge. Be careful what you wish for, that sort of thing. Realizing she had to be the same ghost, I cried out to Danny, "That's Desiree! The wishing ghost! Danny! You've gotta do something!" When he continued to do, well, pretty much nothing, I grabbed him by the shoulders. "Why aren't you going ghost?"

He pushed me off of him. "Look, kid. I don't know who you are or what you're talking about. All I know is, I am outta here!" Without looking back, he ran off.

By this time, Desiree was gone, but the green dragon-horse-monster thing was busy stuffing a whimpering Dash and Kwan into a locker. As soon as it was finished, the thing turned into... Mikey? Triumphant at finally having given out a bit of what he'd been taking for so many years, he slammed the locker shut. "I rock!"

With Mikey back to normal, the ghost crisis had pretty much taken care of itself, which left me to try to figure out what the heck had just happened. The Mikey part was easy enough to figure out—he'd obviously wished to get back at Dash and Kwan for bullying him, and Desiree had granted his wish. As much as I didn't hate seeing Dash get a taste of his own medicine, having a ghost loose randomly granted ill-advised wishes was not a Good Thing, and Danny, no matter how much he couldn't stand Dash, had to know that. Not liking someone had never stopped him from intervening when necessary, so his inaction here was more than a little perplexing. And he certainly wouldn't have carried the whole pretending-he-didn't-know-me thing to such an extreme as to not even bother to go ghost when the school was being attacked. Yeah, he was probably still mad at me for wishing we'd never—

Wishing.

Desiree was a wishing ghost.

So not good.

I was standing by Danny's locker so, looking to verify my suspicions, I opened it. No matter how much the school tried to discourage combination sharing, Danny, Tucker and I always swapped locker combos. The inside of Danny's locker was decorated with some of his favorite photos, including one that was a duplicate of a picture I kept in my photo diary. It was the three of us from eighth grade, with me between the two boys, my arms draped across their shoulders. When I opened the locker, I groaned in dismay. "Oh, no."

There was the picture, right where I thought it would be, but it was a picture of Danny and Tucker alone. It was the same picture—comparing it to the one in my scrapbook, which I had with me in my backpack, confirmed it—but it was as if I'd been photoshopped right out of the shot. Thinking aloud, I ran through what must have happened. "Last night, I wished Danny had never met me. And Desire must've made it so we never met." And if we'd never met, then I hadn't been there to talk him into going into his parents' Ghost Portal, which means the Accident never happened... "Which means he never got his powers."

Yep. So not good.

Grabbing both my scrapbook and the photo from Danny's locker, I ran down the hall in the direction he'd gone off in. But the bell rang, and Mr. Lancer caught me late for class. Unfortunately, my wish only covered Danny and, by extension, Tucker, so Mr. Lancer knew exactly who I was.

"Come and see me after school, Ms. Manson. You can spend fifteen minutes cleaning erasers to make up for the class time you're missing right now."

Just what I needed to complete my day.

I didn't see Danny or Tucker in school the rest of the afternoon, but that gave me a lot of time to try to figure out exactly what had happened and why whatever Desiree had done to bend reality didn't affect me or my personal things. I suppose it made sense why I remembered the true reality—it had been my wish. Like some sort of modern-day George Bailey, I'd wished up an alternate reality, and only I knew it. But unlike George, who had searched his pockets in vain for his identification, his wallet, and little Zuzu's petals, I still had a backpack full of remnants of my relationship with Danny. During algebra, I surreptitiously cataloged my stash under my desk, just to make sure it was all there.

My scrapbook, with all its pictures of me, Danny, Tucker, and even Danny Phantom and the Fenton Portal: check.

A Fenton Thermos, something all three of us tended to carry in our backpacks at all times: check.

The Jack-o-Nine Tails that Danny had insisted I keep on me after the thing with Freakshow: check. I want to make sure you always have some way of defending yourself, just in case you can't trust me to protect you, he'd told me, his eyes heavy with guilt. Who knew that less than a week later, he'd be incapable of protecting me or anyone else? I wasn't very adept at using the strange whip-like thing, but anything resembling a firearm would've gotten me expelled if I'd tried to bring it to school, so the Jack-o-Nine Tails it was.

Last was the Specter Deflector Danny had snapped around my waist after the first ghost attacked Paulina. I'd put it in my backpack when I'd gone home last night after our fight—

I had to bite back a gasp as it hit me. I'd been wearing the Specter Deflector when I'd wished Danny and I had never met. A sort of personal ghost shield, the Specter Deflector blocked anything ghostly from affecting the wearer and whatever the wearer might be in contact with. Like, for example, my backpack, and the stuff inside.

I smiled. Desiree may have bent reality, but she didn't get everything. I still had my connection to the true past, my own personal Zuzu's petals. Score one for George Bailey.

---

Thanks to Lancer's little eraser-cleaning punishment, Danny and Tucker were long gone when I finally escaped after school, but I figured even in this reality, they probably still would head to Danny's house first. It was, after all, a far more interesting place than anyone else's house. I headed in that direction at a dead run and, sure enough, I found them about a block away from FentonWorks.

"Hey, Danny! Tucker! Wait up!" I caught up with them, then barreled ahead before either one of them could question what I was doing there. "Danny, we need to talk. It's important."

Tucker was giving Danny one of those looks. "I'll catch you later. Elmer's, at four." Then, he disappeared, leaving me alone with my best friend who had absolutely no idea who I was. What was I supposed to say to him? How could I convince him that I wasn't a compete nut case?

Before I got the chance, he gave me a tired sigh. "Listen. If this is about that thing in the school—"

Well, that was as good a place to start as any. "It was a ghost. And it is about that. But more than just that—"

"Well, I'm not interested. Ghosts and creepy things are my parents' deal, not mine. I'm not into that kind of stuff." He turned away from me and continued down the street toward FentonWorks.

I followed after him. "I know, I know. You just wanna be normal." God, how I hated that he wanted to be normal. He had this awesomely bizarre family and these amazing powers, but what he wanted was to be completely ordinary. Ugh. "But you're not normal, Danny," I told him. "You're special. You just don't remember."

Maybe special was not the best choice of words. Looking over his shoulder at me, I could tell he'd taken that as an insult. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means..." Oh, man. How was I supposed to explain the truth? Look how well it had gone for George Bailey when he tried to convince the people of Bedford Falls that they knew him. Well, there was nothing for it but to dive right in so, taking a breath, I did just that. "Danny, I know this is gonna sound pretty out there, but none of this is supposed to be like this, and it's all my fault."

"None of what is supposed to be like what? And how do you know my name, anyway? Did you look up my family on the internet or something?"

"I know your name because we're friends. Best friends, in fact. You, me, and Tucker. Only, we're stuck in some kind of alternate timeline where we never met, because I made a stupid wish, and that ghost at school, she grants wishes, and—"

He stopped, giving me a chance to catch up to him again, but I could tell by the look on his face he wasn't exactly buying it. "What are you talking about? I've never seen you before in my life."

"You just think you've never seen me, because of that ghost. Trust me, we're best friends. And... there's more."

He arched an eyebrow at me. "More? You mean, in this alternate timeline of yours, we're more than just friends?"

I almost choked, and could feel my cheeks burn. "What? No! We..." I shook my head, trying to regain my composure. Focus on what is, Sam, not what you wish— Yeaaaaaah. Better stop right there, seeing as wishing is what got me into this mess in the first place. I tried again. "We're just friends, Danny, but we're really good friends. And you... you're kinda, well... you're supposed to have these powers..."

That didn't exactly earn me points on the believability scale. "Powers? What do you mean, 'powers'? Like, super powers? Yeah, I'm a regular Superman. Wanna see me fly?"

Well... "I have seen you fly."

He sighed. "Trust me. I can't fly, and I don't have super powers."

"I know. I said you were supposed to have powers. But you don't, because we're in some kind of—"

"Alternate timeline," he cut me off. "Listen, I know you goths or whatever you are like all this weird fantasy roleplaying stuff, but it's not my thing, okay? Just leave me out of your little game."

He started walking faster, but I caught up with him again. "It's not a game, Danny! I'm telling you the truth! Why won't you believe me?"

"Believe what? That I had super powers? That you and I are best friends, even though I never met you? And you're the only one that knows it?"

I tossed my hands up in the air. "Yes! Isn't that crystal clear?"

We'd reached FentonWorks by this time, so instead of answering me, he just stomped up the steps and slammed the door behind him, shutting me out.

"I've gotta do something to get him to listen to me," I said aloud as I turned away from his house, trying to think of a plan. "But how do I get through the thick head of a fourteen-year-old boy?"

And then I knew.

"Oh, darn it."

---

Fortunately, in a universe where Danny and had I never met, my parents still entertained vain hopes of someday getting me to wear something pink. Deep in the furthest recess of my closet was a box full of several years worth of birthday and Hanukkah presents that I never, ever thought I'd be desperate enough to wear. Digging through layers of crinoline and taffeta, I managed to find a sweater and skirt that were only mostly objectionable. I put them on over my regular clothes, stuffed my boots and tights into my backpack along with the scrapbook and ecto-weapons, borrowed some of my mother's blush and lipstick, and boom. "Normal" girl. Oh, joy. This was gonna require years of therapy.

I found them right where Tucker said they'd be at four o'clock: Elmer's Pharmacy. Taking a deep breath, I approached their table and, in my best Paulina imitation, greeted them. "Hi. Mind if I join you?"

If I weren't so disgusted by the depths I'd sunk to just to get Danny's attention, the look on his face would have been priceless. He was gaping at me, and I had to fight the urge to grab a napkin to mop up the drool. Ugh. Why did I have to have a crush on someone who was such a guy? He actually dropped his ice cream and shoved Tucker out of his seat to make room for me, and to make this whole experience truly complete, I heard Paulina behind me crowing to Starr, "She surrendered her individuality for a boy! I'm so proud of her!"

Years of therapy.

Danny asked me if I wanted any ice cream. Assuming he meant a fresh cone and not what he was currently mopping up with a napkin, I declined, reminding him—no, telling him for the first time in this reality—that I didn't eat dairy. Getting down to business, I put my backpack on the newly-cleaned table and pulled out two pictures, the one from Danny's locker, and my own copy of the same.

"So. This is a photo I have of the three of us. From eighth grade. This is the same one you have in your locker. Notice anything?"

He leaned forward and examined the pictures. "Yeah. You broke into my locker and doctored an old photo of me." Then, resting his hand on his chin, he flashed me a cocky grin. "You must really like me." He blinked, and the smile faded into something a little more worried. "Or, you're nuts. You're not nuts, are you?"

I grunted in irritation, dropping my scrapbook, which I'd just pulled out of my backpack, onto the table. Grabbing Danny by the shoulders, I dragged him over to the book and pushed his head down to look at it. "Focus!"

Danny blinked, and this time he actually did look at the pictures. When he saw the one on the right side of the page, a Polaroid of the three of us in his parents' lab, he gaped. "Wait a minute..." He looked up at me. "That's my parents' lab!" No longer just humoring the crazy girl, he started flipping backwards through the pages. There was one of him in ghost form, another of him and Tucker sleeping on the floor of the control room at the zoo from when we were studying Samson, the purple-back gorilla... He stopped turning pages when he came to the snapshot I'd taken of him in front of his parents' portal just minutes before the Accident.

He looked up again, and I could tell he knew there was something very real about these pictures. Gaping at me, he asked in a hushed and somewhat creeped-out voice, "Who are you?"

"I'm Sam Manson." I put my hand on his shoulder and turned a couple of pages of the scrapbook until I came to a picture of Danny Phantom floating in front of the activated Ghost Portal. "A few months ago, I convinced you to go into this." I pointed to the portal. "You went in there, there was an accident, and you got—"

"Super powers?"

"Actually, ghost powers," I corrected. "But we had a fight, and I wished we'd never met, and that ghost in the school made it happen. I was wearing this." I showed him the Specter Deflector. "Which, I think, is why the ghost didn't affect me. But you don't have your powers anymore—"

"PAULINA!"

Oh, for the love of Pete, not again!

A green glow lit up the wall at the far end of the drugstore as four glowing, green razors carved out a huge circular opening. It fell into the store with a loud crash, revealing another ghost. This time it was Nightmerica, the third and final villain from Trinity of Doom. What the heck was with all these movie villains anyway? And why were they going after Paulina, but saying my name when they were defeated?

A memory flashed through my head of something I'd said when Danny and Tucker talked me into skipping the movie for her party. Yes, I'll be there. Unless something should happen to Paulina, and then the party got canceled. Not that I'd wish that.

Wish.

Fabulous. Danny had been right after all. The attacks on Paulina were my fault. Although, technically, I had specifically said I wouldn't wish for that. Leave it to Desiree to play fast and loose with the rules.

Nightmerica stomped into the store, reminding me that there was a current crisis in need of attention as she started throwing people aside, sending customers scattering. She headed straight for Paulina, of course, and I turned to Danny. "Danny, you gotta—" The look of sheer panic in his eyes reminded me that it was useless. Okay, new plan. "Actually, I gotta."

I grabbed the Specter Deflector and snapped it around my waist as I tried to figure out what to do next. Out of habit, I looked for a way to preserve my anonymity. In the real timeline, I didn't want people to associate me with "the Ghost Boy" lest they start noticing that he and Danny Fenton seemed to share the exact same friends. In this timeline, there was no Ghost Boy, so it didn't matter much, but the last thing I needed was someone snapping a picture with a cell phone camera and posting it online or something. My clothes were so not me that I would have plausible deniability as long as my face wasn't showing, so it was just a matter of finding a mask of some sort.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tucker on the floor near the door, so I darted over to him, snatched his beret off his head, cut eye holes into it with a knife, and pulled the thing over my face like a balaclava. Now, I needed weapons. Grabbing my backpack, I dug around in it until I found Danny's dad's Jack-o-Nine Tails. I wasn't very practiced at using it, so I managed to smack Tucker across the shoulder on the backswing but, after a quick apology, I got the thing hoisted in the right direction and somehow, impossibly, coiled it around Nightmerica on the first try. I pulled back on it like a fishing line, reeling her in. Unfortunately, she was strong enough to break free, but I was able to get the Fenton Thermos out of my bag before she could get very far. One flip of the switch, and Nightmerica was trapped in a blue beam of light, then sucked inside the Thermos.

As I was capping it, Danny and Tucker came up behind me. Danny was sort of gaping at me, this time not in a you're crazy way or even an okay, you're totally creeping me out way, but in kind of an awed way. "That happen a lot?"

I took Tucker's beret off my head and shook my hair free. "More than you remember."

"Okay. You've got my attention."

I could have kissed him. "Finally!" Then, flush with victory over both Nightmerica and Danny's doubt, I yanked off the horrid and no-longer-needed pink sweater. Grabbing Danny's arm, I dragged him toward the exit. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?" Danny asked me.

"To your house. I have an idea how to fix this."

As we walked quickly from Elmer's towards Danny's street, Tucker came trotting up behind us, pulling another beret out of his backpack and putting it on his head. "Hold up, Danny."

"How many of those berets do you own?" Danny asked, taking the words out of my mouth.

"Never mind that. What the heck is going on?"

Danny began explaining everything I'd told him. I listened with interest, still a little surprised that I'd actually managed to convince him I was telling the truth. Tucker, however, looked dubious, and I notice he seemed to be deliberately dragging his feet. Realizing he was trying to get Danny far enough away from me to talk in private, I picked up my pace just enough to let them fall behind, but not so far behind that I couldn't still hear what they were saying. Tucker was convinced I was conning them, but Danny really did seem to believe me.

"Why?" Tucker asked him. "Because a pretty girl came onto you and told you a bunch of stuff about yourself you want to believe?"

I was glad they couldn't see my face, because I could feel my cheeks burning at that one. I wasn't coming onto him, not really. I had to get his attention somehow, didn't I?

Danny passed over that part, though. "It's those pictures, Tuck. I can't explain it, but they just... they gave me the weirdest feeling. It's like... I dunno. Déjà vu, but not exactly. There was something special about those pictures. Something important. Like..." He paused, as if searching for the right comparison. "Like Zuzu's petals."

I almost stopped short at that. I'd thought exactly the same thing! Tucker, however, didn't get the analogy. "The zoo's pedals?"

I slowed down to let them catch up to me again. "No. Zuzu's petals," I corrected. "From It's a Wonderful Life."

Danny looked a little startled to realize I was there. The weird look I must have been giving him probably wasn't helping, either, but I couldn't help but be a little curious at his use of that particular analogy. But since Tucker still seemed lost, I directed my attention back to him. "You know, It's a Wonderful Life. That old Jimmy Stewart movie they show every Christmas? You must've seen it."

Tuck shrugged. "I guess. Don't really remember it."

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart plays this guy that's having a rough time of it, so he wishes he'd never been born, and an angel grants him his wish, showing him how awful life would've been without him?" Tucker gave a sort of sure, whatever nod, and I continued. "Well, just before he wishes he'd never been born, he goes home and sees his little daughter, Zuzu, who's in bed with a cold. She has this rose, and some of the petals fall off, so she asks him to paste them back on, and he slips the petals in his pocket while pretending to fix the flower. Later, after his wish changed everything, he looks for the petals in his pocket. They were sort of... his connection to the reality he knew. Proof that he wasn't crazy, that he existed, that he had a family that knew him and loved him." Here's where the analogy fell short, however, and I turned to Danny, really curious as to how he'd come to think of the photos as my Zuzu's petals, too. "The thing is, the petals weren't there. Not until everything went back to normal did he have the petals again. So how is that like the pictures I showed you?"

He tilted his head, as if not quite able to put it into words. "They're a connection to this other reality. I might not remember it, but the pictures feel... real. Important. Part of the life I was supposed to live. Like Zuzu's petals."

How was it that even in an alternate reality where we've never met, Danny and I still manage to somehow be on the same wavelength? We even liked the same stupid movie. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, the kind of smile that made my stomach do those slow, lazy flips more and more often when we were together.

Of course, Tucker had to go and ruin the moment. "Riiiiiiight. Hope you two are happy together... in the insane asylum."

My cheeks burned again as I considered strangling Tucker, but then another thought occurred to me. "It's not just Danny, you know. We were best friends, too."

"Somehow, I'm having a hard time picturing it."

An impish smile spread across my face. "Too bad. 'Cause I was gonna get you the Smart Tech 4000 for Christmas. You know, to replace those PDAs you lost fighting Skulker. But since we're not best friends, and we didn't fight Skulker anyway, I guess there's no point..."

Oh, even in an alternate reality, I knew how to play Tucker like a violin. His eyes lit up and he elbowed Danny aside and slipped his arm around my shoulders. "Now, now, let's not be hasty. What's a little alternate reality between best friends?"

---

When we got to FentonWorks, the basement lab was empty. His dad, thankfully, was working up in the Op-Center today, and his mom and Jazz were out of the house. While Tucker stood watch by the stairs, I went straight to the Ghost Portal. It was strange, seeing it shut down like that. I hadn't seen the Ghost Portal shut down since the day of the Accident, and it brought back a lot of memories of that day.

Come on, Danny. A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out.

You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?

I brushed off the memories, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand, while Danny explained how his parents had never managed to get the portal powered up. Tucker theorized that they might have wired the external and internal switches backwards, meaning that the external switch had to be on first, so that when Danny switched on the internal power, that's what started it up. It seemed to make sense—it was the kind of thing that Danny's parents in their tunnel-vision might completely miss. But then a little mini-scare with Danny's dad coming down to the kitchen to get a snack distracted us. Finally, Tucker reported back from the stairs that Danny's dad had gone back up to the Op-Center and all was clear again.

"Cool," Danny said as I went back to work on the gauges next to the portal. "How's it going over there?"

I was comparing the gauges to the picture I had of Danny standing in front of them the day of the Accident. "Pretty good. I'm guessing if we set everything the way it was when it happened, it'll happen again."

When I finished, I looked up at him, once again taken aback by the sight of him standing next to the deactivated portal. More memories flooded back. The explosion of green light. My heart stopping dead in my chest ohmygod, he's dead, please God, don't let him be dead, please let him be okay... Seeing him stagger out of the thing, alive, but with his hair completely white and his jumpsuit turned black. The feel of him collapsing through my arms like he were made of smoke. The glowing eyes, the invisibility, the trip to the hospital, clutching Tucker's hand as we waited in the waiting room for word that he would be okay. Him swearing us to secrecy when the doctors found nothing, and only Tucker and I seemed to notice the way he kept phasing through things, or turning invisible, or floating...

It was funny how hindsight had sort of fogged over my memory of that day, giving it a sort of sense of destiny. I was so sure that everything that had happened that day was meant to be, I'd completely forgotten how scary it all had truly been. Even when Tucker had reminded us, just before all this wish-verse stuff started, that I'd been the one who had caused it to happen, it never even occurred to me that that could be anything other than a good thing. I'd forgotten the mind-numbing fear, first that he was dead, and then that whatever had happened to him was going to kill him.

But now, seeing him standing next to the deactivated portal looking so... human, I remembered it all. I swallowed over the lump in my throat. "Are you sure about this?"

"No," he said without hesitation. But there was a sort of resolution in his eyes, too. "But you saw those things. Those... monsters, ghosts. Those ghosts were attacking our school!" He looked inside the portal, his expression turning to wonder. "Besides. I always wanted to go in here. Who knows what kinds of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"

I blinked. Those were the exact same words he used the first time, right after I talked him into checking the portal out. Maybe he really was meant for this. Maybe I wasn't horrible for pushing him into it again, even remembering how scary it had been. I wasn't one to believe in destiny—people made their own destinies through the choices they made. But Danny Phantom was Danny's destiny. I believed that like I believed eating dead animals was wrong and false cheer was overrated. With a little bit of my confidence restored, I tossed one of his parents' white hazmat suits over to him. Like he had the first time, he pulled them on over his clothes while I set a few more knobs on the control panel. When Danny finished suiting up, he took a deep breath. "Well, here goes everything."

"Wait a minute," I said, remembering Danny's dad's face on the suit. I ripped it off his chest, replacing it with something of my own design.

A few weeks ago, after the thing with Kitty overshadowing Paulina at Floody Waters, when the media started calling Danny "Inviso-Bill," I came up with the idea of designing some kind of logo for his costume, something like Superman's S or Spider-Man's spider that would be his, rather than just letting the media define him on their terms. Tucker, naturally, thought it was a great idea because there was the potential for marketing licensed products in the future. Danny, however, had been largely indifferent to the whole thing. But he didn't veto the plan outright, so I took it as a "yes" and started doodling different logo ideas during lectures at school. I'd finally hit on one I really liked just before this whole wish-verse thing started, and had even begun trying to think of ways to get it onto his costume.

Then, Desiree derailed everything and, when I'd hatched this plan to get Danny's ghost powers back, it occurred to me that as long as I was gonna try to repeat history, it was the perfect time to upgrade the costume as well.

He frowned as I slapped my design on his chest. "Uh, what is that?"

I gave him an evasive smile. "Just trust me, okay?"

He nodded, then stepped into the portal while Tucker and I watched. My heart was pounding in my chest, please don't let it hurt him, please let this be the right thing, please let it be okay... And, when he hit the switch and the portal exploded in a blast of green light, I clung to Tucker and prayed. Please let him be all right, please let it be okay, please let this be the right thing, please let him be okay...

A lifetime later, Danny finally staggered out of the portal, not Danny Fenton, but Danny Phantom once more. I let go of Tucker, almost melting into a puddle of relief, until Danny collapsed onto his knees. Rushing to his side, I helped him get back to his feet. "Danny, are you—?"

And then, he wasn't there anymore. He was just gone, fading through my hands, just like he had the first time. I stumbled backwards, staring at my hands, which only seconds before had been holding him. Then, I smiled at him. "You're a ghost! Again!"

He looked kind of stunned. "You're right. I am a ghost! Cool!" Then, he hesitated. "Is this cool?"

I reached out and put my hand on his chest, right on the white DP logo I'd designed. "Oh, it's very cool." God, it was good to have him back!

And then a voice from upstairs ruined the moment. "What's going on down there?"

I panicked. "Oh, man. Your dad! You've gotta change back to normal!"

He looked completely bewildered. "Change back? How?"

That was a very good question. Danny had never explained exactly how it was that he could change back and forth between human and ghost form. "I don't know! You just... think about it or something!"

He glared at me, clearly not appreciating my less-than-helpful advice but, when he closed his eyes, those familiar rings of white light appeared around his midsection, and then he was human again, as if none of this had ever happened.

None of it, that is, except for the fully activated, glowing Ghost Portal behind us. Danny's dad was gonna have a cow when he saw this, and we so didn't need a trip to the ER and everything like the last time. What the heck were we gonna do now?

That was when Danny did something so unexpected, I almost went catatonic from the shock. He grabbed me around the waist, tilted me backwards like we were some hero and heroine from a blockbuster movie, and he kissed me.

Danny Fenton. Kissed me.

I was so stunned, I went completely rigid in his arms, my eyes wide open in disbelief. Danny is kissing me!

Before I even had time to properly register what was happening, it was over and he was telling me, "I call that a 'fake-out make-out.'"

My legs felt like water, and my skin was tingling like I'd just jammed my fingers into a light socket. My mind still reeling from the surprise kiss, I think I actually giggled. "Yeah, I know."

He pulled me back up onto my feet, and I was kind of surprised that my legs didn't completely give way. Danny took a hasty step away from me as his father arrived, looking murderous. "You're in a lot of trouble, mister!" He turned his glare on me. "And who the heck are you?"

"Uh..." I thought quickly. "I'm... Paulina?"

"Then Danny Fenton is never, ever allowed to see you, Paulina."

You know, maybe this alternate reality wasn't such a bad thing after all.

---

By the next evening, I'd changed my mind again. This alternate reality sucked. I'd forgotten how, in the original reality, it had taken Danny a while to even begin to master his abilities. He'd go intangible or invisible completely at random, and it was a good month before he figured out overshadowing or the ghost ray. And now he had to get it all under control in a single day, because when Lancer started talking about tonight's expected meteor shower in astronomy, and Dash asked Paulina what wish she was going to make on the "falling stars," I realized that Desiree's plan was to grant all those wishes, increasing her power exponentially. We had to stop her before that happened.

We set up base camp on a hill overlooking Amity Country Club, where Paulina was holding her massive birthday party. The meteor shower started, people began making all kinds of ridiculous wishes, and Desiree was completely out of control, about fifty feet tall, and raining down monsters on the party below. She had a monster truck that was actually a monster chasing Tucker, and evil bushes wrapped around both my arms holding me back, so we were of no help whatsoever, and Danny couldn't even keep himself in ghost form, let alone fight her with any sort of skill. I felt awful, like George Baily, praying in the snow. I wanna live again. Please, God, let me live again... "Oh, this is all my fault. I wish I had never fought with Danny..."

My eyes widened and, had my hands not been trapped by the evil bushes, I would have smacked myself in the forehead. Hard. "And she's granting every single wish she hears!" How could I have missed the most obvious solution to this entire mess? As loud as I could, I shouted out to Desiree, "I wish Danny and I had never had that fight! And I wish Danny, Tucker, and I remembered everything, and his costume stayed the way it is because I really really like it!"

Desiree raised her hands in the air, and they began glowing pink. "So you have wished it, and so it shall be!"

She blasted Danny with the pink ecto-energy and, when it was over, I could see the change in his eyes as he remembered everything. He immediately went ghost again, then sucked Desiree into a Fenton Thermos before she even had time to realize what she'd just done. I could hear her lament just before Danny capped the Thermos: "I've gotta stop granting every wish I hear!"

Then, everything went back to normal. No monsters, no evil plants, no monster truck chasing Tucker. The only thing that stayed the same was the logo on Danny's chest. "Did you do something to my costume?" he asked me.

Since I'd specifically wished for him to remember everything, he already knew the answer, but I played innocent anyway. "No. It's... always been like that."

After that, we spent some time watching Paulina's party, just to make sure everything was back to normal. Tucker reminded us that in this real reality, we'd been invited to that party, and I told Danny he should probably keep his promise about the Ghost Boy showing up.

He gave me the strangest smile, and I couldn't help but shiver at the look in his eyes. "Yeah. I probably should."

---

It wasn't his promise to Paulina that Danny had decided to keep but, rather, his promise to me. Half an hour later, the three of us were at the Amity Park Cineplex watching Trinity of Doom. But I was thinking of a different movie, where a man was pulling rose petals out of his pocket and thanking God that he was alive and that everything was as it was supposed to be, and I couldn't help but be grateful for my own "petals" that connected me to Danny and our real history together. As nice as it had been to have him kind of attracted to me—and not in the creepy way Ember's spell had, but like a real crush—I wouldn't trade our real history and our real friendship for anything.

Beside me, Danny leaned ever so slightly in my direction. "I never realized how different my life would've been if I hadn't met you. I gotta say, it's sorta cool to know."

I gave him a sheepish smile, regretting how I'd wished away our friendship in anger. "Still. Sorry about that stupid fight. Can we forget it ever happened?"

I met his eyes, and it was that school dance all over again. I almost melted in my seat as he smiled back at me. "So you have wished it, so shall it be."

Yeah. I wish.

Chapter 16: If There's Anything You Wanted to Say to Me: Danny

If There's Anything You Wanted to Say to Me
Danny

Before the thing with the Ghost King, I never really gave much thought to Valerie Gray. I know that sounds weird, considering she got that battle suit and became a ghost hunter completely out of the blue—and I was her favorite target. But she wasn't even close to being my most dangerous adversary, even if she was one of the trickiest because I couldn't just wail on her like I could the ghosts. At first, she really wasn't much more than an occasional annoyance. Sure, she could aggravate the snot out of me, but usually Dash and Kwan were so busy making high school a living hell that Valerie barely made the radar.

After being forced to team up with her, first as parents to a sack of flour for health class, and then as Skulker's prey in the Ghost Zone, I got to know her a little better and see life through her eyes, and I decided she wasn't nearly as bad as I originally thought. But it wasn't until just before the Ghost King showed up, when she and I shared a hiding space from our respective tormentors—Dash for me, Nathan for her—when I really began to see her in a different light. Not as an annoyance, nor a rapidly improving ghost hunter who could potentially take me out some day, but as a friend.

Maybe even... more?

When that idea first popped into my head as we were checking over our book reports for Lancer's class while hiding from Dash and Nathan under a cafeteria table, I brushed it off as ludicrous. She was a ghost hunter who wanted nothing so much as to see my alter-ego blasted out of existence. But when Tucker and Sam voiced those same concerns, I found myself defending her to them, and the idea didn't seem quite so ludicrous anymore.

And when we fought together against the Fright Knight—that was awesome. She was really turning into an amazing ghost fighter and was a blast to work with. When she wasn't, you know, trying to kill me.

Unfortunately, she was no match for the Ghost King. Neither was I, nor even Vlad, for that matter. But it was Valerie's defeat, and the sight of her, unconscious and banged up that put me over the edge. She'd been out there in there first place because of Vlad, who had not only brought the Ghost King down on all of us by stealing his ring, but had used her to hide it from him. But my gut was telling me it went deeper than just Valerie being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Vlad's actions were never random and, even before that, he'd known who she was. For some reason, he'd chosen her, specifically. And whatever that reason was, it had something to do with me. That made what happened to her my responsibility, which meant it was up to me to make things right.

It was time to take the fight to the Ghost Zone and away from Amity Park and the people I cared about. No matter what the cost.

So, with Valerie's bruised and battered face burned into my mind, I made the decision to face an enemy far more powerful than myself using a weapon that might well kill me. And yet, it wasn't Valerie's face that stayed with me as I prepared to go. It wasn't Valerie that I was worried I'd never see again if...

If I didn't come back.

"I can see you over there, you know," I said over my shoulder to Sam and Tucker as they peeked out of the doorway to the roof of the Op-Center to watch me power up my dad's Ecto-Skeleton .

Their cover blown, they came out to stand at the foot of the giant battle suit, and Sam looked up at me, the worry plain in her violet eyes. "Danny, please."

"Come on, guys. You didn't think it was always gonna be as easy as shoving the Box Ghost into the Fenton Thermos, did you? I'll be back."

Tucker didn't look any happier than Sam. "Your mom used the word fatal."

"Guys, I'll be back." I said it with a confidence I didn't completely feel, and it hit me then, looking at my two best friends in the world from my perch high up in that huge battle armor, that there was a very good chance I wouldn't be back. That this might well be the last time I'd ever see them. That I'd ever see her. "But... i-if there's anything you wanted to say to me..." I began on impulse, kneeling down beside Sam so that I could be closer to eye-level with her. "Now might be an excellent time to do it."

She met my gaze, and it was another of those weird electric moments, like at the dance, or after that first fake-out make-out, or at the movie theater after the thing with Desiree when I was so happy to have things back to normal and her in my life like she was supposed to be. I'm not sure what I was looking for, or what I wanted her to say. I just knew that in that moment, whatever it was, I wanted—no, I needed—to hear it.

I never got the chance, though. An image of the Ghost King flared across the sky in red smoke and lightning, and it was time for me to do what I had to do.

It was the hardest battle I'd ever faced. At first, the sheer thousands of skeleton-ghost warriors he'd amassed made me think I'd wear out all my energy before I got anywhere near that castle to actually face him, but then Sam and Tucker showed up in the Specter Speeder, loaded to the breaking point with ghosts to take on the skeleton army, freeing me up to go after the Ghost King. See, it wasn't the last time you got to see her—them—again, I told myself as the Specter Speeder disappeared back into the mottled green "sky" of the Ghost Zone. And this won't be, either.

Even without having to deal with the skeleton army, it wasn't looking good for me. The Ecto-Skeleton made me strong enough a match for the Ghost King, even with his Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, but it was draining me by the second. If the power percentage reading got down to zero, I wouldn't survive.

The Ghost King knew it, too. "Surrender, child. You can't possibly win." Meaning, I wouldn't walk away from this fight alive.

The thing was, me walking away alive wasn't what mattered. "I don't have to win. I just have to make sure that you lose!" And I used the last remaining bit of my energy, amped up by the Ecto-Skeleton, to shove him back into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and hold him there until the ghostly coffin could put him to sleep. Or until I was completely depleted. Whichever came first.

As I put everything I had into holding that Sarcophagus shut against his violent struggles, my power percentages slipping into the single digits and my consciousness ebbing away, I thought of Sam, wishing I knew what she would have said to me, and wondering what I'd hoped to hear.

I didn't know the answer, and I couldn't think about it anymore because, without warning, the struggling stopped. I slipped to the floor, my energy gone, and only then did I see. Vlad was there, holding the key he'd used to lock the Sarcophagus in one hand and the Crown of Fire in the other, with... was that the Fright Knight beside him? And all the other ghosts, they were there, too.

As everything slipped away, I tried to make sense of it. "I don't understand..."

"What? That I used two fourteen-year-old pawns to turn a knight and topple a king? It's chess, Daniel. Of course you don't understand. But then, you never really did."

---

It was Sam's voice, saying my name, that woke me, and her face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I was lying in my own bed, in my own room, in my own house. She wasn't alone, either. My whole family was there, along with Tucker, and Valerie and her dad. Valerie still was banged up from her fight, and her arm was in a sling, but she was smiling and looked like she was gonna be okay. No thanks to—

"You gave us quite a scare, there, little badger."

Vlad.

If I'd had an ounce of energy, I would have used it to choke the life out of him. As it was, I couldn't do much more than shudder at the creepy, unwanted affection in that nickname, and burn in rage as my dad recounted the tale Vlad had spun for them about how he'd found me outside the shield that had been protecting the town and saved my life. He was the cause of all this in the first place, bringing the Ghost King's wrath down on us, getting Valerie involved. So help me, if it was the last thing I did, I would find out what exactly his connection to her was. Wanting nothing more than to pummel the truth out of him and make sure he never went near her again, I tried to sit up, but a hand pushed me back down.

Sam.

She smiled at me, and I let it go, returning her smile with one of my own as I remembered my last wish before I'd passed out in the Ghost Zone—to know what she'd been about to say to me up on the roof of the Op-Center. I still didn't know but, somehow, it didn't seem to matter so much anymore. I was alive, and I'd gotten to come back to her after all. Whatever she'd needed to say, whatever I'd needed to hear, there was still time. And for now, that was enough.

Chapter 17: If There's Anything You Wanted to Say to Me: Sam

If There's Anything You Wanted to Say to Me
Sam

Before the thing with the Ghost King, I never really gave much thought to Valerie Gray. Yeah, the whole grudge she had going against Danny, backed up by that awesome battle suit and jet sled that came from God knows where, was worrisome, but in the world of Things That Wanted to Kill Danny (and probably could), Valerie was pretty low on the list. In fact, I'd thought it was pretty hilarious that she of all people was the one Tetslaff picked to be his partner in the stupid flour sack baby project in health class, and when he'd felt bad enough about having been irritable with her that he'd actually volunteered to do that lousy "Nasty Nat" job at the Nasty Burger for her, I'd even approved.

Big mistake, that. One little nice gesture and suddenly the two of them are all buddy-buddy, with him helping her escape from Nathan, and her helping him escape from Dash. I mean, being nice to someone was one thing, but letting her get close to him? It was insane. One slip, one thing to let on who he really was, and he was toast.

Tucker and I tried to tell him, too. "Valerie is one of your enemies, Danny. You think it's smart to be letting her this close?"

He blew off my concern with a huff of air. "I can handle it. Besides, she's not so bad, once you get to know her."

Naturally, Valerie picked that exact moment to appear in hallway. "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself, Fenton."

For a second, I was afraid she'd overheard the whole conversation, but I relaxed a little when she didn't ask me why I'd call her one of Danny's enemies, nor did she so much as flash me an annoyed look. In fact, she couldn't be bothered to look at me at all. She was too busy smiling at Danny. One of those smiles, the kind that said that she'd like to get to know exactly how not-so-bad he really was.

Worse, however, was that Danny smiled back. And it was one of those smiles, too.

I felt like I'd just been kicked in the stomach. Crushing on Paulina was one thing—she was vain and shallow, but at least she didn't actively want to annihilate him. Disgusted, Tucker and I both turned our backs on them.

And also unlike Paulina, who couldn't see past the end of her own nose, Valerie wasn't stupid. She didn't miss our not-so-subtle snub. "What's up with them?"

"They're... really good friends." It was Danny's attempt at appeasing us. But when we turned around to acknowledge his concession, he pointedly added, "And they're just being overprotective."

Valerie frowned. "Of what? It's not like we have anything to hide."

Other than the fact that she was a ghost hunter and he was a ghost. Nope, nothing to hide there.

The irony not lost on him, Danny smirked over his shoulder at me and Tuck. I was about ready to slap him upside the head to see if that would smack some sense into him, but an odd look crossed his face, and then I saw the fine mist escaping from his mouth, as if the temperature in the hallway had suddenly dropped below freezing and he could see his breath. His Ghost Sense.

"Whoa. I gotta jet," he said vaguely, darting off around the corner to leave me and Tucker to deal with Valerie.

Before any of us could say anything, however, Dash appeared from the same hallway Danny had just ducked into. Screaming like a girl, the big ox ran straight into one of the lockers, then banged his head against it repeatedly before falling on his face onto the floor. A moment later, Danny jumped back out into the hallway. "And... there's more where that came from, Baxter. So... watch it!" He flashed me and Tucker a cover-for-me! look, then ran off once more.

Gritting my teeth, I exchanged glances with Tucker. Danny had obviously been overshadowing Dash. In front of Valerie. This was exactly the kind of stunt I was worried was going to expose his identity if he let her hang around.

Sure enough, his bizarre behavior did not escape her notice. "Where's he running to all the time? Only guys I see running off like that have a job. Or a girlfriend."

Annoyed by her fishing, I spun on my heel to face her. "He doesn't have a girlfriend, Valerie."

She responded with a smug, knowing smile. "Mm-hm. Right."

I was so done with her games. "What are you talking about?"

"You like him."

"Uh... hello!" I threw my hands up in the air. "He's my best friend!"

The smug smile stayed glued to her face. "I'm sure he is. But if you like him—I mean, like him, like him—make a move. Because if you don't, somebody will."

And just like that, she'd thrown down the gauntlet. She was no Paulina, too vain to even consider someone like Danny. She really did like him, and intended to pursue him, and this was my notice as the best friend to either stake my claim first... or get out of the way.

She'd underestimated me, though, if she thought I would ever get out of the way of someone that would hurt Danny. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Unfortunately, all the over-protectiveness in the world couldn't save Danny from himself. Not only did he continue to disregard Valerie as a threat, when she ended up battered and bruised from a fight with the Ghost King, he made his decision—whatever it took, he was going to face the Ghost King, and he was going to use his father's Ecto-Skeleton to do it.

The one that his mom said could be fatal to use.

Suddenly, Valerie didn't matter so much anymore. Scared out of my mind at the thought of what Danny was about to do, I snuck up to the Op-Center with Tucker. We could hear noises up on the roof, so we went up there, hiding in the stairwell as we watched him suit up in the huge battle armor that was going to get him killed.

"I can see you over there, you know."

I tried not to wring my hands as we emerged from the stairwell to stand at the foot of the giant battle armor, but when I looked up at him, I almost lost it. He'd fought so many ghosts, done so many things that were dangerous, but nothing like this, and for the first time ever, I wished I'd never talked him into going into that damned portal in the first place. Or the second place. "Danny, please."

He looked down at us with a smile he probably meant to be a sort of cocky reassurance. "Come on, guys. You didn't think it was always gonna be as easy as shoving the Box Ghost into the Fenton Thermos, did you? I'll be back."

We were anything but reassured, however. Tucker bit his lip, looking about as miserable as I felt. "Your mom used the word fatal."

"Guys, I'll be back." It was more swagger, but I'd known him too long to believe it. I could see it in his eyes. Not fear, but... something like resignation. He knew he might not be back, but that he had to go anyway. My fears were confirmed a moment later when he added, cockiness completely gone, "But... i-if there's anything you wanted to say to me..." Then, he knelt down beside me, no longer addressing both of us, but talking now to me alone. "Now might be an excellent time to do it."

I swallowed, fear locking my throat. Did he know? Did he know how I felt about him, what he meant to me? Was that what he wanted me to say, to tell him the truth, just in case he never...?

Oh, God. I might never see him again. What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to tell him? Our eyes locked, and it was that dance all over again, only this time I had to say something, to tell him what he meant to me. "I-I—"

I never got the chance to finish. Lightning flashed, cutting me off, and red smoke billowed across the sky, revealing an image of the Ghost King.

"Well, that's my cue," Danny said, his voice so matter-of-fact I wanted to scream. Our eyes met again, and then I left him to do what he had to do.

When I reached the doorway to the stairwell, where Tucker was standing beside an open control panel, ready to lower the Ghost Shield to let Danny out, I turned to watch him go, forcing myself to give him a thumbs up. He smiled at me in response and, for a moment, I allowed myself to believe it would all be okay, that he knew what he was doing, and he would return. I smiled back at him, and then he was gone in a horrific gust of wind, the battle suit amplifying his already significant speed and blasting him away like a rocket.

As I followed Tucker into the stairwell and back down into the Op-Center, I tried not to think about whether or not he'd be okay. He had to be. It was as simple as that. Still, it was hard not to feel like I'd lost my last chance to tell him—

Tell him what? What had I been about to say to him? I didn't even know myself. Now, the words that sprang to my mind were, You mean more to me than anyone else I've ever known. But that wasn't what I'd been about to say. That was safe, because it was about him, and it was something he already knew. But when he'd asked if there was anything I wanted to say to him, the word I'd started with was I. Me. My feelings. I what? I like you as more than a friend? Not exactly a poetic good-bye. I need you to come back? That might have been it. It certainly was true.

I love you?

He'd once told me he loved me. It had been after he'd realized what he'd almost done while Freakshow was controlling him. But it was an easy thing for him to say, because he only loved me as a friend. He knew I knew that, and that I wouldn't take it any other way.

I'd never said those words to him, though. Not to his face, anyway. How could I when he was so much more than a friend to me? I don't know that I could say that I was in love with him, exactly, but I couldn't say I love you and mean it just as a friend, either.

So, what had I been about to say to him? What words had I wanted him to hear, if they were the last he'd ever hear from me? I honestly didn't know.

---

In the end, it didn't really matter, because they weren't the last words he'd ever hear from me after all. I saw him again not half an hour later when the ghosts showed up with an offer to help "the Ghost Child" free their realms from the Ghost King's reign and Tucker and I decided to make a delivery run in the Specter Speeder. When we found Danny, he was strong, and cocky, and taking out skeletons left and right, so it was easy to believe he'd be fine after all.

The next time I saw him, he wasn't fine. He was cradled in Vlad's arms—Vlad's!—unconscious and battered. But alive. And the Ghost King had been defeated. His parents brought him up to his bedroom and we all gathered around, keeping vigil as he slept off the effects of the battle. Valerie was there with us, too, and I can honestly say that, in that moment, I didn't mind in the least. Valerie waiting with us for him to wake up sure beat the hell out of the alternative.

And when his eyelids finally fluttered, I was the one who saw it. "Danny?"

He opened his eyes, taking it all in as his dad shared the cock-and-bull story Vlad had given them about finding Danny outside the shield and saving his life. Danny, furious at the lies, tried to sit up as if to go after Vlad, but I pressed a hand to his chest, pushing him back down again. I smiled, letting him know without words that right now it was okay to just be happy he was all right. He could deal with Vlad later.

He smiled back at me, relenting, and settled back down on his pillow. I kept my hand on his chest a moment, relishing the feel of his heartbeat beneath my palm. He was alive, and he'd come back to me. Nothing else—not Vlad, not Valerie and her crush on him, not the words I'd almost said without even knowing what would have come out had I said them—none of that mattered. Danny hadn't been taken from me. Not yet. And for now, that was enough.

Notes:

He'd once told me he loved me. It had been after he'd realized what he'd almost done while Freakshow was controlling him. That refers to another story I wrote, a post-Control Freaks one-shot, By a Wire.

Chapter 18: Déjà vu: Danny

Déjà vu
Danny

It didn't hit me at first. I think, mostly, I was just so happy that everything was okay, that Tucker and Sam and my parents and Jazz were okay and not dead, that I couldn't really absorb everything that had happened. Or didn't happen. Or would have happened?

Man, alternate timelines are confusing.

When Clockwork turned back time, taking me back to the classroom where the C.A.T. test was just starting, there were more pressing things to think about than what had just happened and what it really meant. He'd left me standing beside my desk, facing the back of the room, the test answers in my hand. The instant the clock started moving forward again, Sam and Tucker looked up at me, almost as if they knew something strange had just happened. There was a question in Sam's eyes as they met mine, almost as if she were trying to look inside me to find the truth. I smiled at her, hoping to reassure her that everything was all right, just like I'd vowed during the fight with my evil future self. Don't worry. I won't turn into that. Ever. I promise.

She seemed to understand, because her reaction was like I'd put a pin into a balloon of tension she'd been carrying inside her. She smiled back at me, this huge, radiant smile that made me want to find Clockwork and kiss him for saving her. For saving them all.

Behind me, Mr. Lancer coughed. "Mr. Fenton? Is there a problem?"

"Um... actually, Mr. Lancer..." I turned to face him. "There is." The test answers in my hand, I walked slowly toward his desk. "I, uh, found this the other day," I told him, laying the answers down in front of him. "Outside the Nasty Burger."

Mr. Lancer picked up the file folder and looked at it, frowning. "Hm. The seal has been broken."

Time to come clean, Fenton, and be true to your word. "Yeah, I know. A-a-and I'm sorry. I couldn't stop myself from looking at the answers. But I'm not a cheater. And I never will be." I won't turn into that. Ever. I promise.

"Well, you'll have the chance to prove that when you take the make-up test next week. Now, won't you?" he finished, smiling.

Smiling? Wait. Did he just let me off the hook? I beamed at him. "Really?"

He nodded. "You'll have plenty of time to study for your make-up test in detention. But for now..." Still smiling, he indicated the door with his thumb. Looking that way, I saw a flash of red hair in the hallway outside the window. Jazz. My hand went automatically to my pants pocket, where I'd stuffed a folded up note and a tattered turquoise headband. That was next on my agenda, talking to Jazz and finding out exactly how much she knew and when she knew it, since she clearly knew more about me and my "other life" than I'd ever suspected, judging by the note she'd sent into the Ghost Zone to find me ten years in the future. But even the specter of my sister knowing couldn't dampen my mood as I left the room, practically floating. I didn't cheat. I told the truth, and all I'm getting is detention. No failed test. No horrible future evil self with my humanity ripped out.

No dead family or friends.

That thought stopped me just as my hand came to rest on the doorknob. Looking back over my shoulder at Sam and Tuck, I smiled at them one more time. Never, guys. I promise.

Once outside, I sat down on the school's front steps and waited. I'm not sure how long I'd been sitting there, but when I heard the door open and footsteps on the stairs behind me, I didn't even have to turn around to know who it was. "So." I looked over my shoulder, grinning up at my sister. "How long have you known?"

She smiled back, a sort of motherly-pride smile, and it struck me then how much she looked like our mom. "About the test? For days. But I'm really proud of you for not cheating."

"Not that." I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ten-year-old note and headband, holding it out to her. "Your headband. Your note. Your handwriting."

She blushed. "What? That?" A strangled gulp escaped her as she started backpedaling with impressive speed. "Oh, I didn't write that. And there must be dozens of headbands—"

I raised one skeptical eyebrow at her. "Jazz."

Out of excuses, she stopped and sat down beside me, taking the note and headband from my outstretched hand. "Since the Spectra thing. I didn't want to tell you 'til you wanted to tell me. It's your secret."

"Well." I smiled, then sighed. "It's our secret now."

I hugged her then, my annoying, interfering, bossy, older sister, who not only had known for months what I'd been up to, but had been protecting me, covering for me with my parents and teachers, and I never even suspected. But now, with everything out in the open between us, I found myself holding onto her like a lifeline, more grateful to have her in my life than I ever would have thought possible until that moment.

When she pulled back, she gave me a wide-eyed smirk. "Don't think this means I'll stop being meddling and overprotective."

I laughed. It was like she'd read my mind. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

It was a weird feeling, this strange new alliance between my sister and me, and it might have been enough to make me realize just exactly how huge everything that had happened really was had it not been for the gigantic slime-monster ghost that picked that exact moment to ooze down the street, chasing after a cop car like a cat chasing a rat. By the time I'd gotten Slimy safely tucked inside a Fenton Thermos, I was a few blocks down the street, hovering right above the Nasty Burger.

The Nasty Burger. Still there, just as it had been before Clockwork saved my family and friends from the massive explosion from the overheated Nasty Sauce tank.

That was when it finally hit me. There, above the Nasty Burger, with its kitchen wall partially demolished from the earlier, smaller explosion with Box Lunch and that one little packet of Nasty Sauce. The place looked exactly as it had when I last saw it not even an hour ago, when—

When I almost killed everyone I love.

Not "when they were almost killed." When I almost killed them. And not in an I'm-responsible-because-my-enemies-did-this sort of way, like with Valerie and Vlad and the Ghost King. I know the difference between blame and responsibility.

Not even as in I-did-it-but-was-being-controlled, like with Sam and Freakshow. Although... kinda like that, come to think of it. It was déjà vu all over again as I remembered the fear in their eyes. In her eyes. Fear of me, and what I was capable of. Just like on the high wire or on top of that train, only multiplied a million times over.

Because this time, it wasn't just Sam. It was everyone I loved. Sam. Tucker. My parents. Jazz. Heck, even Mr. Lancer. Okay, he's not someone I love, reprieve from test-cheating consequences notwithstanding, but he sure as hell doesn't deserve to die just because he's really, really boring.

And, unlike with Freakshow, this time I wasn't being controlled. It was a choice. I chose to do this, to put them in harm's way, on purpose, knowing exactly what would happen. I wanted them to die, because I knew what it would set in motion. I knew that losing them all would be so horrific, so painful, that it would force me to go to the one person I knew who'd spent his whole life honing his own pain and loss until it was a sharp-edged dagger. The one person who could make me give up my humanity and not care anymore, because there was power in not caring.

And, apparently, power was more important to me than my humanity.

My only saving grace, the only thing that kept me from curling into a fetal position as I landed on the floor of the Nasty Burger's half-demolished kitchen, was that none of it ever actually happened. I saw what I would become, and I promised them—my mom, my dad, my sister, my friends—I promised them I would never become that. And I won't.

But I could have.

That's what haunted me as I looked around the wrecked burger joint that would have been the place of their deaths. Then, a glint of red caught my eye, and I saw the heating element from the broken warming table still leaning against the tank, heating the volatile sauce to dangerous levels. Suddenly furious, I attacked the warming table, as if destroying it and stopping the explosion from happening could change the truth. This villain, this future-me-that-I'd-never-become, he wasn't just some ghost I had to fight to save the people I love. He was me. A potential future, a choice I could have made, so easily. The fact that I didn't make that choice would never change the fact that I could have. I have it in me to be him.

"Danny?"

I looked up to see Sam and Tucker poking their heads in through the ruins of the kitchen wall. Without even thinking, I flew at them, practically knocking them over as I swept them both into a massive embrace. My face pressed against Sam's hair, I breathed in her licorice-and-cloves scent and squeezed my eyes closed to keep at bay the tears that threatened. "I am so sorry."

"Dude... air," Tucker choked out, pushing me back. When I let go of them both—with considerable reluctance—I changed back to human form. Tucker frowned at me. "Sorry for what?"

"For what he—for what I—did to you guys. For that whole fight, and strapping you all to the building, and..." I swallowed. "And almost not making it in time." Actually, I didn't make it in time. If it hadn't been for Clockwork...

Tucker and Sam exchanged looks, clearly confused and, when Sam turned back to me, her eyes were dark with worry. "Danny, are you okay? What are you talking about?"

It took a moment before I realized why they were confused—none of that ever happened. At least, not to them. To them, they took the test, I came clean to Mr. Lancer, and that was that. Everything that happened after that, their capture by my other self, my return from the future, the massive battle that followed—all of it had been erased when Clockwork turned back time to bring me back to the beginning of the C.A.T. test.

So I told them. I told them about the Time Medallion that had been fused inside me, about being stranded in the Ghost Zone in the future, about meeting all the ghosts whose afterlives my future self had destroyed, and about my new power, that Ghostly Wail. I told them about the boo-merang with Jazz's note on it, and how she'd known about my ghost powers for months. I told them about future Vlad, and the story he'd told me about how I'd become that... that thing by having Vlad use the Ghost Gauntlets to tear my ghost half from my human half, and how the ghost half had returned the favor, then fused with Vlad's ghost half and, presumably, killed my human side. And I told them about how the present me returned to this time to fight my evil self, and how I'd beaten him, but too late to stop the Nasty Burger from going up in flames. If it hadn't been for Clockwork...

Tucker's eyes were wide. "Whoa."

"Then it really wasn't you. It was him the whole time." Sam looked down at her hands. "Right up until you turned yourself in to Mr. Lancer."

I nodded.

"I knew something was wrong, that it wasn't you."

I pressed my lips together, not sure what to say to that, when Tucker intervened. "So. The freaky time dude is a good guy, then?"

"Yeah, definitely. He's the one who saved you guys." I closed my eyes. "Not me."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "That's not true, Danny." Sam's voice was low, almost a whisper. "You're the one who had to choose to do the right thing. You're the one who made it so none of that happened. He just... greased the works. So to speak."

With some difficulty, I opened my eyes and met her gaze. "You don't understand. Even though I won't become him, I could have. Just the fact that he existed at all, in any alternate universe, means the potential is there. The potential for me to be... like that." I tapped my chest with my index finger. "It's in here."

Tucker put his hand on my other shoulder. "Dude, you're being way too hard on yourself. You beat him."

"Barely."

He gave me a pointed look. "I'm not talking about the fight."

Sam took my hand in hers and guided it to my chest, over my heart. "You beat him in here, Danny. It's not your powers that were stronger. It's your heart."

I looked into her eyes again, and it was all I could do to keep from pulling her into my arms and holding her there forever. I looked from her to Tucker, then back again. "I love you guys. I would never... You know that, right?"

This time, it was they who grabbed me, enveloping me in a giant bear hug. "We know."

Chapter 19: Déjà vu: Sam

Déjà vu
Sam

It didn't hit me at first. I think, mostly, I was just so happy Danny was back from that scary future and was okay, that it didn't quite register that something was off. There was that brief—weirdness, I guess. A sort of déjà vu that I couldn't quite place, but then it was gone, and Danny was here, safe, and that was really all that mattered.

But when we were on our way to Tucker's house to play video games as Danny had suggested, the off-ness started to show through the cracks. He wouldn't give us any details about how he'd defeated his future self, and when Tucker and I remembered our run-in with Jazz and warned him that she knew he had the answers to the C.A.T. test, he didn't seem worried. In fact, he looked pleased, like he'd just heard a wonderful joke that he didn't want to share. He left in a hurry after that, anxious to go talk to Jazz, no doubt.

And what was really not right is that when he left, I was glad to see him go. Like... my skin had been crawling and I didn't even know it until he left and it stopped.

It was still bugging me an hour later. Leaning back on my elbows on Tucker's bed, I turned the whole encounter over in my mind. "Hey, Tuck? Does something seem... off about Danny?"

Tucker, more concerned about learning the next chord progression on Garage Band, shrugged. "I dunno. Going to some horrible future and finding out you turn into a bad guy has gotta be pretty freaky. And there's his sister and Mr. Lancer knowing about the C.A.T. test answers. That's enough to mess with anyone's head."

"That's just it. It wasn't messing with his head. It was like... he thought Jazz and Lancer knowing was funny. Days of stressing over that stupid test and then sweating over whether or not he should look at the answers, and suddenly it's all a big joke? Does that make any sense to you? And did you notice how he avoided giving us any details about how he defeated his future self? Or how he got back to the present?"

"He must've taken off his Time Medallion, same as us."

"But why was he so evasive about it? Not that I'd be all that happy talking about fighting an evil future version of myself, but still. Since when does Danny not fill us in after a fight?"

Tucker finally put the guitar controller down and looked at me. "Now that you mention it, I guess he was acting a little weird when he first got back. What was all that stuff about missing my 'droll sense of humor' in his 'weaker moments'?"

I nodded, letting what he'd said when we first found him outside the Nasty Burger replay through my head. It wasn't just the words themselves, which were odd enough, since Danny didn't use words like quips and droll. It was more the way he said them. The cadence of his speech, the sound of his voice. Something familiar that I couldn't quite place. Danny, but not Danny.

How should I scare you?

It was what he'd said to me after cutting the high wire out from under my feet while he was under Freakshow's control. But it wasn't the words, it was the voice. The same darkness, the same not-Danny-ness. The skin-crawly feeling was back, and I could feel the hairs pricking at the back of my neck. "Tucker... what if that wasn't Danny?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What if he didn't win the fight after all? What if... what if his evil future self is controlling him?"

"You mean, like Freakshow did with that crystal ball thing?"

I chewed my lip, trying to figure out exactly what it seemed like. "Maybe. Or..." My eyes widened. "Like he's being overshadowed."

Tucker raised his eyebrows. "You think Danny's being overshadowed by his own future self?"

"It's not like we haven't seen it before. When he split himself in two last week, and his super side overshadowed his... not-super side?"

"I don't know, Sam. He fought it off then, and his super side wasn't even trying to get him to do anything evil. Don't you think if a really evil ghost overshadowed him, he'd fight it off?"

"That future him was awfully powerful. And he had powers Danny doesn't have yet, like that wail thing. You know, the thing that brought a whole building down on top of us?" When Tucker still looked doubtful, I let out a huff of air. "Something's not right, Tuck. I don't know if that's it or not, but I do know Danny, and there's just something... not him about him. Just like with Freakshow."

Tucker shook his head. "No. It just... it can't be. You can't be right, because if you are, then that future is still gonna happen. And if it does, we're..." He looked a little green, and I was feeling kind of queasy myself.

"I know."

"Come on, Sam. This is Danny. Our best friend. He wouldn't let anything happen to us."

"Not our Danny, no."

"And you're sure he isn't our Danny?"

I sighed. "I'm not sure of anything, Tuck. I just know something doesn't feel right. About Danny, about this whole situation."

"What do you think we should do about it? Go after him with a Fenton Thermos? Do you really want to do that to our best friend?"

"No. But if it isn't him..." I chewed on my thumbnail, thinking. "Okay, what about this? Tomorrow's the C.A.T., right? Let's see what Danny does. If he doesn't cheat, then we know it's him and everything's fine."

"Even if he does cheat, it still could be him. He was gonna cheat before."

"But that whole trip to the future had to give him pause, don't you think? Let's just... let's see what happens tomorrow, okay?" Because if it wasn't him, I'd know.

At least, that's what I told myself.

---

I didn't sleep well that night, and when I got to the school for the C.A.T. test, Tucker was waiting for me outside, alone.

"Where's Danny?"

He shrugged. "Already inside, probably. You know how nervous he's been about this test." He tilted his head to look at me. "You still thinking he's not really him?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

"'Cause I had another thought when I passed the Nasty Burger on my way over here. He said he took care of it so that the place wouldn't blow up, right? But if something's wrong with him, or it wasn't really him..."

My eyes widened. "He would've been lying. And the Nasty Burger's still gonna explode after all." I grabbed Tucker's arm. "Did you go in and check to see if everything was okay?"

"No time. We'll worry about it after the test. If there's something wrong. Which I'm not sure there is."

"I hope you're right."

When Tucker and I got to Mr. Lancer's room, where the test was being held, Danny was already there, sitting at a desk in the front row. He smiled at me and Tucker when we took seats in the row next to him, but it wasn't a nervous smile, or a dorky smile, or even his I'm-a-bad-ass-superhero smile, or any other kind of smile I'd ever seen from him. It was more like... a leer. A very un-Danny-like, self-satisfied smirk that made my skin crawl all over again. Whatever was going on, the boy sitting in the chair next to me was not Danny. Not my Danny, anyway.

There was no time to do anything about it, though, because Lancer started passing out the tests. So, test first. Then we'd figure out what to do about not-Danny.

But something weird happened. I was scribbling my answers to the first few questions as fast as I could, when this strange sense of déjà vu came over me, almost like... like I'd already finished taking the test and was doing it all over again. I looked up, and Danny was no longer sitting at his desk, but standing beside it, facing the back of the room, holding the file folder of test answers in his hands. That's weird. I don't remember seeing him get up from his seat...

And there was something different about him, too. Something in the way he stood, with his shoulders straight. Not a cocky kind of straight, like he was when we first walked into the room. A sort of confident straight. An I-know-what-I-have-to-do-now kind of straight

And then, he smiled at me, and I almost melted into a puddle of relief where I sat. It was a normal smile. A Danny smile. My Danny. I wasn't sure how it was my Danny—if he'd thrown off the overshadowing, or broken whatever control the other ghost had on him, or what—but however he'd done it, he was himself again.

Mr. Lancer looked up from the book he was reading. Seeing Danny standing there, not taking the test, he coughed. "Mr. Fenton? Is there a problem?"

"Um... actually, Mr. Lancer..." Danny turned around. "There is." He walked up to the front of the classroom. "I, uh, found this the other day." Laying the file folder down on the desk, he slid it across to Mr. Lancer. "Outside the Nasty Burger."

I glanced back at Tucker, who let out a big breath of air as he sunk back in his seat in relief, then mouthed the words I told you so to me. Too happy about Danny's sudden change to care about Tucker's smugness, I turned forward again and watched as Mr. Lancer examined the open folder, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Hm. The seal has been broken."

Danny's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I know. A-a-and I'm sorry. I couldn't stop myself from looking at the answers. But I'm not a cheater. And I never will be."

"Well, you'll have the chance to prove that when you take the make-up test next week." Then, Mr. Lancer smiled. "Now, won't you?"

Even with Danny's back turned to me, I could feel the smile radiating from him. "Really?"

Still grinning like a proud dad, Mr. Lancer nodded. "You'll have plenty of time to study for your make-up test in detention. But for now..." He hitched his thumb toward the classroom door, indicating that Danny was dismissed. Danny nodded, then practically bounced out the door as if he were seventy pounds lighter than when he'd walked in. As he turned the knob, he glanced back over his shoulder at me and Tuck, giving us another smile, and then he left the room, leaving the rest of us to finish our tests.

---

We looked for Danny after the test was over, but he was nowhere to be found. Then, Tucker suggested that maybe it would be smart to check the Nasty Burger to make sure Danny really had taken care of it so it wouldn't blow up.

That's where we found him, in ghost form, in the half-demolished kitchen of the fast food restaurant, attacking the broken heat lamp like it was Vlad Plasmius and he'd just made a lewd comment about Danny's mother.

Hesitantly, I called out to him through the remains of the broken wall. "Danny?"

He looked up, then, without warning, flew at us, gathering us both into such a massive embrace that he almost squeezed the air out of my lungs. I could feel him press his face against my hair and, when he finally spoke, his voice was a ragged croak. "I am so sorry."

"Dude... air." Tucker, sounding as out of breath as I felt, pushed Danny back. He let go of us, changing back to human form as he did so, and Tucker frowned at him. "Sorry for what?"

"For what he—for what I—did to you guys. For that whole fight, and strapping you all to the building, and..." He looked like he was going to throw up. "And almost not making it in time."

Tucker and I looked at each other, completely lost. Worried that maybe the weirdness of the future and that... other ghost had messed with his head, I turned back to him. "Danny, are you okay? What are you talking about?"

He blinked, then shook his head, as if slightly dazed. "That's right, it didn't really happen for you guys." And then he told us everything, from when we'd removed our Time Medallions and left the future, until that moment in the classroom, when he'd been himself again.

When he was done, Tucker gaped at him. "Whoa."

It all made sense. "Then it really wasn't you. It was him the whole time." I looked down, trying not to think about how that thing had been right there with us, at the Nasty Burger, at the test. "Right up until you turned yourself in to Mr. Lancer."

He nodded.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I knew something was wrong, that it wasn't you."

He just looked at me, his blue eyes so dark and full of self-reproach, but I didn't know what to say to make it better. Fortunately, Tucker offered a convenient distraction. "So. The freaky time dude is a good guy, then?"

Danny nodded once more. "Yeah, definitely. He's the one who saved you guys." He closed his eyes, his jaw tight. "Not me."

I reached out, resting my hand on his shoulder. "That's not true, Danny. You're the one who had to choose to do the right thing. You're the one who made it so none of that happened. He just... greased the works. So to speak."

He opened his eyes and looked at me, and I hated the pain I saw there. "You don't understand," he said, his voice strangled. "Even though I won't become him, I could have. Just the fact that he existed at all, in any alternate universe, means the potential is there. The potential for me to be... like that." He pointed at his own chest. "It's in here."

Tucker patted him on his other shoulder. "Dude, you're being way too hard on yourself. You beat him."

"Barely."

With an admonishing look, Tucker told him, "I'm not talking about the fight."

I took Danny's hand and brought it back to his chest. "You beat him in here, Danny. It's not your powers that were stronger. It's your heart."

He looked at me, and my mouth went dry until he turned to Tucker, including both of us in his sober gaze. "I love you guys. I would never... You know that, right?"

We both grabbed him, pulling him into another embrace. "We know."

Chapter 20: Clueless: Danny

Clueless
Danny

He was completely clueless. The ring—it was a nice idea. Kind of awesome, actually, in a sort of old-school way that was just so right. But what was he thinking, having it engraved? I'm in high school looking towards what might quite possibly be my first real girlfriend—spells, overshadowing, and other ghostly interference excluded—not an adult looking for anything permanent. And to top it all off, he engraved it with the wrong name. I mean, seriously. Sam? We were just friends. How is it possible that my dad could be so clueless?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It didn't start with the ring. It started with an instant message with a girl. A girl I liked who actually seemed to like me back. And not just any girl, either. Not someone vain and shallow and totally wrapped up in herself, like Paulina, but someone real. Smart, funny, gorgeous, a kick-ass ghost fighter—

Okay, so that last part wasn't exactly a good thing, since the ghost she most wanted to fight was me. But she didn't know that, and I was sure I could eventually convince her she was wrong about Danny Phantom, and then Valerie and I could live happily ever after...

Sam, of course, protective—and cynical—as always, wasn't so sure. I'd stayed up way too late IMing with Valerie, about nothing, about everything, about stuff like that idiot Technus attacking at the mall or how I wanted to be an astronaut and how her mother died of breast cancer when she was nine. Mostly it was just... getting to know her and enjoying every second of it. So the next morning, I was telling Sam and Tucker all about it on the front steps to the school. Okay, raving was probably more accurate, but give a guy a break. A girl I liked liked me back. And have I mentioned how awesome she is?

But Sam was convinced I was "flirting with disaster."

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You should really give her a chance, Sam. I know she wants to waste Danny Phantom, but did you know that she's a ninth-degree black belt? That her favorite fruit is kumquat, because it's a funny word?"

Sam was not impressed. "No, Danny. I didn't. Because I never really get past the 'waste Danny Phantom' part!"

"Pft." I dismissed her concerns with a wave of my hand. "She'll figure out Danny Phantom is one of the good guys, and everything will be fine. You'll see. Just... give her a chance, okay?"

Sam just crossed her arms and arched her eyebrow at me, but I ignored it and walked past her up the steps and into the school. She'd come around, too. Eventually. I hope.

She and Tucker followed me into the school, stopping at their lockers along the way, but I kept going, hoping to catch Valerie before class. Sure enough, as I rounded the corner, I saw her headed toward me, talking with Starr. About me, apparently, judging by what I caught of what Starr was saying. "...is that his family is a bunch of ghost hunting freaks." It was then that she saw me and realized I'd heard her. "Oh, I'm sorry. By 'freak' I mean..." She stopped, remembering she was talking to one of the Great Unwashed Masses of The Unpopular and therefore not worth the effort. "Nah, I mean it. See ya, Val. See ya, freak."

Fortunately, Valerie's own outcast status with most of the A-List ever since her dad's bankruptcy had given her a few months of perspective, and what the popular crowd thought no longer concerned her much. "Oh, don't mind her."

I turned to her, feigning confusion. "Her? Was there another girl with you? I hadn't noticed."

She raised an eyebrow at me, but her smile was enough to melt me where I stood. "Pretty cheesy, Neil Armstrong. You got lunch plans?"

"I'll have to check my schedule, but I think I'm open." I swallowed, screwing up my nerve. "The real question is, do you have dinner plans?"

She flashed another soul-melting smile. "Why? What did you have in mind?"

---

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough money to make our first date anything more elaborate than sharing some fries at some greasy spoon—I knew better than to take her to the Nasty Burger, since she worked there. But it ended up being pretty romantic when the lights went out and the bus boy stuck a pair of candles on our table.

Our second date turned out pretty good, too. Val's dad had scored some tickets through Axion Labs to a baseball game—great seats behind home plate, too—and he'd passed them along to us. The team reeked, but we had a blast anyway, and we were even in the winning seats when they gave away two tickets to the carnival that had just come to town.

That was our third date, which was better than the first two combined. We were riding the ferris wheel when another power outage hit just as we came over the top. I couldn't believe my luck. It was almost like the universe wanted the two of us to be together. I'd have been an idiot to try the old are-you-afraid-of-heights ploy, of course, considering the fact that the girl regularly rode around on a jet sled like she was the Silver Surfer. As it turned out, though, I didn't need to. While we waited for the power to come back on, she leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder.

And if the power never came on again, that would've been just fine by me.

That night, as we stood in the hallway of her apartment building in front of her door, I tried to get up the courage to kiss her good night. "Well, Val, I... uh... I had a really good time."

She looked as nervous as I felt. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? "Me, too, Danny. A really good time."

Okay, that was definitely a good thing. I swallowed and leaned a little closer. "So, I, uh—"

The door flew open and I jumped back like she was on fire when her dad—her very large, ex-marine dad—poked his head out. "Kids! How was the carnival?"

"Daaaaad!" Valerie cried out, horrified, while I took another three steps back from the very-large-ex-marine's daughter.

"It was fun, Mr. Gray! And thanks again for the baseball tickets. We wouldn't have won the carnival tickets without them."

"No problem, Danny." His smile looked genuine rather than threatening, so I breathed a little easier. Still, the protective hand he put on Valerie's shoulder wasn't exactly subtle. "I'm glad you kids had fun. Have a good night, now."

Valerie scowled and jerked her shoulder away from her father's hand. "Thanks again, Danny. See you at school tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I..." I glanced at Mr. Gray, but other than making it very clear that it was time for me to leave, he wasn't really giving me any particularly menacing looks. Not like Paulina's father that time I took her to the school dance. Once more, I screwed up my courage. "Meet me at your locker before class? I'll be there early."

"Sure." She smiled and gave me a little wave. "Night, Danny."

Even without my ghost powers, I could've floated home that night.

---

It was too late to call Sam or Tucker, so I was kind of hoping they'd be early to school, too, so I could talk to them before I talked to Valerie. I'd already given them the low-down on our first two dates, of course, but this time it felt like... something more. Like maybe this was going somewhere more serious than sharing french fries or a baseball game or a ride on a ferris wheel. And if that was the case, then I had to talk about it with my two best friends first. It was almost like it wouldn't be quite real until I could share it with them. And if things did get more serious, maybe she'd trust me enough that I could tell her the truth about who I really was and she might finally believe that Danny Phantom wasn't her enemy, that I'd never tried to hurt her.

Sam would hate it, of course, as protective as she was. That gnawed at me a little, but I wasn't sure why. She'd always hated my crush on Paulina, too, and that had never bothered me. But for some reason, it was really important to me that she be okay with Valerie. That she understand.

Fortunately for me, they were early, too, and I ran into them just before we got to school. But before I could even get out a greeting, let alone tell them about my date with Valerie, Sam took me by the arm and dragged me into the side yard of the school. "We need to talk."

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you guys, too. You know, Valerie and I, we've—"

Sam cut me off. "It's Technus, Danny. He's pushing you two together."

I stopped, my jaw hanging open a moment before I recovered enough to speak. "Technus is what now?"

"He's pushing you and Valerie together! Tucker and I saw him, on Tucker's PDA. It gets all static-y whenever Technus is around, and Technus seems to be around whenever you and Valerie are together. At the mall, and then again when we were all chatting on webcam just before you got that instant message from her, and even at the fairgrounds. It was Technus, messing with you, trying to push you two together."

I blinked at her, then gave her the only response I could give a statement like that.

I laughed. Hard. For a really long time.

Sam was not amused. "Are you done yet?"

"No." I leaned back against the trunk of a tree to keep from falling over as I laughed some more. Finally, when I could catch my breath, I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. "Okay, now I'm done." I looked at Sam, trying not to laugh again. "You're telling me that Technus is trying to hook me up? Come on! Technus hates emotions!"

"And, hello! He's using yours against you!"

Tucker, who up to this point had let Sam make all the ridiculous accusations, gave me a sober look. "Dimmed lights? Stalled ferris wheels? Do you think the universe wants you two to be together?"

I stopped. That was exactly what I'd been thinking, but when Tucker said it out loud, it seemed stupid and childish. "Well, maybe... but... I don't know..." I was stammering, feeling even more ridiculous when I tried to defend it. Of course there was no cosmic force that wanted us together. Why would there be? We were just a couple of high school kids from a small mid-western town, not Romeo and Juliet. It was just a string of coincidences, that's all. Not fate or destiny. And certainly not Technus.

Only, what I realized at that moment was that it didn't matter if the universe wanted us together. "I might."

Sam gasped, no doubt worried about the whole ghost hunting thing, and even Tucker blinked in surprise. "Uh... really? Because Tech—"

"Uh, tech...nically..." Sam cut him off, then seemed to be at a loss for words. "Because... we just want you to be happy!" It came out in a rush, like if she didn't get it out quickly, she might not get it out at all. "If you like her, we'll just have to make space for her at our table."

I wasn't sure what to make of her sudden, unexpected turnaround. It was what I'd wanted, for Sam to be okay with Valerie, so why did I feel so awkward? Still, she was my best friend, and she was making an effort, so it was all good, right? I could be with Valerie without totally alienating Sam, which I definitely didn't want. So I accepted her blessing with a smile. "And speaking of Valerie, I'm supposed to meet her before class."

But as I headed back toward the front of the school, I couldn't shake the weirdness of the entire conversation. It wasn't like Sam to give up on an idea once she got it into her head, so why would she just drop it like that? And how would she get such an idea into her head in first place? It was absurd. I laughed out loud. "Technus as matchmaker. Please."

A crack behind me, like a branch breaking, brought me up short. Spinning on my heel, I looked around, but the sidewalk was empty, since it was still a little early for school. I frowned, shaking it off. "Um... it's nothing." Why was I so jumpy all of a sudden, anyway? "Sam was probably being paranoid."

Might have even convinced myself of that, if it hadn't been for the whine of turbines behind me.

I turned around once more, gasping when I saw Valerie—or at least Valerie's suit—rising up on her jet sled from behind a tree, pointing a weapon at me. In my human form. Even though Valerie didn't know I was her personal Ghost Enemy Number One.

But Technus did.

I grimaced. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw flashes of blue numbers, like something out of The Matrix in the faceplate of the helmet. "But it doesn't mean she's not right. Valerie's... not in there, is she?"

It was a thin, reedy, Gilbert Godfrey-esque voice that answered. Technus. "No, she's not. She's over there." The suit pointed, and I saw Valerie heading toward me on the sidewalk. "In full view," Technus finished.

Valerie caught sight of me, smiled and waved. Gritting my teeth, I forced a smile and waved back before returning my attention to Technus and the big-ass ecto-rifle he was pointing at me.

"You should run now."

There wasn't much else I could do, not without going ghost, which I couldn't do with Valerie standing right there. So I ran—right past her, barely catching what she said as I flew by.

"Hey, Danny! Sam and I just had the greatest conversation, and—" And that's all I heard.

Furious, I looked back over my shoulder as I tried to stay ahead of the ghost-controlled suit. "You were pushing Valerie and me together!"

"You're welcome!" he shouted back as he took aim with Valerie's ecto-weapon and fired it at me. I managed to dodge a few blasts before hurling myself into a tuck-and-roll in the school's side yard. Somersaulting to my feet, I triggered the rings of light that would change me to ghost form, but Technus wagged a finger at me. "Uh-uh-uh, careful!" He waved the arm of Valerie's suit towards the school—and the security camera hanging on the wall near the side door. "Secret identity, remember?"

Why was it that the only ones who knew I had a secret identity were the ghosts who wanted to crush me? I stopped the transformation before it even got started, and the ring of light that had formed around my waist disappeared.

Technus continued baiting me. "I wonder who'll miss you more—the angry ghost hunter, or the frustrated little goth girl who can't admit her feelings."

My stomach dropped. First he messes with Valerie and me, and now he drags Sam into this? He was toast as soon as I could go ghost. And what the hell was that supposed to mean, anyway? "What are you—?"

"Ah, well! Nothing you need to worry about now, because you are through interfering with my plans!" Then, he trained some sort of targeting beam on me as he fed power to his weapon, crowing in victory. As long as I was in human form, I couldn't do anything to dodge a blast, not at this close range. "So long, child!"

And then, a carton of milk flew out of nowhere and smacked him in the head, knocking the gun off-target.

What the...?

It was Valerie. She'd thrown the milk carton and was now standing in the street, holding a huge stick in her hand—a stick?—and looking well and truly pissed. Before I could even blink, she shouted out some sort of martial arts cry, then leaped at the suit, using her stick to knock it clean off the sled, sending the ecto-weapon flying from its grip. Landing nimbly on her feet before the suit even hit the ground, Valerie shouted out to me. "Danny! Run!"

Her suit landed with a thud at my feet, not down by a long shot, and I looked from it to Valerie. "But—"

"Just run!"

"Oh, I'm running. Running to get help!"

I took off in the opposite direction, looking for a place where I could go ghost without anyone seeing me. I think I ran past Sam and Tucker, who must've seen at least part of what was going on, but there was no time to fill them in or get their help. I had to change and change fast before Valerie, vulnerable without her suit, took the brunt of Technus's beef with me. Ducking around a corner, I found a trash dumpster and jumped inside. There, I finally was able to morph into ghost form, then flew out, stopping only long enough to go intangible to let the garbage fall off of me.

By the time I got back to the fight, Technus had already managed to nail Valerie with her own ecto-rifle and was advancing on her for another shot.

Not if I could help it.

Angrier than I ever remember being, I launched myself at him, my momentum knocking him across the street and a couple blocks over into a clock tower. He shot back with Valerie's rifle, recalled her sled to him, and tried once more to hit me, but I was ready for him this time. I blasted him with as much ecto-plasm as I could muster, hitting the sled right in its engine. It exploded, sending pieces of the sled crashing back down to the ground, while Valerie, Tucker, and Sam ran for cover. The suit itself landed mostly intact and was clambering to its feet just as I touched down on the street in front of it.

Glaring at the suit—Valerie's suit—my anger boiled over. "Valerie's not in there. Which means I'm not holding back!" Gathering my energy, I hurled out another massive blast of ecto-plasm, taking out the suit's right arm. Another ray took out the left leg, and the suit tottered to the ground, then staggered back up on its one good leg. "Say good-bye, punk!" I shouted, nailing him with one final blast, which blew a huge hole right through the suit's chest. Finally, it fell, and I grinned—until I saw the countdown in the faceplate. Realizing it must be some sort of self-destruct mechanism, I flew up into the air as fast as I could, getting clear just before the suit exploded in a massive ball of pink ecto-energy.

As pieces of it rained down all around the street in front of the school, Valerie ran out from the cover of the steps she'd ducked under and grabbed the suit's torso, now with a massive hole through it. She was cradling it against her own chest as I landed. Looking up at me, there was an expression in her eyes I'd never seen from her before. Not anger or bitterness or loathing but... defeat?

And that's when it hit me. She didn't know I knew it wasn't her. In her mind, I'd just gone at her, full-throttle. With the intent to kill.

The school bell rang, then, and not sure what else I could do, I flew away as fast as I could.

---

I didn't see Valerie the rest of the day. I spent most of the morning in Principal Ishyama's office as she, Mr. Lancer, and a police officer questioned me about the "robot attack" and why it had come after me. It was pretty easy to feign ignorance—I'd been doing it for months, ever since the Accident—and they eventually let me go back to class, where I heard from Tucker that Valerie had been sent home after they'd talked to her.

After school, Sam and Tucker came over to my house, and we went straight to my room to hash out what had happened and what Technus was up to. It wasn't hard to figure out—Tucker deduced pretty quickly that he was after that super computer in space, the one that could control every other computer on the planet, but could only be accessed through the hub at Axiom Labs.

I, however, had other things on my mind.

My distraction didn't escape Tucker's notice. "You okay?"

I sighed. "You should've seen Valerie's face. I'm sure she thinks I was trying to waste her."

Sam stood up from her seat near the window. "But you weren't."

"It doesn't matter. If I wanna ask Valerie out, I'm gonna have to never tell her I'm Danny Phantom. But first..." I got up off the bed, my jaw set in determination. "We're gonna get rid of that virus called Technus once and for all."

Just as I got to the door, however, my dad appeared there, blocking the way. "Danny! Word on the street is, you got yourself a girlfriend!"

I winced in horror as he nudged me with his elbow, then threw his arm around my shoulders. To Sam and Tucker he said, "Uh... can you two leave so I can have a totally awkward father/son chat?"

They couldn't get out fast enough, leaving me defenseless and alone with my completely clueless dad.

Dragging me down into the kitchen, he scooped out two bowls of ice cream. "I'm gonna give you some fatherly advice. Then, I'm gonna say something that makes you cringe and run out of the room in embarrassment."

Like that would be anything new. "Check," I said, resigned to my fate. "Advice first?"

"All right. If you really like this girl, Danny, you should let her know. Give her something... like this."

And that's where the ring came in. He laid it out on the table in front of me like an offering. I looked from it to him, confused. "A class ring?" His undergraduate class ring, to be exact. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984, with a bright green stone set in a thick, gold band.

"A girlfriend's not a girlfriend until you give her a class ring, Danny." He leaned over and put his arm around me as I picked up the ring for a closer look, intrigued by the idea. "It also says, 'I think you could be the girl I fight ghosts with.' Or... at least it did with your mom. I don't know how appropriate that is for you."

I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony. "You'd be surprised." I held up the ring, liking the idea more and more. "I can give her this?"

"Only if she's special." He flashed a broad, knowing grin. "I'm sure Sam'll love it!"

I could almost hear the record scratch in my head as my brain came to a complete stop. "It's not for Sam!" I mean, come on! She and I were just friends! Why was that so hard for people to wrap their minds around?

He gave an awkward titter as he started backpedaling. "Of course it's not! You guys are just friends!"

Well, duh!

Then, he leaned in toward me with another knowing look. "I even had it engraved..."

I closed one eye and examined the ring more closely. Sure enough, engraved on the inside of the band in a simple font was a name. Sam.

Great. Even putting aside the fact that he had the wrong girl, why on earth would he engrave any girl's name into his class ring? It's not like at age fourteen I'd found the girl I was gonna spend the rest of my life with. Sure, I really did like Sam—no, wait. Valerie. I liked Valerie. See how this was already messing with my head?

My dad leaned even closer and whispered as if he were sharing a secret from the world. "See, now, that was the embarrassing thing."

That was an understatement. Have I mentioned how clueless my dad is?

---

I told Sam and Tucker about the ring on our way to Axion to kick Technus's butt. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. Tucker laughed at me for being too old school, and Sam... I don't know what was up with Sam. She just gave me this look before turning quickly away, but for a second there, she almost seemed... hurt. I knew she was overprotective about Valerie and her issues with Danny Phantom, but she was just gonna have to get past it. Still, it was better than Tucker's mocking me, so when it hit me that I should leave the ring behind rather than take it into battle with Technus and risk losing it, or Valerie seeing it with the wrong me, Sam was the one I asked to hold it for me.

Once inside Axion Labs, I tried to find my way back to the room that contained the hub for the Cyberton Megacomputer. When I found that, I'd find Technus.

Instead, I found Valerie. She and her dad were in the cafeteria, having a father/daughter chat eerily similar to the father/son chat I'd just had with my own dad. There was even ice cream involved. I know I probably shouldn't have listened in, but I couldn't help myself when I heard her dad mention me.

"You really risked your neck to save that Fenton kid."

"Yeah, I like him a lot." Valerie smiled. "Maybe even enough to give up ghost hunting."

Now I was the one smiling. Not just about the like him a lot part—although that was pretty sweet—but if she actually gave up ghost hunting? No more worries about her wasting Danny Phantom. Even Sam would have to be okay with everything then.

"Clueless One, this is Goth One. Over." Sam's voice blared in my ear through the Fenton Phones, the sound cranked up so loud, some of it leaked out, startling the Grays and forcing me to bug out, fast.

When I got clear of the cafeteria, it was safe to answer her. "Goth One, this is Clueless One." Wait. "Why am I Clueless One?"

"Tell him!" That was Tucker.

Sam growled. "Shut it!"

I was gonna ask what the heck they were talking about, but as I phased through a wall, I finally found what I was looking for—the Megacomputer hub. "I'm in," I reported back to Sam and Tucker as I looked around the room, catching sight of the X-23 Booster Rocket in a shielded display. It looked like one of those flying jet packs from some sci-fi movie, but it could actually launch a single person into space. Of course, no human could withstand the friction of launch or re-entry without some sort of super heat-resistant space suit, and they hadn't yet figured out how to make one that was both strong enough to protect an astronaut and light enough to actually wear, so the X-23 was still years away from being viable for actual use.

But, then, I wasn't exactly human. And if Technus accomplished his goal of getting from the hub up to the actual Megacomputer satellite in space, then I was gonna need to be able to get up in space, too. With that in mind, I phased my hand through the security shield around the jet pack and took it as I continued checking out the room. All along the wall, the banks of monitors hooked to the Cybertron Megacomputer hub were flickering with the same static and flickering blue numbers Tucker had seen on his PDA and I'd seen in the faceplate of Valerie's suit when it was attacking me. "And from the looks of the computer, Technus is still in there."

A door slammed open behind me, and I gasped as Valerie and her dad came into the room. Valerie looked like she could have happily torn off my head off with her teeth. "You!"

"Oh, darn it."

Her dad didn't look any happier. "Get away from that!" He pulled out some sort of ecto-weapon and shot at me.

Flying up into the air to dodge the blast, I pointed at the Megacomputer hub and tried to explain. "There's an evil ghost in that thing trying to take control of your computer satellite!"

They weren't buying it, and Valerie still had murder in her eyes. "Yeah, and we're looking at him!"

"And you expect us to believe you?" her dad added.

Not really, no. I was, after all, the ghost both of them thought was responsible for Mr. Gray losing his original contract with Axion and the bankruptcy that followed.

Valerie found the remains of her battle suit stacked in the corner. Grabbing the torso and helmet piece, she held it up to her father. "See why I need to hunt these ghosts? They think they can do whatever they want. But somebody has to stop them!"

It was pointless trying to convince either one of them I was on their side. If I went invisible before Mr. Gray could get another shot off...

I never even got the chance. A blue beam of light blasted out of a security camera in the corner of the room, and before I could even register this new threat, it hit Valerie, enveloping her in white light.

"VALERIE!"

I thought it was my own voice crying out her name in horror, but it must have been her dad, because every muscle in my body, including my throat, had completely locked up. I watched, helpless, while Valerie rose into the air, her arms outstretched as if she were some sort of sacrificial offering to the gods. She began to rotate slowly, and then pieces of her broken battle suit began flying toward her, fitting themselves to her like armor plating. When she was completely covered, she landed back on the floor and, extending her arms upwards, shot electric bolts of blue and white lightening so bright it blinded me for a moment.

When the light dimmed enough that I could see again, Valerie was standing on the floor, outfitted in her suit. Only... it wasn't really her suit. Not the same suit, anyway. It was black and red, sleeker than before, and the helmet now had a tinted red faceplate through which I could make out her features, including her victorious expression. "Oh, yeah. This is gonna be good."

Ironic, since the only thing running through my otherwise frozen brain was, So not good.

A massive burst of white noise from the Megacomputer hub drew my attention away from Valerie, and Technus's booming laugh resonated from everywhere all at once. "It's over, child!" A video screen behind me went to static, then resolved into Technus's face. "You can't stop me now!"

"We'll see about that!" Whatever he'd done to Valerie—and it was his doing, that much I knew—it would have to wait. He'd somehow made it from the hub into computer satellite orbiting the Earth, which gave him control over every other computer in the world and made him a more pressing concern, no matter how freaky what had just happened to Valerie was. Spotting an astronaut's suit and helmet hanging on the wall beside the display that had housed the X-23 booster pack, I knew exactly what I had to do. I slipped the X-23 onto my back like a backpack and buckled it in place, then grabbed the helmet off the space suit and placed it over my own head. Thus outfitted, I switched on the jet pack's booster rockets. They rumbled, shooting out exhaust and rattling the whole building around me before launching me upward so fast I almost didn't go intangible in time to avoid crashing into the room's vaulted ceiling.

In seconds, I'd phased through the entire building and was hurtling up faster than I'd ever flown before. My scream of terror turned into one of exhilaration as I rose higher and higher and it hit me exactly what I was doing. I was going into space. My one lifelong dream, and I was actually doing it. "Hey! I'm an astronaut!"

"Uh, Danny?" Sam's voice in the Fenton Phone I was still wearing in my ear barely registered as I whooped with joy, performing flips in the micro-gravity of space that even my ghost powers didn't allow me in the atmosphere.

"Danny, come in. Stay alert. You have company."

That brought me back to Earth—figuratively, anyway. "Company?" I was in space. Who else could possibly be up here with me? "What kind of company—?"

A blast of pink ecto-plasm answered me before Sam could. I managed to dodge it, twisting around to see a familiar figure rocketing toward me from below. Valerie? But how? Her battle suit and jet sled couldn't possibly be enough to launch her into space, not without killing her in the process.

Could it? What the hell did Technus do to her?

In my ear, Sam confirmed what my eyes couldn't quite believe, her voice thick with the kind of resignation that usually involved her parents and pink, floral prints. "It's your girlfriend."

Unable to wrap itself around the idea of Valerie's suit somehow being transformed into something that could launch her safely into space, my mind locked onto Sam's words, trying to reclaim some sense of normalcy as I threw myself upward, hoping to get out of Valerie's range. "She's not my girlfriend until I give her the ring."

This time it was Tucker who responded. "What is this, 1955?"

Ignoring the jibe, I cut the rockets on my jet pack, which killed my forward momentum and sent me spinning out of control in the zero gravity. Valerie shot past me before realizing what had happened and killing her own jets, which threw her into a spin as well. Unfortunately, she managed to gain control before I could, and got me in the sites of her wrist blaster. With no gravity and air pressure to keep her balance against the force of the blast, however, it propelled her backwards, sending her reeling out of control once more.

I dodged the beam and was about to go after Valerie before she could tumble back into the atmosphere or bounce off of it back into space, but another howl of maniacal laughter sounded in my Fenton Phones, and the Megacomputer Satellite, now completely under Technus's control, rose over the horizon of the planet below. Flying erratically rather than in a steady orbit, the satellite begin shooting beams of energy down towards the Earth, causing who knew what kind of damage. I restarted the rockets on my jet pack and hurtled after the satellite, shooting at it with my ecto-plasm, but the thing must have been shielded against all sorts of energy, because my ghost rays just bounced off its hull. I killed the jets again, trying to think up another angle of attack, when something very hard and very fast struck me from behind, nearly knocking the wind out of me.

Twisting around, I found myself caught between the twin prongs at the front of Valerie's new-and-improved jet sled. She stepped down on one of the controls, and before I could even begin to try and pry myself loose, a bolt of energy laced between the two prongs, hitting my jet pack, which in turn zapped me with what felt like a million volts of electricity. My body began spasming, and I could feel the ecto-plasm building up in my hands like some sort of reflex.

The next thing I knew, there was an explosion of green light and, for a minute, I thought I was back in my parents' Ghost Portal, reliving the Accident that had given me my ghost powers. Then, I was flying backwards, clear of Valerie's sled and the electrocuting beams of energy. I tumbled through space, struggling to regain control, and when I did, I could see my hands, still glowing green with ecto-plasmic energy. And in the distance, I saw Valerie in a slow tumble. She was hanging from her sled at an odd angle, clearly unconscious.

I gasped, looking from my hands to Valerie as I realized what had happened. I did this. I caused the explosion that had blasted us apart. I'd hurt her. Someone I cared about. Again.

No, not me. Technus. He was the one responsible.

Furious, I set my sights back on that satellite and the ghost that was controlling it, then finally came up with a plan. Setting the booster jets at their highest setting, I let the thing overload. It rocketed me towards the satellite at an alarming rate but, at the last second, I went intangible. Just me, not the jet pack. No longer attached to my back, it hurtled towards the satellite, crashing into it, then detonating in a brilliant explosion that sent debris raining in all directions. I didn't imagine that even an explosion in space could actually destroy Technus but, without the satellite to control, he was no longer a major threat, and my attention immediately returned to Valerie.

I found her just as a small piece of debris bounced off her helmet, jarring her awake. Immediately, she righted herself and, for a moment, I caught sight of her eyes through the tinted faceplate of her new helmet, and nearly froze at the rage I saw there. She was looking for me, I realized. She thought I'd done this, that I'd hurt her. Intentionally.

My heart squeezing in my chest, I went invisible and watched as she searched for me. When she eventually gave up and headed back down towards Earth, I latched onto the side of her sled, hitching a ride back home, since I no longer had any means of propelling myself through space with enough force to get me back into the Earth's atmosphere.

As I clung onto the side of her sled, keeping myself intangible to avoid the friction of the atmosphere, and invisible to avoid the even more intense heat of her anger, I watched her, feeling more miserable by the second. Why did I keep hurting the people I cared about? First Sam, then Sam again, along with Tucker and my entire family, and now Valerie. But unlike Sam and Tucker, Val believed with every fiber of her being that I wanted to hurt her. That I'd meant for this to happen.

My only saving grace was that she didn't know it was me. In her mind, Danny Phantom was nothing but a ghost, completely unrelated to Danny Fenton, the boy she liked.

At least I still had that.

---

"Here you go." Sam dropped my dad's class ring into my open palm, looking and sounding brighter than I would have expected after everything that had happened the day before. Maybe she was finally getting over that protective streak of hers? She was trying, at least, and for that I was more grateful than I could ever have told her.

Closing my hand around the ring, I forced the image of Valerie's face and her anger at Danny Phantom out of my mind, trying to focus on instead on the nervous excitement in the pit of my stomach. It was after school and Sam and Tucker were keeping me company as I hung around at a table outside the school, hoping to catch Valerie on her way out. I hadn't had much of a chance to talk with her after everything that happened the day before, and I wanted to take the first opportunity I could to give her the ring and make our relationship official.

Tucker gave me an apprehensive look. "You sure about this?"

"Well, she said she'd give up ghost hunting." It was meant to reassure him—and myself—that the wanting-to-waste-Danny-Phantom thing would be a non-issue, but just thinking what she'd said to her dad made me smile in wonder. "For me." When this didn't seem to put either Tucker or Sam at ease, I forged on, determined not to let their fears scare me out of something I really wanted. "Besides, I like her, and she likes me back. Isn't it supposed to be that simple?"

Now my two so-called best friends exchanged eye rolls as they said in unison, "Clueless."

I was about to make some sort of smart-aleck comeback, but a hand on my shoulder and a familiar, throaty voice drove whatever I was going to say right out of my head. "Danny?"

My heart started thumping in my chest as I turned to look up at Valerie. I hadn't really expected her to come looking for me. "Wow." I let out a nervous chuckle and stood up to face her. "I-I'm glad you're here. I...wanted to ask you something."

"Actually, me first," she said. Out off the corner of my eye, I saw Tucker get up to leave us alone, Sam following him, but my attention was mostly on Valerie and the ring that I was gripping tightly in my embarrassingly sweaty left hand. She paused, looking almost as nervous as I felt. "Danny... I've had a lot of fun these last few days, but... my life's way too complicated right now for us to be anything other than..." She paused again, looking down. "Friends."

I blinked, feeling like she'd just punched me in the chest. This was not what I'd been expecting. "Just friends? But... but..." I kept stammering, trying to get words out that made sense. "I thought..."

"I thought, too. But there's something important I have to do, and I don't want you to get hurt because of it."

Was she kidding me with this? She didn't want me to get hurt...? I had no idea how to even respond to that, so I just stood there, probably looking at her like she'd just kicked my puppy—and feeling like she'd just kicked my gut. She smiled at me, working up some false cheer, as if that would somehow make things better, then moved closer and put her hand on my shoulder. "Besides, it's not like you were gonna give me some lame class ring, right?" And she kissed me on the cheek. The closest thing to a kiss I'd gotten from her, and it was a good-bye peck on the cheek.

And all I could do was stand there, clutching the "lame class ring" I'd been seconds away from offering her. Trying to play it off like the whole thing was no big deal, I laughed it off. "Pft. Yeah, right."

And then she walked away.

Someday I would probably look back at this and laugh at the so very many levels of irony. But not today. It wasn't just that she used a hackneyed and lame superhero cliché to dump me, or even that she'd rather hunt ghosts than be with me. It was who she'd be hunting. Me. No matter how much she liked me, she would always hate me more.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Once she decided something, she was like a pit bull with a T-bone. That much I'd learned about her in the time I'd known her. No amount of explaining, no tenuous alliances to fight a common enemy, nothing would ever convince her that I hadn't been going after her when I destroyed her suit, or that my blasting her with my ghost rays up in space had been completely involuntary. She'd decided. She'd weighed her options, and having me as her enemy meant more to her than having me as her boyfriend. It was as simple as that.

I stood there for a while after she left, staring down at the ring in my left hand, hating the very sight of it. Had it not been an important memento for my dad, I would've chucked the thing as far as my ghost strength would allow. But it was his ring, and I couldn't get rid of it, so I closed my hand around it instead as I slowly walked back to the table, sat down, and cradled my head in my hands.

A moment later, I heard the familiar tread of boots on the grass behind me, and a hand came to rest on my shoulder. I looked up at Sam, who gave me an encouraging smile in return. No words, no lame platitudes about how she wasn't good enough for me, or time heals all wounds, or anything unbearable like that. Just a smile and a hand on my shoulder. And I was so grateful to have a friend like her in my life.

That was when I knew exactly what I needed to do. Holding out my hand to her, I opened it to reveal the ring. "Can you hang onto this?"

She blinked, her eyes widening a moment, then they softened and she accepted the ring, allowing me to drop it into her waiting palm. For some reason, just having it out of my possession and in hers made me feel a little better. It just felt right that she would take it, that she would keep it until I needed it. She closed her fist around the ring for a moment, then gave me an almost motherly, indulgent sigh. "Clueless," she said, tossing the ring into the air and catching it again as she walked away.

Okay, so maybe she was right. I was clueless. Clueless to think that Valerie could like me enough to put aside her grudge against Danny Phantom. Clueless to think that she'd actually want something as cheesy as a stupid class ring. Clueless to think that I could have a real relationship with someone who not only didn't know the truth about who I was, but hated that part of me with everything she had.

At least she'd dumped me before I'd have a chance to embarrass myself with that ring. I was glad Sam had it now. She would keep it safe for me, the way she kept all my secrets safe, until I found somebody who didn't mind cheesy rings or ghosts. Somebody I could share all of me with.

Or maybe I was just being clueless again.

Chapter 21: Clueless: Sam

Clueless
Sam

He was completely clueless. The class ring—it was a nice idea. Kind of awesome, actually, in a sort of old-school way that was just so right. But what was he thinking, giving it to me to hold for him? Twice? It wasn't meant for me. It was never meant for me, never would be meant for me, and yet, there I was, holding his ring in my hand. I mean, seriously. Of all people in the world for him to ask to hold onto such a thing for him, he asked me? How is it possible that Danny could be so clueless?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It didn't start with the ring. It started with an instant message with a girl. And not just any girl, either. Not someone shallow but ultimately harmless, like Paulina, but someone real. Really dangerous. Valerie was a ghost hunter, for cryin' out loud. A ghost hunter who hated Danny Phantom. How could Danny possibly think dating her was good idea?

And the fact that he totally blew me off to take that instant message from her didn't exactly warm me to the concept, either.

The next morning, when Tucker and I saw him outside the school, he looked like he hadn't slept all night. Tucker noticed, too. "Long night?"

"Of flirting with disaster?" I couldn't help but add.

He rolled his eyes at me. "You should really give her a chance, Sam. I know she wants to waste Danny Phantom, but did you know that she's a ninth-degree black belt? That her favorite fruit is kumquat, because it's a funny word?"

Kumquats? Was he kidding me with this? "No, Danny. I didn't. Because I never really get past the 'waste Danny Phantom' part!"

He waved away my concerns with a huff of air. "She'll figure out Danny Phantom is one of the good guys, and everything will be fine. You'll see. Just... give her a chance, okay?"

Yeah, like that would happen. Undaunted, he brushed past me and Tucker and went inside, and we followed behind him. When we got to our lockers, Tuck and I stopped, but Danny kept going. I opened my locker quickly, shoving the books I didn't need inside and grabbing the ones I did need for the first couple of periods and cramming them into my backpack. On impulse, I also grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars I'd left in my locker from all those stake-outs we'd done last week when Jazz was trying to "help" Danny with his ghost hunting and he was trying in vain to show her the ropes. Between Technus's attack at the mall a couple days ago, Valerie's inexplicable attack at her own dad's workplace while we were on a field trip, and Danny's even more inexplicable decision to get closer to her afterwards, I figured they might be handy to have around.

Backpack on my back and binoculars hand, I slammed my locker shut, then poked my head around the corner to see where Danny had gotten off to—as if I didn't know.

Sure enough, he was in the next hallway, talking with her. "Was there another girl with you?" he was asking as Starr walked away from them, looking as disgusted as I felt. "I hadn't noticed."

Oh, spare me.

Valerie was charmed, however. "Pretty cheesy, Neil Armstrong. You got lunch plans?"

"I'll have to check my schedule, but I think I'm open. The real question is, do you have dinner plans?"

I turned to Tucker with an incredulous look. "Is he nuts?"

Tucker grinned, unconcerned. "Aw, don't worry, Sam. This is the puppy love stuff. He'll come to his senses in no time. Just watch."

I looked down at the binoculars in my hands, then gave him a tight smile. "Oh, I was planning to."

---

Their first date was to a greasy spoon at the end of town, the kind of place we never hung out at together because they didn't serve anything that wasn't cooked in lard. It was also the kind of place that would have made Paulina laugh in his face had he ever tried to take her there. Valerie herself would've turned up her nose and sniffed in disdain at such a diner six months ago. Her dad's bankruptcy had changed her, though. While part of that change had been the whole burning grudge against Danny Phantom, whom she believed had caused all her woes, I had to admit that not all of the changes had been bad. As Tucker and I watched from a distance with my binoculars, I was surprised to see that she not only seemed okay with sharing a plate of greasy fries at a seedy diner, but that she seemed to be enjoying it. Especially when the power flickered off and a waiter brought candles to the table. It figured.

Their second date was a baseball game. They were sitting behind home plate, courtesy of Valerie's dad and Axion labs. Tucker and I were sitting between first and second on the other side of the stadium. She seemed to be enjoying that, as well, especially when, of all things, they were the winning seats for two tickets to a carnival that had just come to town. I'd almost missed the announcement because Tucker was making a racket fidgeting with his PDA, but when I looked up from chewing him out, there were Danny's and Valerie's faces on the giant scoreboard. With a heart around them.

The carnival was their third date, and Tucker and I watched from a hill overlooking the fairgrounds. Again, a fairly cheap date, especially given the free tickets, but Valerie seemed completely happy. Not a sign of the stuck-up A-Lister she used to be, nor the angry ghost-hunter she still was. Just she and Danny, having what looked like a really good time. To top it all off, they were riding the ferris wheel when another freak power outage stalled it just as they were coming over the top.

Through the binoculars, I watched her rest her head on his shoulder. "Oh, yeah, of course that's where the ferris wheel stops. Heh. Why wouldn't it?" Another hiss of static in my ear aggravated me further, and I took down the binoculars to glare at Tucker as he shook his PDA. "Can you turn that thing down?"

He looked even more annoyed than I was. "No! Ever since that fight with Technus, this thing goes static-y at the weirdest times." He held the PDA up to show me, not that I cared.

Until the static resolved into an image of Technus's face and the white noise turned into the sound of him laughing.

Tucker's eyes widened. "Oh, no!" He looked from the PDA to the fairgrounds. "And now we know why. It's picking up Technus! Something in his new upgrade is making my PDA all wonky."

Pieces started fitting together. "Like at the mall! And the lab! And the ferris wheel!" I indicated the fairgrounds with a wave of my hand. "He's pushing Danny and Valerie together!"

I'd hoped Tucker would be as alarmed as I was, but instead, he started laughing.

I gave him a hard look. "If you're done, we have to tell Danny."

"You wanna tell Danny that Technus is playing matchmaker? How do you think he's gonna react to that?"

"I'm thinking he'll be a little concerned!"

Tucker snorted and shook his head. "He's gonna laugh his ass off."

---

I hate it when Tucker's right. When we saw Danny before school the next morning and told him what we'd discovered, he not only laughed, he laughed so hard he almost hurt himself.

Or, at least, I was gonna hurt him if he didn't stop soon. "Are you done yet?"

"No." He fell back against a tree trunk and laughed a while longer before finally making an attempt to catch his breath. "Okay, now I'm done." He looked at me, the amusement still plain in his eyes. "You're telling me that Technus is trying to hook me up? Come on! Technus hates emotions!"

"And, hello!" I rolled my eyes, resisting the urge to smack him. "He's using yours against you!"

Tucker finally backed me up. "Dimmed lights? Stalled ferris wheels? Do you think the universe wants you two to be together?"

This stopped him as he considered his response. "Well, maybe... but... I don't know... I might."

That hit me harder than I ever would have expected, so much so that I actually gasped. I don't know why it hit me so hard. It's not like it was big news. He'd been talking about nothing but Valerie for days, had taken her out three times, and was obviously completely smitten. But something about hearing him make such a simple declaration was like a punch to the gut. He wants to be with her, Sam. Not you.

It was another gasp—this one not mine, but coming from behind the bushes surrounding us—that cut through my inner turmoil, shoving it aside as I reflexively shifted into high alert. A furtive glance in the direction of the sound confirmed my suspicions—Valerie was listening. How much did she hear? Does she know we're talking about Technus? Does she even know who Technus is, and if so, does she wonder why I would think a ghost would take any interest in her and Danny...?

Tucker, oblivious to Valerie's presence, was continuing the conversation with Danny. "Uh... really? Because Tech—"

"Uh, tech...nically..." I cut him off before he could give away what we were really talking about, hoping that she hadn't heard any more than Danny's last statement. Fishing for something to say to both throw her off and end the discussion about Technus, I started rambling. "Because... we just want you to be happy! If you like her, we'll just have to make space for her at our table."

I could feel my eye twitch at that last one, but Danny didn't seem to notice, instead accepting my sudden turnaround at face value. "And speaking of Valerie, I'm supposed to meet her before class."

As soon as he left, Valerie came out from behind the bush, looking at me with something like wonder in her eyes. "Did you mean that?"

"Um..." That was a good question. Did I mean that? Danny liked her. Really, honestly liked her. Not her looks or the idea of her, like his crush on Paulina. He liked her. And the way she was looking at me, waiting for my answer like it really mattered to her, made me realize how much she really liked him, too. Yeah, there was the whole hating Danny Phantom issue—and that was huge, don't get me wrong. But Danny Fenton she truly, genuinely cared about, enough that she cared if his friends accepted her. This was no Paulina, using him for her own purposes. And it wasn't even the Valerie of six months ago, who thought we were all beneath her High Exaltedness. This was someone who liked Danny for who he was.

And she made him happy.

There was only one question left, then. What would I do with that? Would I continue to pine for someone I was never going to have, trailing after him with binoculars while he made a life with someone else—Valerie or some other girl down the road—like some pathetic stalker? Or would I let go and be his friend?

I'd told him I just wanted him to be happy. Did I mean that, or was that just a hollow platitude from a jealous, possessive, lovelorn hanger-on?

That's what I'd sunk to the last few days. It wasn't fear for his safety from Valerie the Ghost Hunter that had motivated my spying on him, as real as that fear was. It was my fear of losing him to Valerie the pretty, intelligent, and interesting girl that had me lurking in the shadows with a pair of binoculars. And that was not the kind of person I wanted to be.

"Uh..." I tried to clear my throat of the huge lump that had formed there, forcing myself to smile at Valerie as I tried to keep my voice bright. "Yeah. Sure. If Danny likes you, and you like Danny, then the least we can do is give you a chance."

I figured she'd be pleased with that answer, but I never expected the response I got. She practically threw herself at me, enveloping me in a grateful hug so tight I could barely breathe. I muttered something under my breath about human contact crushing goth indifference as if, by merely invoking the word, I could begin to feel anything even approaching indifference about Danny being with someone who wasn't me. In truth, what I really felt was just... crushed.

When she finally let go so she could go look for Danny, I closed my eyes against the hollowness she'd left in her wake, like she'd just plucked something from inside of me and made off with it. Only when I felt Tucker's arm snake around my shoulders with a bracing squeeze did I open them, although I couldn't bring myself to look at him, keeping my eyes focused on my boots instead.

I'm not sure how long we stood like that, neither of us speaking, but the whine of turbine engines from the other side of the school snapped me out of my self-pity and I now I did look up at Tucker. "Was that—?"

"It sounded like Valerie's sled!"

Another roar of jet engines, followed by shouting that sounded like Valerie's voice confirmed it, and Tucker and I took off at a dead run toward the source of the commotion. We could hear more shouting—Danny this time, I thought—and then the unmistakable sound of ecto-weapons firing. When we finally made it around to the front of the school, we stopped short, trying to make sense of the scene before us. As expected, there was Valerie on her sled, but instead of her gun trained on Danny Phantom, like we'd assumed it would be, it was Danny Fenton standing in the crosshairs.

"What the—? What is she doing?" Tucker got out while my mind flipped through options. Tucker had his backpack, which meant he probably had a Fenton Thermos, but Valerie was a human, so that wouldn't help. If he had any other weapons on him, though, then maybe—

My train of thought was cut off when a milk carton hurtled in from across the street, hitting Valerie in the head and knocking her gun off-target. A small breath of relief escaped me—then was quickly sucked back in when I saw who Danny's rescuer was.

Valerie.

"But... she... wait. What?" Tucker echoed my own confusion. "If that's Valerie, then who...?"

While the sled and its rider hovered over Danny, Valerie was standing in the street in her regular clothes, a tree branch in her hand and the most furious expression I'd ever seen on her face. Which was saying something, since she wasn't exactly Miss Even Tempered. With a shrieking martial arts cry, she leaped at... whoever it was who had her suit and sled. Using the stick like a bo staff, she slammed it down on Suit Person, knocking her—him—it—off the sled and the ecto-rifle from its hands. Then, sticking the landing like she was Mary Lou Retton, Valerie's expression turned from anger to worry. "Danny! Run!"

Suit Person crashed to the ground at Danny's feet, dazed, but not down for the count. Danny looked up at Valerie, protesting, but she repeated her plea. "Just run!"

His jaw clenching in all-too-familiar determination, Danny's answer was more to himself than to Valerie. "Oh, I'm running. Running to get help!" Then, turning on his heel, he fled past Tucker and me and ducked around the corner of the school, most likely to find a place to go ghost.

When we looked back toward Valerie and the suit, we saw them running at each other. This time, Valerie used the stick to vault herself feet-first towards her adversary. She caught him/her/it under the chin so hard we could hear the crack and, as he or she went flying backwards again, Valerie planted the stick back on the ground, flipping around it in another Olympics-level maneuver before landing nimbly on her feet.

I blinked, impressed in spite of myself. "Whoa."

Tucker looked like his jaw was going to fall off the rest of his face. "She is a ninth-degree black belt. He'd better not forget their anniversary."

Grimacing at the reminder that this incredibly lithe and skilled fighter was Danny's probably-soon-to-be girlfriend, I looked at Tuck. "Do you have anything in your backpack we can use to help her? I don't care how good she is, she's not gonna hold out long against that suit and sled."

He shook his head. "I got nothing but a Thermos. Unless that's a ghost—" He froze, and we stared at each other, before crying out in unison, "Technus!"

Not that knowing who was probably in the suit was much help. As soon as he got back to his feet, he had the ecto-rifle cocked and began shooting at Valerie who, even without her suit, managed to hold her own. She raced across the school yard, then jumped up onto one of the picnic tables, sliding across it to the opposite end. Her weight and momentum tipped it upwards, forming a shield between her and Technus as she landed on the other side. It was a good trick, but not nearly good enough. One blast of pink ectoplasm, and the top half of the table was gone, splintered into tiny chunks of wood, leaving Valerie only half a table to block Technus's attack. Another blast from the ecto-rifle took even more of it, then Valerie jumped up and over what was left, flinging something at her attacker.

"What are those?" I asked Tucker as whatever she'd thrown stuck into the torso of the suit. "Some kind of darts?"

"No, they look like... keys," he said, his voice full of admiration for her ability to turn anything at hand, from a milk carton to a stick to her house keys, into a weapon. I had to admit, I was just as impressed.

Valerie landed with a grunt. "Great. Now I'm doomed and I can't get into my house."

That was when Technus finally succeeded in nailing her with the ecto-rifle. A pink blast hit her square in the chest, knocking her backwards to land face down in the grass.

I pulled Tucker towards me by his shirt. "We've gotta help her! If that is Technus in there, then maybe the Thermos will work even through the suit." Reaching around behind him, I yanked open his backpack, searching for his Fenton Thermos.

Fortunately, I didn't need to test my theory, because Danny appeared, flying at the suit like a missile toward its target. He hit dead center, grabbing Technus around the waist and flying with him up and over the buildings across the street before shoving him into a clock tower a few blocks away. It was hard to see what was happening at that distance, but a flash of pink light indicated that Technus was firing back at Danny.

Meanwhile, Valerie's sled, which had been lying, forgotten, on the sidewalk since Valerie first knocked Technus off of it, fired up its jets and roared off down the street, presumably to rescue its rider. There were more pink flashes, followed by some green ones—Danny's ghost ray—and then the sled and rider flew back into view, glowing bright green and moving erratically. With a massive burst of smoke and green flame, the sled's jets exploded in the air right above us, sending huge chunks of metal to rain down on me, Tucker, and Valerie, forcing us to run for cover. Valerie dove behind a trash can by the school's front steps, and Tucker and I fled in opposite directions when the bulk of Valerie's sled crashed down between us. I ended up on the other side of the steps from Valerie, and Tucker found cover across the street.

When it was safe to poke my head out and see what was going on, Technus and Danny were both on the ground, Danny on his feet, and Technus on his knees clambering for the ecto-rifle lying on the ground beside him. He successfully grabbed it and made it back to his feet, but before he could even bring it to bear, Danny let loose with one of the most massive blasts of ectoplasm I'd ever seen from him. It hit the suit's gun arm, taking it completely off, rifle and all. Another blast took out the suit's left leg, and it toppled over onto the street with a loud crash.

Where's Technus? I wondered. With the arm and leg missing, the suit looked more like a defective robot than a battle suit a person would wear. That's when it hit me. Technus wasn't in the suit. He was controlling it, the way he controlled all technology. Even if I had managed to get the Fenton Thermos out of Tucker's backpack, it wouldn't have done any good. But if he wasn't in the suit, where was he?

Danny, using the empty, animated piece of equipment as an excuse to vent all his fury at what he had to recognize now was Technus's manipulations over him and Valerie, pulled back for another blow. His face a mask of rage, he sent another powerful blast of ectoplasm from his hands. "Say good-bye, punk!"

The final burst hit the suit in the chest, blowing a huge hole all the way through the middle of it. Over the noise from the battle, I could hear Valerie across the stairs from me, gasping as her suit fell to the ground once more, this time for good. Danny stood over it, a victorious smile on his face, but it was only there for a moment before, inexplicably, his expression turned to one of alarm and with a panicked cry, he flew straight up into the air.

The reason for his odd behavior became obvious a second or two later when the suit exploded in a cloud of pink ectoplasm and smoke, sending pieces of it flying in all directions and forcing me back into the cover of the stairs.

When I thought it would be safe to risk a look out again, Valerie was in the street, cradling the torso of her suit to her own chest. Danny landed near me, and she looked up at him, a sort of tired and sad look in her eyes. His own eyes widened in horror, and I frowned, trying to figure out what he was thinking, when the school bell rang.

"Uh... I gotta go," he told Valerie, then flew off.

She watched him leave, a protective hand on her destroyed suit. "He was trying to do that to me. That could have been me!"

That's when I finally understood what had just passed between her and Danny. She thought he'd tried to kill her. Up until then, their battles had always been a sort of cat-and-mouse thing, exhilarating and maybe even fun for both of them, but Danny had never gone after her full-throttle, even in the beginning, back when he couldn't stand her. I don't think she really realized until that moment just how powerful he could be when he was actually trying to do some damage. And if she hated him before, what would she think now that she believed he was capable of taking her out? Would this scare her into surrender?

Knowing Valerie, I kind of doubted it. More likely, she'd up her training, go after him with more and more force until—

I couldn't let myself finish that thought. The better Valerie got—and having seen how good she was without the suit, I had no doubt she could eventually become even more deadly than I'd ever feared with it—the more dangerous to Danny she'd become. And if she were dating Danny Fenton, spending a lot of time with him, how long before he would slip up and reveal his secret? And when—not if, but when—he did, would her feelings for Danny Fenton override her hatred of Danny Phantom? Or would she be so angry at what I could only assume she'd see as a betrayal that she'd count Danny Fenton as her enemy, too. A vulnerable enemy. An enemy who wasn't just a ghost and therefore could be—

I swallowed the lump of fear forming in my throat. What if I ran interference? Could I somehow convince her that Danny Phantom hadn't been out to hurt her, that he'd known it wasn't her in that suit when he'd taken it down? Would she believe me? Would she wonder how I could be so sure, and would that help her begin to put the pieces together?

Crawling out of my hiding place behind the stairs, I tried to think of what I could say to her, how I could help Danny, but I never got the chance. The battle and explosion had drawn attention, and people were starting to crowd around the school asking a lot of questions, and Tucker appeared at my side. "Come on," he whispered, tugging at my arm. "We need to go find Danny. Principal Ishyama is gonna be looking for him."

I frowned. "Why would she be looking for Danny?"

Tucker jerked his head toward Valerie, who was looking up at the door to the school. Following her gaze, my eyes widened as they lit upon what she was looking at. "The security camera! It must have taped the whole battle!"

"And it started with that suit attacking Danny. He's gonna need to think up a pretty good explanation for a robotic suit going after him like that."

Nodding, I let Tucker lead me away to go look for Danny and warn him. What to do about Valerie and what she thought of Danny Phantom would have to wait.

---

"So, Technus must've been behind the attack during the tour," Tucker theorized when the three of us met after school in Danny's bedroom to figure out what had happened. "Which means he's probably trying to crack the code and get into the main computer in space!" He threw up his arms for dramatic effect.

"Which he can use to control every computer in the world," I finished. That would explain where he was, too. If he was trying to hack into the main computer, he'd have to do it through the hub in Axion Labs.

Tucker cocked his head at me. "You only know that because I told you that." He then turned to Danny, who was sitting silent on his bed, his chin in his hands. "You okay?"

Danny sighed. "You should've seen Valerie's face. I'm sure she thinks I was trying to waste her."

Exactly what I was afraid of. I jumped up from my seat in a show of support. "But you weren't."

He gave me a morose look. "It doesn't matter. If I wanna ask Valerie out, I'm gonna have to never tell her I'm Danny Phantom."

And there it was. An even more direct declaration of his intent. Whatever had happened today, whatever fallout there would be from Valerie now believing Danny Phantom had tried to kill her... none of that changed anything. He wanted to be with her, and that was that.

"But first..." He got up off the bed, that same determined look I saw that morning on his face. "We're gonna get rid of that virus called Technus once and for all."

He marched straight toward the door of his room... and right into his father. "Danny! Word on the street is, you got yourself a girlfriend!"

Danny look horrified, and even the petty part of me that didn't want to make any of this easy for him winced in sympathy at the panic in his eyes as his dad nudged him with his elbow and grabbed him around the shoulders. Squeezing Danny to him, Mr. Fenton looked at me and Tucker. "Uh... can you two leave so I can have a totally awkward father/son chat?"

Sympathy only went so far. No way Tuck and I were gonna hang around for anything this brutal. "Gone and gone," we said together, making our escape.

Once outside, Tuck and I headed towards his house where we'd wait for Danny to call us as soon as he got free of his dad. "If Technus is in the Megacomputer hub at Axion," I said as we walked, "we're not gonna be able to get in there with Danny to help him. But we can keep watch. Remember what happened the last time he had to sneak into Axion Labs."

When Tucker didn't answer, I realized he was no longer beside me. Turning around, I saw that he had stopped walking and was giving me a look I couldn't quite read. "It won't last, you know."

"Not if Danny can get him out of there quickly—"

He arched an eyebrow at me. "I'm not talking about Technus, and you know it." He took a step toward me, and put his hand on my shoulder. "How do you think it's gonna work if he has to completely shut her out of half his life? It can't. Eventually, one of them will get sick of it and it'll be over."

Heartening words, but ultimately it didn't matter. "We should try and help convince her Danny Phantom knew she wasn't in the suit. That he'd never hurt her."

Tucker's eyes widened in surprise. "Why?"

"Because it's true. And because if she keeps up this vendetta against him while dating him at the same time, something's gonna have to give."

"Exactly my point!"

I shook my head. "That something will be Danny. She's a smart girl, Tuck. She'll figure it out eventually, and... as much as I believe she really likes him, I'm not so sure she likes him more than she hates Danny Phantom. I don't trust what she might do if she found out."

He considered this. "Honestly? I think we'd have better luck convincing Danny to give up on dating her than we would of convincing her to give up her grudge. She's not exactly... flexible."

"That's why this whole thing worries me."

---

We'd only been at Tucker's about an hour when Danny showed up, ready to go after Technus. On our way to Axion Labs, he told us about the talk with his dad.

And that's where the ring came in.

"He said I could give Valerie his old college class ring. How cool is that?"

Tucker didn't think it was cool at all, but I did. Cheesy and old-fashioned, yes, but it seemed just right for Danny, who was pretty cheesy and a bit old-fashioned himself, especially for a kid with ghost powers and a basement full of high-tech, futuristic ghost-hunting inventions.

But it was also yet another nail in the coffin of any illusions I had about him ever giving me such a thing, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting. As Tucker mocked him, he turned to me, probably looking for some support, but my face must have been an open wound, because he frowned at me as if trying to figure out what I was thinking, and I turned quickly away, mortified.

That was when he did something that completely floored me. After handing me a pair of Fenton Phones so that Tucker and I could keep in touch with him while he went in after Technus, he stopped, digging back into his pocket. "Oh! And, uh... hold this."

And he handed me the ring. Me. The ring he was going to give another girl.

I blinked, totally taken off guard, and Tucker gaped after him as he headed off toward the lab. "He really is clueless, isn't he?"

Ignoring Tucker, I held up the ring for a closer look. It was gold with a green stone—odd, that, since Mr. Fenton graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and their school colors were red and white. But the green wasn't like an emerald or a normal school color. It was more like ectoplasm, so it actually seemed quite fitting, both for Mr. Fenton and Danny. It looked like it had something engraved inside the band, too, so I squinted to examine it more closely, figuring it was something about ghosts or maybe his name or even Mrs. Fenton's name, since he'd probably given it to her when they'd first started dating.

As it turns out, it was a name, but not Jack or Maddie like I'd expected. The name engraved in the ring was Wes. "Who the heck is Wes?"

Now I was curious. If a ring were going to be engraved, shouldn't it be engraved with the name of the person it was meant for? But maybe Mr. Fenton had bought it used. He did seem a bit tight with a dollar at times, not that I had a good basis of comparison, considering the way my own parents threw money around like it was confetti at a Times Square ticker-tape parade. But since I could think of no other logical reason this particular name would be engraved inside a ring Danny was going to give to a girl, it was as good a theory as any.

Tucker didn't care about the engraving. He was still kind of dumbfounded that Danny would give it to me to hold for him until he could give it to the girl it was actually meant for. "Seriously, he's like the King of Clueless. If we were gonna give him one of those radio code names, it'd be 'Clueless One.'" He stopped, grinning. "Hey, I like that. He'll be 'Clueless One, you can be 'Goth One,' and I'll be 'Stud One.'"

I snorted. "'Stud One?' Try 'Geek One.' But I'll give you 'Goth One.' And 'Clueless One' is right on the money."

He gave me an appraising look. "You know, you really should tell him."

I turned away, refusing to dignify that with a response.

"I'm serious, Sam. He really is that clueless. No matter how obvious it is to pretty much everyone else on the planet, he's never ever gonna figure it out for himself. You're gonna have to tell him."

I scowled. To what end? I wanted to ask him. To force Danny to say to my face what I already knew? That he liked Valerie, not me, and that we'd never be more than just friends? To make everything awkward and weird for no reason? What would that accomplish? I wanted to ask, but that would have given Tucker the impression we were actually having this conversation, so I simply told him, "Give it a rest, Tucker." And to forestall any further discussion on the subject, I clicked on the speaker on my Fenton Phone. "Clueless One, this is Goth One. Over."

It was a minute before Danny answered. "Goth One, this is Clueless One." He paused for a beat as the code name hit him. "Why am I Clueless One?"

"Tell him!" Tucker shouted, the microphone of his own Fenton Phone on just to make sure Danny didn't miss it.

"Shut it!" I growled, smacking him upside the head.

Fortunately for me, the topic changed abruptly when Danny apparently found the right lab. "I'm in," he reported to us. "And from the looks of the computer, Technus is still in there."

A sound like a door slamming echoed through the Fenton Phones on Danny's end, and a familiar female voice cried out, "You!"

"Oh, darn it," Danny replied.

Tucker and I exchanged looks as we heard Valerie's dad shouting in the background. "Get away from that!"

I flipped off my microphone. "Tuck, can you do anything to help him? Access the security system or something?"

"No!" Tucker shook his PDA, frustrated. "Technus is controlling the security system and everything else in the lab. I can't hack into anything!"

We heard Danny try to explain that there was an evil ghost trying to get into the computer satellite, but clearly the Grays weren't buying it, blaming Danny instead.

"See why I need to hunt these ghosts?"came Valerie's voice over Danny's Fenton Phone. "They think they can do whatever they want. But somebody has to stop them!"

I'm not sure exactly what happened at that point, but it definitely wasn't good. We could hear a lot of noise, like a weapon firing.

"Tucker, do something!" I cried out, panicking, but no matter how many buttons he pushed, his PDA was useless. We heard what sounded like Mr. Gray calling out Valerie's name over the din, and a lot of crackling like electricity. Completely helpless, we waited for something—anything—to give us a clue what was happening in there.

We got it when the roof of the building opened up, revealing an enormous satellite dish, which glowed white for a few seconds before shooting a green and blue blast of... something into the night sky.

Tucker's PDA hissed with that same static we'd been hearing all week, and Tucker looked at the screen. "Uh-oh. Baby's got a headache."

A moment later, the static cleared, and we could hear Technus's mad cackling. "It's over, child! You can't stop me now!"

"We'll see about that!" came Danny's voice in response—the first thing he'd said since all that noise had started—and Tucker and I breathed twin sighs of relief.

There was more noise over his Fenton Phone, this time sounding like rocket engines, and then we saw a streak of light coming out of the roof of the building and shooting up into the sky. "That's him!" Tucker cried out, pointing. "He's using the X-23 Booster Rocket! He's gonna—"

Screams of terror from Danny cut Tucker off, but then the screams became howls of delight. "Hey! I'm an astronaut!"

I might have taken a moment to appreciate the fact that Danny was at that very moment fulfilling one of his lifelong dreams, but something black and red shot out of Axion's roof and blew past us in a rush of wind, bringing Tucker's and my attention back down to Earth. My mouth dropped open in shock as I realized what—or, rather, who—it was. "Uh, Danny?"

I looked at Tucker, and his eyes were as wide as mine. "She's not going to follow him, is she? That sled can't possibly have enough power to launch her into space! And that suit would never hold up in a vacuum!"

I blinked as the streak of pink light flared in the distance. "I don't know about that suit, but her sled seems to be doing just fine." I clicked on my microphone again. "Danny, come in. Stay alert. You have company."

"Company? What kind of company—?" A yelp of surprise indicated that he'd found the answer all on his own.

I sighed, resigned. "It's your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend until I give her the ring."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "What is this, 1955?"

Ignoring Tucker's mocking, I kept my eyes on the night sky, but they were too far up for me to see anything, and either Danny's Fenton Phones had cut out or— No. They'd cut out. Looking back down at Tucker, I indicated his PDA with a nod of my head. "How's Baby doing? Can you get any indication of what's going on up there?"

Tucker shook his head. "I'm still just getting Technus." He held it up to show me the static, and I could hear Technus's annoying laugh through the speakers.

An idea hit me. "Well, as soon as Danny gets away from Valerie, he'll take care of Technus, right? And then your PDA will be fine. That's how we'll know."

The next few minutes were a lot like the end of the Apollo 13 movie, where the world waited out the radio silence to find out if the three astronauts had survived re-entry. I chewed on my lip, afraid to take my eyes off the static-y, hissing screen. After what seemed like hours, the laughter abruptly cut off, then the static on the screen cleared and Tucker's main menu reappeared. Tucker grinned. "Looks like Danny got him."

I nodded, but my own smile of relief faded as my eyes looked skyward once more. "Let's just hope Valerie doesn't get Danny."

A streak of red not long afterwards announced Valerie's return to Earth and Axion Labs but, if anything, my fears ramped up a notch when there was no sign of Danny. Beside myself with panic, I was about to go into Axion Labs and find Valerie and shake her until she told me what had happened, battle suit and mad martial arts skills be damned, but my cell phone jingled the distinctive ring that I'd assigned to Danny, and I answered it, gulping in air like I'd been underwater for a week. "Danny? Are you—?"

"I'm fine," he replied, but his voice was flat. Almost... defeated. "I used the jet pack to blow up the satellite, then hitched an invisible ride back on Valerie's sled and bugged out once we got close enough to the ground for me to fly under my own power. I'm... Where am I, anyway?" He paused. "Okay, I'm over by the park."

"What happened? How did she—?"

"Not now, 'kay? I just... I'm tired. I need to go home and get some sleep. I'll fill you in before school tomorrow."

---

We got the full story about what had happened with Technus—and with Valerie—before school as promised, including the conversation he overheard between her and her dad about how she was even considering giving up ghost hunting. So it came as no surprise when he hit us with the rest after school. "Did you bring my ring with you, by any chance, Sam? I... I kinda was hoping to give it to Valerie today."

Tucker blinked at him, but I'd been waiting for it all day. If Valerie thinking Danny Phantom had tried to kill her in front of the school yesterday hadn't dissuaded him, I held no illusions that a little space battle would, especially in light of what he'd overheard her tell her dad. In fact, I'd spent all day gearing myself up for the inevitable, so when he asked for the ring, I was able to produce it and drop it into his hand with something bordering on acceptance. "Here you go."

Tucker was still leery. "You sure about this?"

"Well, she said she'd give up ghost hunting. For me." He didn't miss it when Tucker and I exchanged skeptical glances, neither of us convinced it was really gonna happen that way, so he tried a more direct tact. "Besides, I like her, and she likes me back. Isn't it supposed to be that simple?"

As if. Tucker and I couldn't help but roll our eyes this time, saying together like we'd rehearsed it, "Clueless."

Danny never got a chance to reply, however, because Valerie chose that moment to show up. Coming up behind him, she put her hand on his shoulder. "Danny?"

He turned to face her, his pleasure at seeing her evident in his face. "Wow." He laughed that sort of nervous laugh of his as he stood up to face her. "I-I'm glad you're here. I...wanted to ask you something."

"Actually, me first."

That was our cue, I realized, but I couldn't quite get myself to move until well after Tucker had already left. Finally I managed to get to my feet and follow Tucker to where he was waiting—and eavesdropping—behind some nearby bushes.

"Danny..." Valerie began as I ducked in next to Tucker. "I've had a lot of fun these last few days, but... my life's way too complicated right now for us to be anything other than..." She paused again, looking down. "Friends."

My eyes widened as I turned to Tucker. What was she doing? She liked him, I know she did, so why would she say she just wanted to be friends?

Danny, obviously, hadn't been expecting it either. "Just friends? But... but... I thought..."

"I thought, too. But there's something important I have to do, and I don't want you to get hurt because of it."

I almost choked on the irony. Did she really just pull the sorriest superhero cliché known to mankind, the I-must-remain-alone-to-protect-those-I-love bit... on Danny? Over a stupid grudge she has against his own alter-ego?

Even Tucker was speechless as he just shook his head in disbelief.

Valerie smiled at Danny, trying to smooth over the hurt with some false cheer. "Besides, it's not like you were gonna give me some lame class ring, right?" And she kissed him on the cheek.

I decided on the spot I was going to kill her. I didn't care that she had no idea about the ring and how much she was twisting the knife she'd already plunged into his heart. I didn't care that she could kick my ass into the next century even without that new suit of hers. I didn't even care that this meant all my worries were put to rest. She'd just hurt Danny, in the most painful way possible, and I was going to kill her. With my bare hands.

Only seeing Danny's reaction stopped me. He tried to blow it all off like he hadn't just planned to do exactly that, but as soon as she walked away, he opened his hand and looked down at the ring in his palm, and my heart broke for him, evaporating away whatever anger I was feeling towards her. What he needed was not a protector, as much as I wanted to be one for him.

He needed a friend.

I slipped out from behind the bushes as he went back to the able and sat down, cradling his head in his hands. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, which I truly was. Even the small, petty part of me that wanted to be happy they weren't together could take no joy in anything that caused him pain. I wanted to tell him that he deserved better, which he did. I wanted to tell him that she would regret it, which I believed she would. She was going to look back and realize what she almost had and how she'd thrown it away for a grudge, and she was going to be kicking herself harder than I ever could. I knew it would happen like I knew my own name because I knew better than anyone what she'd willingly given up.

But as I walked up behind him and slipped my hand onto his shoulder, he looked up at me, and I didn't say any of that. The words were just too small to fill everything he was feeling and everything I was feeling for him. Instead, I gave him an encouraging smile, hoping my friendship was enough.

I think it was, because he held out his hand to me. "Can you hang onto this?"

It was his dad's class ring.

I blinked at him. For the second time in as many days, he was giving me that damned ring. What was he thinking? Because as much as I tried to convince myself that I'd been successful at hiding my feelings for him, I knew it wasn't true. A hundred times a day I caught myself looking at him or smiling at him or grinding my teeth over him. Surely he must have noticed something. Even Tucker had said that everyone on the planet knew I had a crush on him. Was he purposely trying to torture me? He couldn't possibly have missed what everyone else seemed to know, could he?

Yes, he could.

Softening my surprise into another smile, I held out my hand to my best friend and let him drop the ring into my waiting palm. It wasn't meant for me. It was never meant for me, never would be meant for me, but for Danny, my friend, I would hang onto it for as long as he wanted. Then, realizing he needed to be alone, I closed my fist around the ring for a moment, and couldn't help but smile and sigh at the irony that completely escaped him as I tossed it into the air and caught it once more. "Clueless."

Notes:

For Tucker's take on these events, see the companion story, Clueless. (Since he's pretty much the only person in this episode who wasn't clueless, his side of the story was just begging to be told.) ;)

Chapter 22: Turning Tables: Danny

Turning Tables
Danny

It's funny how the tables can turn on you. One second, all you can think about is the person you can't have, even though you know it's never gonna happen. You keep telling yourself it's a brand new school year and well past time to just get over it and move on, but you don't know how, because you can't imagine anything or anyone else filling that space. Then, a second later, they're not even a blip on the radar because all you can think about now is the smarmy foreign exchange student hitting on your best friend, and she actually likes it and is flirting back, and you just wanna put your fist right through your soda cup because can't she tell that this guy's bad news?

I mean, I could sense it right away. Not ghost sense—he was definitely human. But the way he was coming onto her, with the totally fake Hungarian accent, and telling her he was also an Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian, and what kind of name is Gregor anyway? But Sam was drooling over him like she hadn't eaten in weeks and he was an all-veggie buffet, to the point where she actually started babbling when she introduced herself: "Sam Manson. It's short for Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. You can call me Sam, too. Why am I still talking? I'm such a spaz!"

It was like Jazz and Johnny 13 all over again, except for the ghost part. And it was just a little too coincidental that he showed up—with his white hair and white clothes—at exactly the same time the Guys in White decided to take harassing me to a whole new level. Something was definitely up and, just like with Jazz, there was no way I was gonna let some creep with an ulterior motive get near my best friend. Not when I could keep an invisible eye on them. For her own good.

Tucker thought it was a bad idea. As it turned out, Tucker was right. Following Sam and Gregor around could pretty much qualify as one of the worst nights of my life. And, considering the fact that I get my butt kicked by a ghost or ten on a regular basis, that was saying something.

The rock through my intangible face when they were skipping stones at the pond in the park was bad enough. The romantic comedy he took her to was even worse. No body count, and not a single undead creature to make things interesting, but she was enjoying herself? What was that all about? And I swear, if he didn't take his arm off of her shoulders, I was gonna tear it off of his shoulder.

The kicker was watching them nearly share a Lady and the Tramp moment over a plate of spaghetti at the mall food court just before my two favorite Guys in White, O. and K., ambushed me. Again.

I tried to get away from them by phasing out through the roof of the mall, but they followed me, so I tried to reason with them. "What's the matter with you two? I'm not doing anything! Why can't you leave me alone?"

"An unauthorized entity of Scale Seven ectoplasmic power?" That was the white guy, Operative O.

The black guy, Operative K., snorted. "A pre-pubescent specter operating freely? Unacceptable."

Pre-pubescent? Harassing me wasn't enough, they had to question my manliness, too?

Adding injury to insult, they attacked me with their ecto-weapons, but I managed to ditch them in the parking lot below by changing back into human form and ducking behind a row of cars, all the while wondering if the week could possibly get any worse.

Apparently, it could. A lot worse. Because Sam and Gregor chose that moment to come out of the mall and, as they stepped into a pool of light under one of the streetlights, he grabbed her hand and stopped her. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it hardly mattered, because the next thing I knew, he'd taken her chin in his hand and was kissing her.

Kissing Sam. That slimy, sleazy, no-good, Euro-trash phony was kissing Sam. And she was kissing him back.

I felt like someone had just reached inside my chest and turned me inside-out. It was her kissing Dash all over again, only this time, it wasn't a fake-out make-out just to break some stupid spell. It was all too real, judging by the way she threw her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, and if I kept on that train of thought, I was gonna seriously toss my cookies on some guy's car. "I'm beginning to think that spying is better left to soulless government drones," I said out loud, hoping that talking would help keep my lunch down. Then, I changed back to ghost form and flew away as fast as I could.

I didn't sleep much that night. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the image of Sam kissing that guy out of my head. It was like news footage of some disaster that kept replaying over and over, and you wanna look away, but you can't because you just can't believe something that awful could actually happen. It wasn't enough that it kept repeating itself over and over, either. There had to be slow motion and commentary, complete with Shelley Makamoto and Lance Thunder's voices narrating in my head.

Why don't you tell us how it happened, Lance?

Sure thing, Shelley. See right there, how he holds her chin in his hand? Then he leans in and—there it is! He pulls her into the liplock. Note the way her body stiffens—she wasn't expecting this. But then it's all her. See how she leans into him, wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling herself closer? Now there's a girl who's enjoying being kissed! She certainly didn't show that kind of enthusiasm when she kissed Danny Fenton those two times...

I groaned, covering my face with my pillow as I tried to click the remote in my brain to off. I must have managed mute, at least, because Lance's voice went away, but the visual was still stuck on repeat. Gregor holding Sam's chin. Gregor pulling her into a kiss. Sam stiffening in surprise for just a moment, then wrapping herself around him and kissing him in earnest, and why couldn't that be me?

I sat up so quickly the pillow tumbled off the bed and halfway across the room. Where did that come from? I was upset because she'd been making out with a scheming, lying spy for the Guys in White, not because I was jealous. She was my friend. Just my friend. I didn't like her that way. Sure, there'd been a couple of weird moments between us, like at that dance the beginning of last school year, or that moment on my roof just before I went off to face the Ghost King, but that didn't really mean anything other than that she was important to my life. And those two times we'd kissed? Nothing more than fake-out make-outs. Distractions. Yeah, so maybe I'd liked kissing her. A lot. But come on, it's not exactly a mystery how that could happen. I was a teenage guy with teenage hormones, and she was a pretty girl. Really pretty, actually, with that sleek black hair, those deep, violet eyes, and those soft lips that were really, really nice to kiss, except for the fact that she'd never kissed me the way she'd kissed Gregor, with her arms around my neck and her body pressed against me and why couldn't she kiss me like that?

Realizing I'd just come back full circle, I balled my hands into fists and rubbed my eyes, as if gouging them out of their sockets could make the thoughts go away. "This is nuts," I said out loud, hoping to jar myself into reality. "I do not like Sam like that." I couldn't like Sam like that. She was my friend, and all of this craziness was just because of a couple of stupid fake-out make-outs and the fact that I'd been forced to watch my best friend kissing a fraud who was totally using her. Of course I was upset and confused.

But as I lay back down after retrieving my pillow from the floor, the video replay started up in my head again, and I couldn't stop the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I thought about her kissing someone who wasn't me.

---

Between the horrible evening spying on Sam's date and the even worse night tossing and turning while trying not to think about it, I was pretty tired and irritable the next day. By the time I joined Sam and Tucker outside for lunch, I wanted nothing more than to shake her for letting that poser con her. She was too smart for that and, the more I thought about it, the angrier I was at her for it. But I couldn't shake her, because I wasn't supposed to know about it. So instead, I asked her if she'd done anything fun last night, hoping she'd tell me and Tuck about the date so that I could really let her have it.

Unfortunately, she wasn't in a sharing mood. She shrugged at my query. "I don't know. Just hung out."

"With Gregor?"

Tucker leaned toward me. "I wouldn't do that."

Sam scowled, annoyed. "Why is that any of your business?"

Because you're my best friend and you're being an idiot! With another urge to shake her, I scooted around the table and got in her face, willing her to get a clue.

She jerked away from me. "What are you doing?"

Playing innocent, I went back to my own seat. "I don't know. Just, uh, checking for pimples, dimples..." I gave her a pointed look. "Spaghetti sauce."

"Spaghetti—?" She stopped short and gasped, then glared at me. "Were you spying on me?"

Tucker rolled his eyes. "I told you it was a bad idea to spy on her."

I shot him a nasty look. "Niiiice."

"You used your ghost powers to spy on me?" Sam rose to her feet, her hands balled into fists, and glared at me with enough fire in her eyes to scare Smokey the Bear. "You've really crossed the line!"

Still annoyed with her, I was in no mood to be cowed. "Not you! I was spying on Gregor! He's so obviously working with the Guys in White!" Now I was on my feet, too.

"Oh, so that's it! The only way a boy could like me is if it was part of a plot to get you? Ha! Ego, much?"

Before I could respond, Gregor chose that moment to appear. "Hey, Sam, you want to—?"

"Whatever it is, yes!" And she grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the table.

Cringing, Tucker looked up at me. "I think I can guess the answer, but how'd it go last night?"

I sat down with a huff. "Well, I got hit in the face with a rock, Gregor kissed Sam, and the Guys in White attacked again, so there's gotta be a connection between them and Gregor!"

Tucker's eyes widened. "Wait. Hold up. Gregor kissed Sam?"

Seething, I grabbed my carton of milk. "Yeah, but apparently that's none of my business." I took a swig, then slammed the carton back on the table and crushed it in my hand before tossing it over my shoulder. But as the image of Sam throwing her arms around Gregor's neck flashed through my mind for about the three hundred bazillionth time, my frustration melted into despondency. It was none of my business. Sam was a big girl, and she could kiss whoever she wanted. Even if it's not me.

Tucker looked sympathetic before giving me a bolstering smile. "Tell you what. Since you get attacked every time you get close to Gregor, I'm gonna tag along with Gregor and Sam." He put an arm around my shoulders. "I'll be your mole."

This plan had prospects, and I brightened. "Really? To protect Sam?" And to keep Gregor from making any more moves on her...

Tucker grinned. "That, and Gregor rocks!" He stood up. "Plus, you're my best friend, and I've gotta watch your back, too, right?"

He'd no sooner left when I heard familiar voices and was horrified to see the Guys in White questioning Lancer about that purple-backed gorilla paper I'd done early last year. I could feel the noose tightening around my neck. If they connected Danny Phantom back to me...

At least with Tucker watching out for Sam—and keeping Gregor a respectable distance from her—I could lay low for a couple days and, hopefully, the Guys in White would give up and go find some other ghost to bother.

And take Gregor with them.

---

Over the weekend, I did nothing but mope around the house to the point where my mom was ready to kick me out and make me go the mall or something. The very idea of going back there, where the thing-that-shall-not-be-mentioned happened, was about as appealing as volunteering to be the test subject for my dad's latest invention. Less so, apparently, since when I refused to leave, my dad did rope me into helping him in the lab.

Fortunately, he wasn't working on anything likely to tear me apart molecule by molecule, and it did get my mind of Sam and Gregor. Mostly. But by Sunday afternoon, I still hadn't heard from Tucker, and the isolation was making me stir-crazy, so I gave up waiting for him to report back to me about Gregor and called him.

"Yo, dude, what's up?"

"Hey Tucker, anything to report?"

"Well, I bought this great graphic novel at the Skulk and Lurk, I was two under par at the putt-putt course... oh! And Sam has some kickin' new surround sound."

If only one of my ghost powers included the ability to strangle someone through the phone. "I mean, anything about Gregor?"

"If he's a spy, he's really cool for a spy."

Yep. I totally needed strangling-through-the-phone powers. And to make my joy complete, I could hear the spy in question in the background, asking Tucker if he was up for bowling. Tucker muttered, "Gotta go," then hung up before I could ask him any more questions.

Feeling sick, I clicked my phone off. "Great. Now I'm losing both my best friends."

By Monday morning, I'd decided that enough was enough. Tailing Gregor myself was too dangerous, and Tucker was too distracted by the fun they were having to be of any use whatsoever, so the only thing left was the direct approach. Gregor was in my PE class, so I resolved to talk to him in the locker room afterwards. Tossing my gym shoes into my gym locker, I rehearsed what I would say.

"Gregor, I know you're not what you seem to be, and..." I let out an exasperated huff of air at how lame that sounded and tried again. "Gregor, I know you're up to something, and... GAH!" I slapped my forehead in frustration. "Come on! Find the words!" Angry at myself for not being able to figure out the right way to approach Gregor, I slammed my locker shut... and almost jumped back a foot when I saw the guy in question standing right behind the door.

"Danny, I wish to talk to you. If you are done talking to yourself."

Afraid he'd heard me, I started stammering, then let out a nervous chuckle. "Sure, Gregor," I finally got out, my stomach flipping as I tried to figure out what he wanted to talk to me about. Were the Guys in White onto me? Did he know who I was? I sat down on the bench behind me, trying to act casual. "Uh, what's up?"

"I am not blind. You do not like me."

Okay, at least he wasn't accusing me of being a ghost. That was something. And it was a good lead-in to what I wanted to say to him. "Gregor, that's not—"

"Let me finish. You do not like me because you want to protect your friend Sam. And I respect this."

That was pretty close to the mark. "I-it's not just that..."

"You like her more than just friends?"

That I wasn't expecting. "Well..." No, I wanted to say, of course I don't like her as more than just friends. But the image of them kissing—of Sam kissing anyone who wasn't me—popped back into my head, and the words stuck in my throat.

Gregor sat down beside me. "You hesitate. Which means you are unsure. I am not, and I am going to ask her out."

If we'd been playing poker, I would have just utterly failed at bluffing, because I'm pretty sure the horror that gripped my chest could be seen in my face. From outer space. Gregor, however, either didn't notice or didn't care, because he kept on with his speech. "I hope we can—how do you Americans say, uh?—hang out?" He hugged me. "I am glad we had this talk." And then, he grabbed me by the face and kissed each of my cheeks in turn before getting up and walking away.

I was so stunned, it took a moment before I could react, but when I did, I jumped up and shouted after him, "I know who you are, and I know what you're up to, and..." But he was gone. I sighed. "Somehow, I pictured this chat going differently."

The rest of the day didn't go much better. Sam was still mad at me, so she made a point of eating lunch with Gregor at the table farthest away from the corner of the cafeteria where I was sitting. Tucker, still pretending to play mole—though by now I was pretty sure he just wanted an excuse to hang with uber-cool Gregor—sat with them, and I ended up eating my turkey surprise at a table full of band geeks. And even they didn't talk to me.

After school, I caught sight of the Three Musketeers heading off campus together, Sam and Gregor holding hands. Then, either Sam was looking for me or knew by some sort of best-friends-sixth-sense that I was there, because she looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting mine for a moment. My heart fell when I saw the anger that was still there but, after a second, her expression softened, and she actually looked... regretful? It made me feel both a little hopeful and a little guilty for spying on her in the first place. Maybe if I called her and apologized...?

Benedict Arnold Foley, on the other hand... Even though he was looking at me with the same sort of hangdog look, he owed me the apology, so I wasn't even thinking about calling him.

The thing that really killed me, though, was the cheery wave from Gregor, as if we were best buds. Without thinking, I waved back, but then they disappeared in the crowd of students.

Alone once more, I headed toward the street, but I couldn't face the thought of another day cooped up in my house helping my dad in the lab, so I decided not to go straight home. The only problem was, there really wasn't much to do in Amity Park when you didn't have friends to hang out with. I still couldn't hack the thought of the mall, or that parking lot where It had happened. The arcade was no fun without Tucker trying to one-up me. Nasty Burger would be crowded with kids just waiting to make fun of the one kid who was sitting alone. Ditto Elmer's Pharmacy. The putt-putt course, the movies... anything else I could think of to do, the kinds of things I usually did after school, weren't really the kinds of things you did alone.

I ended up at the park, sort of walking aimlessly, trying not to think about Gregor and Sam, or Gregor and Tucker, or Gregor and our conversation in the locker room. You like her more than friends? That was so not the issue. The issue was that he was in with the Guys in White and was just using Sam—and Tucker, too, now—to smoke out Danny Phantom. Why couldn't they see it?

I tried to sort through it in my head, to figure out how I could prove to them what Gregor really was, but my thoughts kept drifting back to him kissing Sam, or to our conversation in the locker room. Neither of those was exactly helping my frame of mind, so I finally gave up and headed home.

It was nearly sundown when I got home. As I let myself in the front door, I was about to call out to let my parents know I was home, but I could hear my mom yelling at someone in the kitchen. "Well, that is preposterous!"

My dad was obviously with her, and they must have heard the door when I came in, because he shouted out, "Danny, get over here!"

Wondering what I could have done to get myself in trouble with my parents now, I headed into the kitchen... and gasped when I saw who my parents were talking to.

The Guys in White. Standing in my kitchen. Talking to my parents. So, so very not good.

K. reached into his suit and pulled out a handheld computer. "We managed to trace this PDA to Tucker Foley. We figure the ghost must be an associate of his."

It was the old PDA Skulker had stolen and wired into his cyber armor. Crud, crud, crud, crud, crud! Trying not to panic, I scratched my head. "H-have you checked, uh... Dash Baxter?"

"Affirmative," O. said. "He's too much of an oaf to be the Ghost Kid."

Under other circumstances, that might have almost made up for the pre-pubescent crack at the mall.

"And you," O. continued, "you're too pre-pubescent!"

"Hey!" So much for making up for that crack.

"And it's not that Manson girl. Which leaves the Gregor kid we saw them hanging around with."

K. gasped. "Of course! How did we not see that? He's got white hair, and so does the Ghost Boy! Come on!" The two of them pulled out their ecto-weapons in unison and dashed out of the kitchen toward the living room and the front door.

Behind me, my dad called out after them, "Hey, if you ever need a Guy in Orange, Jack Fenton's your man!"

Normally, that kind of thing coming from my dad would have had me cringing in embarrassment, but I was busy trying to wrap my mind around what had just happened. "Wait. Gregor can't be a spy for them if they're going after him with guns blazing." Then it hit me. "And Sam and Tucker are right in the line of fire!"

I don't even remember what excuse I gave my parents for having to leave again, but I was back out of the house before they could even begin to tell me no. The Guys in White were gone, however, and I had no idea where Sam, Tucker, and Gregor might be. I tried Tuck's cell phone, but he must have turned it off, because I only got his voice mail. Sam's was next, and it also went to voice mail. Great. The one time I didn't know exactly where they were, and there were a couple of trigger-happy feds after them.

I tried all the usual places—the Nasty Burger, the Skulk and Lurk, the putt-putt course, Sam's house, Tucker's house... but nothing. It was already dark, and I still had no idea where they might be—until an explosion at the edge of town caught my attention. Turning around, I saw that it was coming from the observatory. Sam did love star gazing...

A streak of white light lit up the sky, and I could make out what looked like a jet of some kind, firing at the observatory. My eyes widened in horror. "Oh, no! I'm too late!"

Putting on a burst of speed, I rocketed toward the observatory. When I got there, I could see that it was, in fact, the Guys in White, in some sort of white (naturally) jet/hovercraft, shooting down at the observation deck. Even though there were people down there. Were they completely insane?

Knowing that they were only shooting at Gregor because they thought he was me, I figured the best course of action was to prove them wrong. Flying up to their aircraft as it hovered in the sky, I knocked on the window. "You boys looking for me?"

They were so convinced that the guy they'd been shooting at was the "Ghost Kid," my appearance completely threw them, and I used that to my advantage. Phasing into their plane, I grabbed them both by the shirt collars and dragged them out through the bulkhead. Pilotless, the jet crashed into the empty hillside a short distance from the observatory.

Floating above the wreck, I glared down at my two captives. "Guys, I'm only gonna say this once. Stay away from those kids!"

"Or what?" K. challenged.

Rather than answer, I simply dragged them with me away from the observatory and across town to their not-so-secret local headquarters in the old Amity Park Penitentiary. Flying close to the ground, I tossed them down into the wet yard outside the building, completely coating their pristine white suits in mud. Before they could get to their feet, or any of their fellow operatives could come out and chase after me, I flew off, heading back toward the observatory, where I hoped I'd find Sam and Tucker unharmed.

Police and emergency vehicles had already arrived by the time I got back. Turning invisible, I flew down to the observation deck, where I could see the police questioning Sam, Tucker, and a couple of girls—Starr and Ashley, I think. Gregor was nowhere in sight.

There was no way I could get near enough to talk to Sam and Tuck, but I stayed long enough to verify that they were, in fact, okay. Sam looked like she was ready to spit nails, but did her best to look completely confused as she told the officers about the jet that came out of nowhere and started shooting at them. She either didn't know that I was the one that stopped them, or she feigned ignorance, because she claimed to have no idea why the jet had crashed.

Satisfied that they hadn't been hurt and were taking care of the fallout with the cops, I headed home, turning over this new development in my mind. How could I have been so wrong about Gregor being with the Guys in White? I'd been so sure.

But why had I been so sure? Because he'd shown up when the Guys in White did? Because he wore white? Because—

Because he hit on Sam. Because he hit on Sam and she liked it. She liked him, and how long has it been since she's liked anyone? When have you ever had to worry about losing her to someone else?

That hit me hard, the thought of losing her. Not that it was the first time I'd struggled with that particular fear. Freakshow; my evil, alternate-future self; tonight... there were a million ways I could lose Sam—or Tucker, or anyone I loved—in a town that was pretty much Ghost Central.

But this was different. This was her choice. She was choosing this. Choosing him, and not me.

Which was ridiculous, I knew. There was no choice to be made. We were friends, and her having a... God, I couldn't even think the word. A boyfriend... If she had... that... it wouldn't change us. It wouldn't change who we were to each other.

But it would change what you could be.

That scared me more than I wanted to admit. Not just the truth of that thought, but the fact that I would think it at all. There were so many reasons thinking about Sam like that was a really, really bad idea. It could ruin our friendship. She probably didn't feel that way about me—she'd even said as much when I'd been under Ember's spell that one time. And most of all, she was too important, too integral to my life to be just another high school crush. If I did have a thing for her, what then? Dinner and a movie? A dance? A make-out session behind the bleachers? It just didn't fit with the place Sam already occupied in my life.

How can you like someone you already love?

You can't. I couldn't. Not that it mattered. If Gregor wasn't a spy, and Sam liked him, then that was that. The only thing I could do was fall all over myself apologizing to her for being overprotective—

Jealous.

Whatever. Apologize for spying on her, learn to live with Gregor and her, and our friendship would be back on track.

But somehow, that didn't make me feel much better.

---

I saw Sam and Tucker in front of the school about fifteen minutes before the bell would ring. Thankfully, they were Gregor-free, which meant I wouldn't have to apologize in front of him.

"I am so sorry about last night," I said as soon as I was within earshot. "I can't believe those morons actually shot up the observatory looking for me."

"Then it was you that took them out?" Sam asked. "We kinda figured, but..."

I nodded, then gave them a quick rundown of the visit the Guys in White had with my parents, and finished with another apology.

"Not your fault, dude," Tucker said.

I didn't think Sam would be as charitable, especially given how annoyed she looked, but she shrugged. "Yeah, it's not your fault. And you did stop them before they could hurt anyone."

"Thankfully. Gregor's okay, too, then?" I looked around. "Where is he, anyway? I didn't see him at the observatory last night."

A look halfway between disgust and... something I couldn't quite name flashed in Sam's eyes. "He's fine. Ran off when the shooting started."

I was surprised by the ice in her voice, but even more surprised when Tucker scowled in disgust. "Good riddance."

My eyes widened. "What's going on? Did I miss something? I thought you guys loved Gregor."

"Apparently, that's not his name," Sam said through clenched teeth.

"What?"

Tucker explained. "He lied. He's not from Hungary, he's from Michigan. And his name is really Elliot. The accent, the sucking up to me—it was all to impress Sam. So I guess you were right about him not being on the up and up, even if he wasn't a spy for the Guys in White."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I felt a little vindicated, hearing that I'd been right not to trust him, but in the end, it didn't justify my behavior, spying on Sam like that just because I was feeling overprotective.

Jealous.

Shut up.

I sighed. "No, I wasn't. I was wrong." I looked at Sam. "And you were right. It wasn't any of my business in the first place. So, I'm sorry. I never should have betrayed your trust by spying on you and..." I had to force myself to get out the rest. "Your boyfriend."

Sam grimaced. "Ugh. He's not my boyfriend. I dumped him as soon as I figured out that you were right about him being a phony."

I couldn't help but feel almost giddy at the wave of relief that washed over me. Until I saw the look on Sam's face. "Apparently, that is the only way a boy could like me."

Tucker stepped up beside her. "That's not true!"

"That's totally not true," I readily agreed. "There are a million reasons a boy could like you. I mean, you're smart, you're fun, you're cool, you're prett—" I stopped short, realizing where this was going, but when Sam blushed and looked pleased, I decided I didn't care. "Why am I still talking? I am such a spaz. Still friends?"

Her face lit up in a smile. "The best," she said, imitating Gregor's fake Hungarian accent. And that was that. Fences were mended, and Sam and I were back on track. As friends. Like we were meant to be.

But a funny thing happened later that day. I was eating lunch with Sam and Tucker outside, and Valerie walked by. She waved at me, and I gave her an absent wave in return before going back to whatever discussion Sam and I had been having. It wasn't until later, when I was on my way back to class, that it hit me. I'd barely registered Valerie's presence when she'd waved at me. For the first time since our almost-relationship ended, I wasn't thinking about her, or what could have been.

Instead, I'd find myself thinking about Sam, and what could be.

It's funny how the tables can turn on you.

Chapter 23: Turning Tables: Sam

Turning Tables
Sam

It's funny how the tables can turn on you. One second, all you can think about is the person you can't have, even though you know it's never gonna happen. You keep telling yourself it's a brand new school year and well past time to just get over it and move on, but you don't know how, because you can't imagine anything or anyone else filling that space. Then, a second later, they're not even a blip on the radar because all you can think about now is the totally hot foreign exchange student that just walked in the door, and he actually seems to like you, and he's Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian, and a goth, and where has he been all my life?

Seriously, I don't think I'd ever been so instantly attracted to anyone. Even my crush on Danny—my biggest and most serious thus far—had been a sort of slow-burn thing. But Gregor? It was more like a flash fire. He was tall and lean, with pure white hair spiked straight up, just the slightest hint of a goatee on his chin, dark glasses, and a small, gold hoop dangling from each earlobe. Not classically good-looking the way Danny was, but more... unique. Definitely my type. So much so, that I actually started babbling when I introduced myself: "Sam Manson. It's short for Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. You can call me Sam, too. Why am I still talking? I'm such a spaz!"

But he found it charming. Me. Charming.

I was so taken by that—by him—that I barely even noticed the ghost attack. Gregor seemed to take it in stride, which was another point in his favor. While Tucker went out to check on Danny, I offered to show Gregor around a bit. It was late, so we just walked around the area of town near the Nasty Burger and the Park, but he asked if I'd show him more tomorrow, and I was more than happy to oblige. Tucker joined us at some point, letting me know in his trying-too-hard-to-be-subtle way that Danny said he didn't need any help, and Gregor entertained us both with stories about Hungary, the Euro-goth scene, and how he'd decided to go Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian. Definitely an interesting and funny guy.

I got to show him around school the next day, and he reminded me I'd promised to take him around town that night. "It's a date," I replied, then blushed when I realized what I'd said. "Er, not a date, date, I mean..."

He smiled, his teeth the most brilliant white I'd ever seen. "Why not a date?"

I was so taken aback, I think I actually giggled. Either something was lost in the translation, or a hot guy had just asked me out. Not Paulina. Not Valerie. Me.

That night, I made a special point of dressing the way I always dress, and wearing my hair the way I always wore it. I so was not going to be one of those girls that had to go through fifty different outfits and obsess about my hair and makeup just for one little date. And it's not like it was some big romantic candlelit dinner or anything. It was just me, showing a foreign exchange student around Amity Park. But as we walked, he held my hand, and I thought I was going to die on the spot. God, I hope my palms weren't sweaty.

We didn't have any real plan; we just sort of went wherever the mood struck. We went to the park and skipped stones in the pond. We went to see some cheesy romantic comedy, which normally would make me wanna hurl in my popcorn, but when he put his arm around my shoulders as the hero and heroine kissed for the first time, I decided maybe cheesy romantic comedies weren't such a bad thing after all. We went to the mall afterwards and shared a plate of vegetarian spaghetti, which somehow seemed even more romantic than a candlelit dinner would have been.

The only thing that marred what otherwise would have been a perfect evening was the occasional niggling at the back of my brain that kept making me think of Danny. Everywhere we went, I thought I saw him—at the movie theater, at the mall... It was frustrating because I wanted to be able to let myself enjoy being with someone else. Someone who actually thought of me as dating potential. The last thing I needed was to stay stuck in a crush on a boy that was never, ever going to like me that way, so when I thought I saw his shadow on the movie screen, or heard his voice at the mall, I made a deliberate effort to push him from my mind and concentrate on the guy in front of me.

Not that it was a hard thing to do. Besides being easy on the eyes, Gregor shared a lot of my interests. We liked to surf the same websites, listen to the same bands, read the same authors. I promised to take him to the Skulk and Lurk some time, and he flashed me another one of his brilliant smiles. "Are you free tomorrow?"

Tomorrow, the day after, the rest of my life. "Yeah. I think I'm free tomorrow." And it was another date.

After dinner, Gregor offered to walk me home, so we headed across the parking lot toward my house. As we walked under a streetlight, he grabbed my hand and stopped me. "Wait, Sam. There is something I must tell you, right here and now."

My heart started pounding. "O-okaaaay. What?"

He leaned toward me and took my chin in his hand. "You have little tiny strand of spaghetti hanging from your lip right... here!"

And then he kissed me.

At first, I froze, completely shocked. A guy was kissing me. Not just some fake-out make-out, but a real kiss. An actual, ohmygod he's kissing me kiss. My head starting spinning. Ohmygod, he really is kissing me, and I think my brain is going to explode and, wow, this is really nice and... Closing my eyes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew closer, letting myself get lost in the moment. His scruffy goatee scratched my chin, but his lips were soft and tasted like marinara sauce and something more exotic I couldn't quite place. It was completely different than kissing Danny who, even though I'd only ever kissed him in his human form, still had a sort of cold, otherworldliness to him that gave me shivers, and—

My eyes flew open as I realized with horror where my mind had gone. Straight to Danny. Again. Even though I was kissing someone else. Someone I could really see myself falling for, maybe, eventually. But this was way too much, way too soon, and so not fair to Gregor.

Blinking, I put my hands on his shoulders and gently pushed myself away from him. "Whoa. Easy there, big fella. Don't you think we're rushing this a bit?"

He looked sheepish. "Ah, yes, yes. I forget. The American girls like to... take it slow."

"I've just... got some things to figure out." Like whether or not I actually liked Gregor for Gregor, or whether I just liked the idea of him as a shortcut to getting over Danny.

"Of course. I respect this." And he took my hand in his, not the least bit upset or put off by my semi-refusal.

I looked from our joined hands to his face and smiled, relieved that he understood, and enjoying going back to the much less complicated pleasure of holding his hand. But as we started walking again, I could feel my smile fade, pushed out by an uneasiness in my heart as I held hands with this boy who was not Danny.

That night, I had a hard time sleeping. I kept reliving the kiss, comparing it to the two fake-out make-outs Danny and I had shared. It was ridiculous, comparing a real kiss with someone who actually liked me to two fake kisses with someone who never would, but I couldn't stop my mind from going there. From remembering how each kiss felt, and how each kiss made me feel. I wanted to let it go, to let Danny go, so I could be happy with this new guy I really did like. But even contemplating cutting off my feelings for Danny was like trying to imagine cutting off my arm. He was a part of me in so many ways. How could I just let that go?

Because it isn't real. Your friendship, that's real, but anything else is just a false hope. It's a... a ghost. A ghost of a future that will never be.

Still, it was my ghost, familiar and almost... comforting, in its own, dysfunctional way. And until I could exorcise it completely, I could never really move on. Not with Gregor, or anyone else.

That was my task, then. To exorcise the Ghost of Futures Not Meant to Be and free up room in my heart for other, more tangible possibilities. And Gregor seemed willing to let me set the pace, so maybe it was doable. Maybe if we took it slow, and I got to know him as well as I knew Danny, it wouldn't be so hard or seem so out of reach. Then, maybe, I'd be ready to kiss someone who wasn't Danny.

---

School the next day was awkward. I wasn't sure how to act around Gregor, but I didn't see much of him before lunch, which helped.

I was even less sure how to act around Danny, especially at lunch, when we had time to actually talk. He seemed bent on finding out exactly how I'd spent my evening, but no way was I going there with him. Not yet. So I tried to deflect his questions about what I'd been doing. "I don't know. Just hung out."

"With Gregor?" He sounded almost angry.

"I wouldn't do that," Tucker told him, a hint of warning in his voice.

I scowled, irritated with the both of them for bugging me about a subject I wasn't ready to discuss. "Why is that any of your business?"

Danny got up from his seat and came around to my side of the table, where he got completely in my face. Surprised, I jerked away from him. "What are you doing?"

He returned to his own seat with an innocent shrug. "I don't know. Just, uh, checking for pimples, dimples..." He paused, giving me an accusatory look. "Spaghetti sauce."

What the heck? "Spaghetti—?" I gasped as it hit me. He wasn't just fishing; he knew. "Were you spying on me?"

Tucker answered for him. "I told you it was a bad idea to spy on her."

Danny shot him a nasty look. "Niiiice."

I could feel the fury building in me. The shadow on the movie screen... his voice at the mall... "You used your ghost powers to spy on me?" It wasn't me. It wasn't because I was obsessing on him. He'd been there. Spying on me. Rising to my feet, I curled my hands into fists and glared down at him. "You've really crossed the line!"

"Not you! I was spying on Gregor! He's so obviously working with the Guys in White!" Danny climbed to his feet to face me.

I could have cheerfully strangled him. "Oh, so that's it! The only way a boy could like me is if it was part of a plot to get you? Ha! Ego, much?" Just because he didn't think of me as girlfriend material didn't mean

no one else could. And who was he, of all people, to pronounce judgments on my dating life, anyway? The guy whose crushes included the shallowest girl in the school and the ghost hunter who wanted to kill his alter-ego?

I'm not sure what I would have done next, had Gregor not chosen that moment to appear. "Hey, Sam, you want to—?"

"Whatever it is, yes!" Because if I didn't get away from Danny, I was going to kill him. Turning on my heel, I grabbed Gregor's arm and stomped away from the table, dragging him behind me.

Back inside the school, Gregor wrenched his arm free from my grasp. "Sam, stop! You are—how you say?— dislocating my shoulder. Something is wrong, yes?"

I took a breath to calm down. "No, Gregor. Nothing's wrong. I just... needed a breath of fresh air."

He looked puzzled. "For breath of fresh air, you come indoors?"

I stopped, unable to suppress a chuckle. "No. It's just an expression. What were you going to ask me, anyway?"

"Yes, yes. I wanted to ask you what time I should pick you up tonight."

I frowned. "Tonight?"

"You said you would take me to goth bookstore tonight." He tilted his head. "You are still free, yes? Or do you have other plans. Perhaps with your friend Tucker? Or Danny?"

Just the mention of Danny's name made my blood start to boil again. "No. I definitely do not have plans with Danny. We're still on for the bookstore."

He smiled. "Good. It's a date, then?"

I swallowed at the word date. Part of me really, really liked the idea. But another, louder part was afraid of getting back into the same situation as last night, where Gregor was nothing more than a convenient alternative to Danny. It didn't help matters that I was furious with my so-called best friend for trying to tell me who I could and couldn't date and was just itching to flaunt my... whatever-this-was with Gregor.

Sidestepping the question altogether, I offered him a small smile in return. "Why don't you come by my place at seven?"

---

By the end of the school day, I was beginning to think that going to the Skulk and Lurk with Gregor was a huge mistake. The more I thought about being alone with him, the more I thought about our kiss the night before, which in turn made me think of Danny spying on us, which made me get mad at him all over again, which made me want to kiss Gregor again even more, which made me feel guilty for using Gregor to get at Danny, which made me angry at Danny... Lather, rinse, repeat. I was considering finding Gregor and begging off, maybe offering to take him later in the weekend when I'd cooled down about the thing with Danny and my feelings about that weren't so tied up in my feelings about Gregor.

Then, a reprieve came in an unlikely form. Tucker.

"Hey, Sam!" he called out, catching up with me after school. "Gregor mentioned you guys were going to the Skulk and Lurk tonight. Mind if I tag along?"

I raised my eyebrow. "Since when do you like going to the Skulk and Lurk?"

"I like the Skulk and Lurk. They have great graphic novels. And Gregor's really cool. So, can I come along?" Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrow at me. "Or is this, like, a date or something?"

I almost wanted to tell him that yes, it was a date, so he'd go back and tell Danny. Let Mr. I Don't Want You But Nobody Else Can Have You Either chew on that for a while. But in truth, the thought of having someone else there so I could get to know Gregor better without obsessing over whether or not I was doing it for the wrong reasons was a huge relief, so I told Tucker he was welcome to tag along. Besides, it made for an even better thought for Danny to chew on: the difference between asking to tag along and spying.

Fortunately, Gregor didn't seem to mind Tucker's company. In fact, when Tucker suggested that the three of us hang out together over the weekend, Gregor readily agreed.

I, on the other hand, was beginning to have second thoughts. Not only was Tucker being even more obnoxious than usual, he seemed to take great delight in getting between me and Gregor whenever he could. Any time I got within three feet of the guy, or even started to feel at ease with him and think that it would be nice to be alone with him, Tucker was there, telling some lame joke, or going on about how cool Gregor was. At first, I thought it was some sort of bromance thing, what with all Tucker's fawning, but then I began to wonder if maybe Danny hadn't put him up to it. I wouldn't put it past him, after all the spying and the accusations about Gregor working with the Guys in White.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. By the time I saw Danny at school on Monday, I was convinced he'd talked Tucker into trying to sabotage my relationship with Gregor, and I was angrier than ever. At lunch, I made a point of sitting with Gregor on the opposite side of the cafeteria from Danny. When Tucker not only sat with us instead of him, but made a point of inviting himself along with us—again—when Gregor asked me if I'd go with him to Amity Park Observatory that night, I knew I was right.

After lunch, I was finally able to corner Tucker. "What do you think you're doing? Did Danny put you up to this?"

He was all innocence. "Put me up to what?"

"Hanging around me and Gregor all weekend, putting yourself between us whenever you could and, now, inviting yourself to the observatory with us tonight. Is this some sort of sick control thing with him? He got caught spying on us, so he got you to do it for him? I swear, if he put you up to this, he's gonna be all ghost by the time I get through with him..."

"Sam, hold up." Tucker put up his hands to stop me. "It was my idea to hang out with you guys, okay?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Why? Because you think he's a spy, too? That he couldn't possibly be spending time with me just because he likes me?"

"No, I don't think he's a spy. I just think he's fun to hang with. And he definitely likes you." This went a long way toward improving my mood, but Tucker gave me a pointed look. "So, do you think maybe you can cut Danny a little bit of slack?"

So much for improved moods. "Why should I? He spied on me, Tucker. He used his ghost powers to spy on me and Gregor that first night we went out."

"As opposed to, say, using a pair of high-powered binoculars?" He crossed his arms and arched his eyebrow at me.

I scowled at him. "That was totally different!"

"How is it different?"

Because Danny didn't want me the way I wanted him. He didn't want me, but he didn't want anyone else to have me either. I was the ego boost when Paulina turned up her nose at him, or Valerie decided her vendetta was more important than her feelings for him. He didn't want me, but he liked that I wanted him, and it was galling. That's how it was different.

But I couldn't say that to Tucker, who was just looking for an excuse to ride me about my feelings for Danny. And the truth was, he wasn't wrong. It was different, but it didn't excuse how I'd acted when Danny and Valerie had gone out. I'd had no more right to spy on him than he had to spy on me, even if the reasons weren't the same. But I couldn't say that to Tucker, either. "It just is," I said, cringing at my own lameness.

He kept giving me that look. "Mm hm."

I sighed. "All right, I get it. People in glass houses, yadda yadda ya. But he shouldn't have done it, and he deserves to suffer a little for it, don't you think?"

"He's suffering a lot for it, Sam."

I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You haven't talked to him for three days. How would you have felt if, when Danny and Valerie were going out, you not only had to see him with someone else, but he'd stopped speaking to you, too?"

"It's different," I said, but with less conviction this time.

"It's only different because you didn't get caught."

That wasn't true, and Tucker knew it. There was no way seeing me with another guy could possibly cause Danny as much pain as seeing him with another girl had caused me. But after school, as I headed off campus hand-in-hand with Gregor (at least Tucker wasn't standing between us this time), I could almost feel Danny watching us. I looked over my shoulder to shoot him an angry glare, but something in his face stopped me. Instead of the smug, self-righteous look he'd had on Friday when he'd first accused Gregor of working with the Guys in White, he looked almost... lost. It made me think of what Tucker had said, He's suffering a lot for it, and I began to wonder if maybe Tucker wasn't right.

All afternoon, I couldn't stop thinking about Danny and that look on his face, and I realized how much I missed him. We'd never spent this much time apart, not since we first became friends in the seventh grade, and not even the excitement of getting to know Gregor and exploring a new more-than-friends relationship could fill the space that Danny would always occupy in my heart. Even if we weren't meant to be more than friends, we were best friends, and I missed that. I missed him.

Besides, Tucker was right about one thing—I was a hypocrite to be so mad at him for spying on me when I'd done the same thing to him. The reasons were different, but that wasn't enough to give me the high ground, and it was well past time for me to forgive him. I tried calling him to patch things up, but his cell phone went to voice mail, and I didn't want my first words to him in three days to be pre-recorded, so I hung up without leaving a message. I tried his house, too, but his mom said he wasn't home from school yet.

I wasn't feeling any better when I met Gregor (and Tucker, of course) at the observatory. Tucker seemed to be having fun, checking out the night skies in the various telescopes they had set up on the observation deck, but I was miserable, wishing I'd had a chance to set things right with Danny and just talk to him again. And what exactly did that say about me, that I could be out under a beautiful, starry sky with a gorgeous guy, and all I could think about was Danny?

That was, until Gregor pulled me aside, telling Tucker, "I wish to have a word with Sam. In private." Then, all I could think about was the way my stomach was rolling as the same conflicting feelings came crashing back. Gregor was holding my hand again, and that I liked, but I was still nervous about being alone with him, especially after having spent an entire day thinking about Danny. It didn't help when he turned to face me, taking my hand in both of his. "I will not mince words, Sam. I like you. And I would like to go steady."

Conflicted or not, I felt a thrill down my spine at his words. This wasn't just some look or gesture I could read too much into. He'd actually said it directly. He liked me. This totally fascinating, hot guy liked me, enough to ask me to go steady. I smiled in spite of myself. "With me?"

"With you. And not your losing friend Tucker."

That quelled the mood. "It's 'loser,'" I corrected without thinking.

"Then, you agree!" He flashed one of his famous smiles, which suddenly didn't seem so appealing.

Tucker chose that moment to do his interruption routine. "You two really have to see—"

Ignoring him, I started in on Gregor. "No, I don't agree. Tucker may be annoying, but he's one of my best friends." I crossed my arms, definitive. "He's part of the package."

Tucker looked from me to Gregor. "Uh... am I interrupting something?" When neither one of us answered him, he waved his hand in front of Gregor's face. "Gregor, dude? Hello!"

I watched as the cool dissolved from Gregor's face, replaced by impatient rage. "Dude! Do you ever stop talking?"

I gaped at him. Gone was the Hungarian accent and the halting English, replaced instead by what sounded like typical, middle-American, teenage boy. Not even noticing my look of surprise at the sudden change, he continued his tirade at Tucker. "Do you even know how obnoxious you are, with your stupid jokes, and your lame-o technology? Idiot!" It was only then that he remembered me. Turning and, no doubt, seeing the anger in my expression, he faltered. "Uh, I mean..." The accent was back, and he threw his arm around Tucker's shoulders. "Is nothing. Uh..." He stopped the act again as soon as he saw it wasn't working. "Oh, darn it."

Finally finding my voice, I lit into him. "Wait a minute. You were faking it? The accent, and liking Tucker, just to get on my good side?"

He sighed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Uh, I'm a guy. Hello! I mean, I really like you, but..." He waved his hands in Tucker's direction. "Come on."

Tucker flashed me a look: Can you believe this guy? And the answer was no, I couldn't. Crossing my arms, furious, I glared at Gregor. He watched me a moment, then scratched his head, chagrined. "We're... through, aren't we?"

I couldn't believe he even had the gall to ask. "Oh, beyond."

Then, as if the whole act and everything he'd said about Tucker weren't bad enough, he actually had the nerve to shrug. "Oh, well." And when Starr and Ashley walked by, giggling, he leered after them. "Cheerleaders! Better adjust my pitch." He caught up with them and, in a voice that sounded like a bad imitation of Dash Baxter, oozed, "Hey babes! You like football?"

I thought I was going to throw up. Had I actually liked this lying, sleazy jerk? What kind of idiot was I, to not see through the act?

Tucker looked even angrier than I felt. "Can I hit him for you?"

For an instant, I considered telling him to go for it, but before I could even answer, a high-pitched shriek behind us caught our attention, and we turned to find something in the sky streaking toward us. We dove in opposite directions, and the thing—was that a missile?—shot between us. Climbing back onto my feet as quickly as I could, I was just in time to see the thing, definitely a missile, plow through the observation deck railing behind Gregor and the two girls. I glanced at Tucker in shock. "Thanks, but I think that's covered."

That's when we saw the jet. The white jet. It roared by overhead, then seemed to stop in mid-air, hovering over us like a helicopter, close enough that I could see the two pilots through the cockpit window.

The Guys in White.

And they were getting ready to fire another weapon.

Tracing their angle of trajectory, I could see right away who they were aiming for. "Gregor!" I called out. "Although I think you're the world's biggest jerk, run!"

Still on his knees from the earlier near miss, Gregor looked up when I called him. He managed to dive out of the way just as the jet shot at him with some sort of blue ray, and my mind whirled as I tried to make sense of what was happening. Why would the Guys in White go after Gregor? Danny had been accusing him all week of working for them, but if that were true, they wouldn't be attacking him. But why would they go after him? They only went after ghosts, like Danny—

Danny, who'd been dodging them all week as they'd closed in on him in tighter and tighter circles, almost as if they knew he were human. Danny who, until this past week, always hung out with me and Tucker. Danny, who wore black and white, and had white hair...

As Gregor ran, screaming, trying to dodge the jet's weapons, I turned to Tucker. "I think they think he's Danny Phantom!"

Tucker shook his head. "Oh, man. He's toast! At least Danny can defend himself."

"We've gotta do something!"

"But what?"

Still screaming, Gregor dove to the ground and slid past us, coming to a halt under the giant globe over the doorway to the observatory. The jet hovered above us, firing two more missiles, which detonated on either side of the supports holding the globe aloft. I heard Tucker breathe Gregor's name, and then he was gone from my side, diving after Gregor and knocking him out from under the globe just before it crashed to the ground where he'd been moments before. Gregor looked up at Tucker, stunned. "Dude! You saved my life!"

"Yeah, but I despise you now."

The jet was still there, however, and it started firing at them once more, forcing them both back onto their feet in an effort to get away. Then, without warning, the firing stopped, and the jet crashed into the mountain not far from the observatory.

Danny, Tucker mouthed at me, and I nodded in agreement. He somehow must have figured out what was happening and gone after the Guys in White.

In front of us, Gregor watched as the jet burst into flames. "This town is too crazy for me! I'm going back to Michigan!"

Michigan?

Tucker called out after him as he ran back toward the doorway. "Don't you mean Hungary, Gregor?"

As he disappeared through the door behind the fallen globe, he shouted back to us. "My name is Elliot!"

I blinked. Elliot? Even his name was a lie?

Everything was a blur after that. Someone—Starr or Ashley, probably—had called 911, and police and a fire crew arrived. While the firefighters worked on putting out the small blazes left in the wake of the missiles and other weapons the Guys in White had fired at Gregor, the police officers gathered me, Tucker, Starr, and Ashley and began questioning us. I'm not even sure what I told them. Mostly, I just shared what I'd seen and claimed ignorance as to who had been shooting at us and why. They called our parents, and mine showed up wringing their hands in worry. Finally, they let us all go home, and I managed to avoid too many questions from my parents by telling them I was tired and needed to go to bed.

Once in bed, however, I found it impossible to sleep. Gregor—no, not Gregor, Elliot—had been lying to me the whole time, and I'd bought it. All of it. The accent, the Euro-goth garbage, the vegetarianism. Was I really that desperate for someone—anyone—to like me as more than a friend that I couldn't even see through a shallow act? And I'd been worried about using him to get over Danny.

Danny. He'd been right the whole time. Not about Gregor... Elliot... whatever... working with the Guys in White, maybe. But he was a fake. Danny had called it, and I'd gotten mad at him for it. Didn't speak to him for three days over it, and he was right all along. God, I felt like dirt. And I just knew he was never going to let me live this one down, either. What would happen the next time someone took an interest in me? Would he feel justified in spying on me, now that I'd proven my own judgment was completely lacking? Never wanting me the way I wanted him, but never letting anyone else close to me, either, because he was overprotective and I was an idiot?

It wasn't a pretty picture, but I didn't know how to make things better.

---

I saw Tucker at school first. He came up to me, all sympathy, and put his arm around my shoulders. "How're you doing?"

"Other than feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, you mean?"

"Hey, I was right there with you. He fooled us all."

Not all of us. "Not Danny."

"Pfft." He did the "Gregor" wave thing. "Danny's just as big an idiot as the rest of us. He just wanted to believe there was something wrong with Gregor."

"Right. Because he's overprotective and doesn't think I'm smart enough to pick my own dates. And guess what? He was right."

He snorted. "Please. That is so not what his problem was."

"Okay, so what was his problem?"

He gave me an odd look, but Danny arrived before I could question him further. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the confession I owed him. Before I could even open my mouth, however, he started talking. "I am so sorry about last night. I can't believe those morons actually shot up the observatory looking for me."

I nodded at the confirmation of what Tucker and I had suspected. "Then it was you that took them out? We kinda figured, but..."

Danny then went on to explain how the Guys in White had shown up at his house earlier in the afternoon, questioning his parents about Tucker's "associates." Apparently, they'd captured Skulker earlier and had found Tucker's old PDA wired into his suit. Danny finished the story with another apology.

Tucker shook his head. "Not your fault, dude."

"Yeah, it's not your fault," I admitted, more than a little chagrined. "And you did stop them before they could hurt anyone."

"Thankfully. Gregor's okay, too, then?" Danny looked around, as if noticing for the first time that "Gregor" wasn't with us. "Where is he, anyway? I didn't see him at the observatory last night."

Just hearing his name stirred up several feelings in me—rage, disgust, and a good dose of self-reproof among them. "He's fine. Ran off when the shooting started." I couldn't keep the revulsion from my voice.

Tucker's face darkened. "Good riddance."

Danny looked from me to Tucker in surprise. "What's going on? Did I miss something? I thought you guys loved Gregor."

I gritted my teeth. "Apparently, that's not his name."

"What?"

Tucker filled Danny in, his voice as dark as his expression. "He lied. He's not from Hungary, he's from Michigan. And his name is really Elliot. The accent, the sucking up to me—it was all to impress Sam. So I guess you were right about him not being on the up and up, even if he wasn't a spy for the Guys in White."

I cringed, waiting for the I told you so I knew I deserved. But instead, Danny sighed. "No, I wasn't. I was wrong." His eyes met mine. "And you were right. It wasn't any of my business in the first place. So, I'm sorry. I never should have betrayed your trust by spying on you and... your boyfriend."

I almost blinked in surprise that, far from gloating, Danny was actually apologizing to me, but I was too disgusted by his last two words to think much beyond that. "Ugh. He's not my boyfriend. I dumped him as soon as I figured out that you were right about him being a phony." Then, anger gave way to something more like dejection. "Apparently, that is the only way a boy could like me."

Tucker rallied at my side. "That's not true!"

"That's totally not true," Danny added. "There are a million reasons a boy could like you. I mean, you're smart, you're fun, you're cool, you're prett—" He stopped before getting the whole word out, but I couldn't help but blush. It was probably just talk to cheer me up, since I knew I wasn't as pretty as girls like Paulina or Valerie, but I was pleased by the compliment anyway. He even looked a little embarrassed, almost like he really meant it, and started talking really fast to cover. "Why am I still talking? I am such a spaz. Still friends?"

I smiled at him, linking my arm in his, and imitating "Gregor's" fake Hungarian accent. "The best." And that was that. Fences were mended, and Danny and I were back on track. As friends. Like we were meant to be. Even better, he wasn't giving me grief about how easily I'd been taken in by a smarmy liar. It was a small victory, considering the fact that my crush on him was as bad as ever, while he'd be drooling over Valerie again the next time he saw her. But I'd take whatever victory I could get.

A funny thing happened later that day, though. Danny, Tucker, and I were eating lunch outside when Valerie walked by. She waved at Danny, and he waved back. But it was an absent wave—absent of drooling, mostly. I knew it was too much to hope for him to have actually gotten over his crush on her, but the fact that he was at least considerate enough not to completely fawn over her in my presence was another small victory. Everything was back to the way it had always been—no Gregor, me crushing on Danny, Danny not crushing on me—and yet, something had changed. Something I couldn't name, but it was definitely a change for the better.

It's funny how the tables can turn on you.

Notes:

Another one where Tucker's take is just begging to be told. You can read it in the companion story, Turning Tables.

Chapter 24: Maybe: Danny

Notes:

Remember way back in chapter nine, when Sam had her "maybe" moment? Well, it's finally Danny's turn. Guys are just slow that way. ;)

Maybe
Danny

I hadn't been expecting the question, so I wasn't prepared to answer.

It was on a fishing trip with my dad, when he was going through this bonding-with-the-kids phase, and he decided we needed to have a meaningful chat. "So, while we wait for the fish to bite, whaddaya say we, uh... do a little father-slash-son bonding? Spend some quality time getting to know each other better."

I raised my eyebrows at the stilted tone in his voice. "Are you reading that out of a book?"

He let out a nervous laugh. "Heck, no!" Then he started rambling a bunch of nonsense that I couldn't even understand. Something about a monkey and an all-you-can-eat platter? What? So I wasn't ready when he hit me with The Question. "Hey! How are you and that Sam person doing?"

I gasped. "What?"

"You know. Uh, the gloomy girl you like, uh, like."

"Gee, uh... I-I-I don't know if I exactly like..." I couldn't stop stammering, and the denials that used to spring so easily to my lips when anyone questioned my relationship with Sam wouldn't come. Like with "Gregor" when he hit me with the same question, or Johnny 13 and that crack about "lovers' quarrels" just last night, I couldn't get the words out.

Before, I might have stumbled over a response to questions or accusations about my feelings for Sam, but it would have been easy to sidestep the issue and move on without giving it another thought. Then came the kick in the gut that was watching her kiss someone else, and now? I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about her. But if I talked about it, out loud, to my dad of all people, with anything other than a resounding refutal, the feelings I'd been pretending I hadn't been feeling for months would no longer be vague and without form. They'd have a shape and a name. They'd be out there in the universe, tangible and real. If I said anything other than there's nothing to talk about, I could never again pretend that Sam had never been anything more than a friend to me, that I'd never hoped for more. I could never go back.

But I hadn't been expecting the question, so I wasn't prepared to answer, and the denials that used to spring so easily to my lips wouldn't come.

"Well," I replied, giving voice to the truth that, up until that point, I'd been trying to deny. "Maybe."

Chapter 25: Near Miss: Danny

Near Miss
Danny

I didn't know which was worse. When it came to bad guys with mind control powers, I was used to being the one whose head got messed with, while my friends had to figure out how to snap me out of it. Ember's love spell, Freakshow's crystal ball, Desiree's Sam-and-I-never-met wishverse—it was all part of the With-Great-Powers package. Yeah, it was bad coming out of a half-stupor to find a creepy shrine to my best friend laid out on my own bed, or hear that I'd tried to kill her with my own hand, or realize her very existence had been ripped out of my own memories. Definitely not my favorite moments. The experiences themselves, however, were often fuzzy and vague, with only flashes of dream-like memories, like getting root canal under gas. You know it was bad, but you don't really remember the experience.

But being the one person in my right mind while everyone else in town had been turned into zombies? That was a completely different kind of bad. Watching, helpless, but with perfect clarity, as that freaky new ghost plant, Undergrowth, used his Mind Vines to control my classmates, my parents, my sister, Tucker... it almost made me nostalgic for the fog that came with being the one controlled.

The worst, however, was Sam, and not just because she was occupying more and more of my thoughts lately. Although, that probably was the reason my brain locked up when Undergrowth first produced her. The Poison Ivy getup she was wearing was kinda hot, and don't even get me started on her voice, all sultry and dream-like. But her eyes were all wrong—bright green, with no whites or pupils—and the way he was using her was enough to cool off the whole hotness factor as fast as a dip in Lake Michigan in January. He didn't just turn her into some kind of worker drone like he'd done with Dash or Paulina, or even threaten to make plant food out of her, like he'd planned for Tucker. With Sam, he'd transformed her into some kind of living marionette. A doll on strings made of vines, doing things she would never do, saying things she would never say. Sam, the most individualistic, independent thinker I'd ever known, reduced to being puppet to a plant ghost. Sexy voice or not, it was the creepiest thing I'd ever seen.

And there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't save her, not with everyone in the entire town hooked into those Mind Vines, not with Undergrowth able to regenerate and duplicate himself and be anywhere and everywhere all at once, and especially not with whatever cold-thing I had going on that was making my teeth chatter like I actually had taken a dip in Lake Michigan in January. Somehow, I'd become the Snow Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus—everything I touched turned into ice. Handy for helping me get away when I froze Undergrowth's vines off of myself. Twice. Not so handy when I was too frostbitten to fly or even fight. The only thing I could do was try to get away, into the Ghost Zone, where hopefully I could get help from a ghost Sam, Tucker, and I had met recently who had ice powers and might know something about why I was so cold.

But everywhere I went, Undergrowth's vines were there, dragging Sam along with them. I made it back to FentonWorks, and down into the basement, only to have Sam drop down out of nowhere, dangling on her vines, blocking my way to the Ghost Portal. "Stay, Danny."

I can't even begin to describe what it was like to hear those words, in that voice, from the one girl I'd been trying in vain not to think about in that way.

Then she added, "Stay and rule with me," reminding me once more that it wasn't really her at all. Not her words, not her voice... not her feelings. It was an empty shell that looked and sounded like her, but could only parrot what that... that ghost wanted her to do and say. More than anything, I wanted to drain the chlorophyll out of him for using her like that, but I was so cold my skin had turned blue and and my hair and arms were coated in a layer of ice, so the most I could do was grind out through chattering teeth, "I-I always thought you ruled, Sam. Just.. n-not like this. I'll... b-be back. And I'll... s-save you. And everyone!"

Something in her face changed and, for just a moment, I thought I saw Sam—my Sam—but then she was gone. Not-Sam growled, a feral sound, and motioned her hands toward me, prompting the vines around her to shoot out in an attempt to ensnare me. Even half-frozen, however, I was able to go intangible in time. Running through the vines, past Sam, and into the glowing, green swirl of the open Portal, I shouted back to her over my shoulder. "I promise!"

Once in the Ghost Zone, I was able to move with a little more ease. Flying was more natural than walking there, which was a good thing, or I probably never would have made it three feet beyond the Portal. As it was, I don't really remember much of what happened after I got past Sam and the vines controlling her. I just remember the numbing, paralyzing cold, and knowing that there was only one being who would understand what was happening to me and be able to help me. I had to make it to him before I blacked out completely. It seemed like I was floating for hours, barely conscious, before I finally saw a patch of ice and snow below me, and then I was falling, and I surrendered to the cold.

---

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I realized was that I wasn't cold anymore. The second thing I realized was that I was floating in a tank filled with some sort of warm, viscous fluid. The third thing I realized was that there was a giant creature watching me from outside the tank. At least ten feet tall, the creature was covered in shaggy, white fur, and had a somewhat bear-like face with yellow eyes and a row of fearsome, jagged teeth. His head was topped with horns made of ice, and he wore a blue cape draped over his shoulders, a kilt-like blue skirt belted at his waist with an ornate gold belt, and a gold band around his upper right arm that matched the belt. His left arm had no such adornment, however. From about the shoulder down, instead of flesh and fur, the arm was made of ice that was so clear, I could see his bones through it.

When he saw that I was awake, he bellowed out a deep, throaty laugh. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!"

"Frostbite!" The exact ghost-creature I'd been looking for. Except... "Hey, wait a minute. Where am I?" That's when I realized the fourth thing about my situation: I was wearing nothing but an oxygen mask and my underwear. In vain, I tried to cover myself with my hands. "Where are my clothes?" At least I could talk through the oxygen mask.

"This is a medical facility in the Realm of the Far Frozen, and you are floating in a de-icing chamber."

The Far Frozen was a realm in the Ghost Zone that was home to an entire city of Yeti-like ghost creatures with ice powers, and Frostbite was their leader. Sam, Tucker and I had discovered them a few months earlier, when we'd been trying to map out more of the Ghost Zone and had gotten lost. Although I'd never heard of them until we crash-landed the Specter Speeder in their realm, they'd apparently heard of me. They had an entire shrine of cave paintings depicting my defeat of the Ghost King.

That first visit to the Far Frozen, however, had left me completely unprepared for the medical center where I now found myself. What I remembered of their village was rustic and tribal—caves decorated with crude furniture and animal skins. This was... well, rustic and tribal weren't words that sprung to mind. It was clearly a cave dug out of rock and ice like the other places we'd seen here, but around the large chamber there were several pieces of high-tech hospital-type equipment, with more of the Yeti-like creatures dressed in amber sashes and skirts working on them. The tank I was in was like a bacta tank straight out of Star Wars, and there was another one just like it behind me. Around the walls were high-definition monitors that would've made Tucker drool.

Frostbite, oblivious to my surprise, continued answering my questions in that warm, cultured voice of his that was so incongruent with his fierce appearance. "Your clothes are in the wash. There were a lot of burrs in your shirt. As for what happened, I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me, Great One."

I didn't even blink at the Great One reference. I'd gotten used to the way Frostbite managed to act like both a reverential disciple and a wise mentor all at once.

"Well, what I can tell you isn't good," I began, then explained about Undergrowth and how he'd taken over everyone in Amity Park, but that I'd been unable to stop him because of the weird cold sensation that had taken me over.

He seemed to understand what this meant. "Ah, yes. The 'cold sensation.'" Leaving my tank, he went over to one of the monitors on the wall. It had a silhouette image of my body, with a flashing, ice-blue circle in the middle of my chest. "Your central core reading indicates extreme cold, as if your body is self-generating it. I sensed it within you the last time we met."

I shook my head, pressing my hands against the walls of the tank. "How is that possible?"

Frostbite laughed. "You become invisible, pass through solid objects, and emit beams of energy from your hands, and you ask, 'how is this possible?'"

"You mean... this is a new ghost power?"

"Precisely. Though new to you it may be, rest assured, it is an ability very familiar to my people." By way of demonstration, he held out his ice hand, and a snowball materialized above his open palm. It spun slowly a moment, then morphed into a crystal made of clear, sparkling ice. "We are quite well-trained in its use." He further exhibited his powers by creating an ice sculpture of me. "Of course, there are more practical uses for it as well." The crystal in his hand became a broadsword and, with a loud battle cry, he hoisted it over his head and slashed diagonally through the ice sculpture from shoulder to waist, sending the top half sliding off and smashing into pieces on the floor.

I could feel excitement building in my chest. "Teach me." Then, remembering I was still in my underwear, I added, "Uh, when my clothes are ready."

---

It was an amazing experience, actually having someone train me in the use of a new ghost power. Ever since the Accident, I'd had to learn by trial and error, muddling my way through as I tried to figure out how best to control and use each new ability I acquired. The only other time I'd even had the option of someone with similar powers to mine teaching me was Vlad's whole renounce-your-father-and-join-me offer, and that was so never gonna happen that I hadn't even bothered to think about what it would be like to get some real guidance.

Like, turns out these powers weren't all completely new after all. My Ghost Sense—the way I would feel so cold for an instant that my breath would mist—was a part of this all along. Frostbite showed me how to let out the cold all at once, instead of just in small bits when I sensed a ghost, and just like that, I was no longer shivering and could control the cold.

Not that learning how to control the cold went well. In fact, I pretty much sucked at the whole ice powers thing. But at least I knew why I sucked, and had some sort of vague idea how to suck less.

The problem was, just when I was beginning to hit my stride and feel like I was really getting somewhere, Frostbite told me it was time to go back. As he walked me back to the edge of the village to the entrance back into the rest of the Ghost Zone, I grew more and more reluctant to leave his counsel to be back on my own. I'd even tried to convince him to come and help me, but he went all Obi-Wan on me, telling me this was something I'd have to face alone. And really alone this time. More alone than I'd ever been. Not since the Ghost King had I felt so overwhelmed by what lie ahead, and at least then I'd had the whole town behind me, and Tucker and Sam in the wings helping me out.

But now? No Tucker or Sam to provide me moral support or backup. No Jazz to cover for me. No parents helping me without even knowing it. Every single person I knew was being controlled. Each one of them was, effectively, my enemy. How could I fight them all without hurting them? How could I save them all? Even as I thanked Frostbite and his people for all they'd done, the enormity of going back alone was terrifying. "I-I just... what if I can't beat him? If I can never go home again? Maybe I could just... stay here with you?"

Frostbite knelt down beside me and placed a mammoth paw on my shoulder. "Fear is natural, Danny Phantom." Not Great One this time, but my name. "Charging into battle despite the fear is what makes someone a hero. A hero must always believe he will win, and your new abilities just may help."

It wasn't anything I didn't already know, but hearing it helped, and I strengthened my resolve. I had to go back, and I had to win.

I'd promised Sam that I'd save her.

The image of her, hanging like a puppet from Undergrowth's vines, turned fear into anger, melting away the last bit of reluctance and hardening it into determination. I always thought you ruled, Sam. I'll be back. And I'll save you. And everyone.

---

The glow from the Fenton Portal was the only light in my parents' lab when I returned. My ghost ray cast the light a little further, revealing the entire basement overrun by vines. "If the lab looks like this, I can't imagine the rest of the town."

Phasing straight up through the ceiling, I didn't stop until I was hovering above the roof, just outside the Op-Center. It was worse than I'd feared. Amity Park looked like it had been deserted for decades, and a rain forest had grown up in its place. Vines were wrapped around every building as far as I could see—which wasn't far, since the sky was so gloomy and overcast it was almost as dark as night even though I was pretty sure it was still daytime. I—

"Danny..."

I looked over my shoulder, shivering—and not from cold—as I recognized the voice that had whispered my name.

Sam.

I couldn't see her, but I started flying in the direction the voice had come from, hoping I wouldn't have to look for her long, because the empty town was giving me the willies. "This place is deserted. No sign of human life anywhere. I've gotta find Tucker, or—" I started shivering violently again, and this time it was the cold. I stopped, hovering in the air and hugging my arms to my chest as I concentrated on what Frostbite had taught me. "I control the power. The power doesn't control me."

"Danny..."

Sam's voice again, in that weird, sultry, not-Sam tone. It distracted me from the cold, and I started flying again. Ahead of me, where the park used to be, there was a gigantic purple tree surrounded by dozens of giant buds that looked disturbingly like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The tree seemed more... significant than the plants and vines that covered the rest of the city, and since the voice sounded like it had come from that direction, it seemed like a good place to start. As I approached the tree, amazed by its enormous size—how could such a thing have grown up so quickly in the short time I was gone?—I heard her voice again. "Welcome back." And then, branches around the trunk of the tree parted, and she appeared. "I thought you'd gone for good."

I almost choked. No longer in the Poison Ivy getup, she now looked more like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, with a dark green cloak, and some sort of cowl wrapped around her head, with thorny purple and green horns protruding from the top. The look and even her manner were more... cultivated than before. It was a word I never would have imagined using to describe Sam. Her parents, yes, but not Sam. Only her eyes were the same as before—still that freaky green with no whites or pupils. The whole effect was infinitely creepier, and had me missing the feral version. "Sam! We have to get you out of here!"

Her response was almost a purr and so not Sam. "No. I like it here. Undergrowth has made all things new." The vines propelled her forward, no longer dangling her like a broken marionette, but lifting her like some sort of palanquin bearers. Another group of vines circled around her, and she nuzzled them like beloved pets. "They... need me. I am their new mother."

"What?" The creep factor upped a notch, and I decided that seeing Sam controlled like this was way worse than being the one controlled. Everything about her was just so wrong. "You won't even babysit your cousins! We have to get out of here, now. Where's everybody else?"

Her back to me now, she snapped her fingers in an almost dismissive way. Several of the gigantic pods, or buds, or whatever they were, rose up in front of us and slowly opened, each one revealing a person trapped inside. My mom, Jazz, Tucker, Mr. Lancer, Dash, my dad... they were all there, unconscious, wrapped in vines. "Our friends? Our families?" I looked over my shoulder at Sam. "What are you doing?"

"They will be used as nutrients for The Children. All that matters now are The Children."

Okay, if she said "The Children" one more time, I was officially gonna hurl. But a huge roar from behind distracted me, and I spun around to see Undergrowth sprout up from one of the buildings. "And you will make a fine meal for them, too!"

With a massive arm, he swatted me like a bug, sending me careening head over tail to land flat on my back among his gigantic roots. Despite the smack-down, I couldn't help but be relieved to see him. I'd had no idea how to even approach dealing with Sam. I sure as heck couldn't fight her. But Undergrowth? Him I could pummel into mulch.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. He fought back pretty well against my ghost ray, and caused some giant cactus plants to spring up out of the ground to fight his battle for him. They were doing a pretty good job of it, too, and soon I was back on the ground among the roots, only this time, they ensnared me, wrapping around my entire body like a rope and preventing me from going intangible.

Sam appeared, still riding her vines. "You must take root! Become one with us!" She sounded almost excited.

I couldn't take her like this anymore. "Stop! Please! Sam, you can't let him win!" But the vines dragged me down, burying me under the entire network of roots. "No! Wait!"

As I struggled, I could hear Frostbite's voice in my mind, instructing me. Now, then. Concentrate. Let the energy build until it has nowhere to go but out.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, letting it grow and intensify. "Let. Me. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Ice exploded out of me, freezing the roots around me and liberating me. Radiating cold, blue energy, I flew up and out of the tangled mass and hovered above Undergrowth and Sam. "Bundle up. It's gonna get chilly."

Fighting him still wasn't easy, but the ice was definitely more effective than my ghost ray had been. With every blast, he shrunk in size and power, until it occurred to me that my best course of action would be to go to the root of the problem. Literally. Phasing down beneath the ground, I used my new ice powers to freeze the whole network of roots, reducing Undergrowth to a much more manageable size. Then, I finished him off with a double-whammy—I surrounded a ball of ectoplasm with a huge snowball and hurled it at him. The ectoplasm helped penetrate into his core, while the ice took him down in one massive ecto-ice explosion.

And then it was over. The overcast skies instantly cleared, and the warm sun began melting the ice as vines all over Amity Park whithered and died—including the ones controlling all the townspeople. They all began waking up, groaning like they were suffering from one, massive, city-wide hangover.

With everything going back to normal, I immediately headed back toward the park to find Sam. I landed on the hill where the huge, purple tree had been, but there was no sign of it—or Sam. I looked around, pushing down on the panic that was threatening, but then I thought I heard voices that sounded like Sam and Tucker just over the hill. When I crested it, I nearly melted in relief. They were both there, looking confused but fine. And Sam was herself again. No more thorns, or horns, or weird, whiteless-green eyes. I could've kissed her.

Yeeeeeah, better not go there.

Instead, I called out to both her and Tucker. "Hey, are you guys okay?"

They gaped at me, and Sam's eyes widened. "Danny! What happened to you?"

I wasn't sure what she meant at first, but then I realized that I was still glowing blue with ice energy. Letting the power dissipate, I smiled at her. "Let's just say I have a whole new respect for nature." Then, I held out my hand, letting an ice crystal form above my open palm, just like Frostbite had showed me.

Sam jogged over to meet me. "Whoa. You can do that now?"

I let the crystal fall into my hand and, on impulse, handed it to her.

She blinked. "What's this for?"

Everything that had happened—Undergrowth, the Mind Vines, Sam dangling like a puppet, then hissing like Maleficent—started to filter through the post-battle adrenaline crash, like a thick cloud of noxious smoke. Yet another near miss, where I could have lost everything that mattered most. But the reality of Sam here, fine, was the breeze that kept it from smothering me, and I wanted to breathe her in. Moving closer to her, I met her eyes. "I'm... glad you're okay."

Our gazes held. She was so close... just a few more inches, and I really could have kissed her. And God, I wanted to. Completely mesmerized by just the thought, I leaned toward her, already imagining the feel of her breath on my cheek, the taste of her lips—

Then, Tucker appeared out of nowhere, driving... what was he driving, anyway? Startled, Sam and I broke apart, and for a brief instant, I was ready to blast Tucker off whatever that thing was. Until reality crashed in, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn't kiss him instead.

I'd almost kissed Sam. Sam. And not a fake-out make-out or anything I could explain away, either. How disastrous would it have been if I'd actually done it? Even forgetting for a moment that she was my best friend and I had no reason to think she had even the slightest interest in anything more, we were in the middle of the park, in broad daylight, with pretty much the entire town out there, and I was in my ghost form. The last thing either of us needed was the entire town thinking Danny Phantom was massively crushing on Sam Manson, the girl everyone associated with Danny Fenton.

The last thing I needed was for Sam to think that.

I'd just gotten her back from being controlled by an evil ghost. I didn't want to lose her—us—what we already had—to all the awkwardness that would come if she knew I was starting to feel a whole lot more than friendship toward her. Not when she probably didn't feel the same way about me. One stupid kiss, and I could have messed up everything.

Talk about a near miss.

Chapter 26: Near Miss: Sam

Near Miss
Sam

I didn't know which was worse. When it came to bad guys with mind control powers, I was used to Danny being the one whose head got messed with, while I had to figure out how to snap him out of it. Ember's love spell, Freakshow's crystal ball, Desiree's Danny-and-I-never-met wishverse—it was all part of the Friend-Who-Knows-The-Secret-Identity package. Yeah, it was bad, listening to him moon over me and know he didn't mean it, or watching him cut a high wire I was standing on, or trying to convince him that we really were best friends when he had no idea who I was. Definitely not my favorite moments. And yet, I was the one still grounded in reality. I knew who I was, who he was, who we were. I never doubted I could find a way to bring him back.

But being the person who's under someone else's control? That was a completely different kind of bad. Waking up from a fog, not knowing where I was or how I'd gotten there, with vague and fuzzy memories of having done something really, really bad to someone really important to me... it almost made me nostalgic for the clarity of being in my right mind while trying to figure out how to get Danny back into his.

Not that I remember much of what that weird plant ghost, Undergrowth, did after he captured Danny, Tucker, and me and knocked us out with those sleep spores. One second, I was drifting off as Undergrowth did the whole evil giggle thing. Rejoice, for a new era is taking root. Then, I was lying on the grass in the middle of the park. Slowly, I rose to my feet. "What happened?" Noticing the awful taste in my mouth, I wiped the back of my hand across my face. "Blech! My mouth tastes like I had nine thousand shots of wheat grass. Without the wheat." And I had the mother of all headaches, too—

Mother...

Sam! We have to get you out of here!

No. I like it here. Undergrowth has made all things new. They... need me. I am their new Mother.

Our friends? Our families? What are you doing?

They will be used as nutrients for The Children. All that matters now are The Children.

I shivered, shaking off the flashes of dream-like images of vines—The Children—surrounding me, nuzzling me, and of row after row of giant flower buds ensnaring people like my Venus Flytrap, DiMilo, captured flies.

"And I had a nightmare that I was trapped in a giant salad bar." That was Tucker, whom I hadn't even noticed was there until he spoke. He shuddered. "Ewwww. Garbanzo beans..."

Nutrients for The Children...

And you will make a fine meal for them, too!

There'd been... a fight? Undergrowth and Danny. And it had been... delicious.

You must take root! Become one with us!

Stop! Please! Sam, you can't let him win! Vines, dragging him down... No! Wait!

Danny?

Danny!

You have done well, daughter! You shall have the honor of feeding him to the children when he is ripe.

Yes, Father.

I blinked away the images as panic settled over me like a shroud. What had I done? Where was Danny?

Join us, Danny. The Growth is Family.

Become, Danny. Become part of the Growth.

Stay, Danny. Stay and rule with me.

Calling, searching, beseeching...

Danny...

Danny...

A blue glow to my left caught my attention, banishing the visions, and panic melted into relief as the ghost boy in question appeared at the top of a nearby hill.

I thought you'd gone for good...

He looked relieved to see us. "Hey, are you guys okay?"

Were we okay? What had I done to him? He was glowing. Not green, like from his ghost ray, but an eerie blue. Did I do that? I'd done something to him, that much I knew. It was an awful, gut-wrenching feeling, knowing I'd done something to him, something bad, but not able to remember what. This was definitely worse than being the one who wasn't being mind-controlled, and I had to choke back on the panic once more to find my voice. "Danny! What happened to you?"

He looked confused for a moment, then seemed to realize that he was glowing. As soon as he did, it dissipated, and he looked normal again. "Let's just say I have a whole new respect for nature." He was smiling, and he sounded okay, which helped allay my fears. Then, he held out his hand. It glowed blue again—not his whole body this time, but just his hand—and a gem of some sort appeared floating above his palm like a prop in some stage magician's show. As I headed toward him, I could see that it wasn't a gem, but was ice. That was when I remembered how he'd been cold all morning, and more visions flickered through the fog in my head.

Ice. Danny making ice.

Let. Me. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ice everywhere, freezing the vines, freezing The Children. Then Danny, radiating cold, blue energy, hovering above. Bundle up. It's gonna get chilly.

My jaw dropped as I remembered. A new power. "Whoa. You can do that now?"

He let the ice crystal fall into his palm, then handed it to me.

I took it from him, surprised at the feel of it. It was definitely frozen, but it didn't feel cold in my hand. I looked up at him. "What's this for?"

He moved closer to me, his eyes meeting mine. "I'm... glad you're okay."

Stay, Danny. Stay and rule with me.

I always thought you ruled, Sam. Just.. n-not like this. I'll... b-be back. And I'll... s-save you. And everyone!

And he had, but it had been close.

Stop! Please! Sam, you can't let him win! No! Wait!

He'd needed me, but I hadn't been there.

You have done well, daughter! You shall have the honor of feeding him to the children when he is ripe.

Yes, Father.

Yet another near miss, where I could have lost him, only this time, it was me. I'd nearly destroyed him. But he was here, fine, now. It had all turned out fine, he was fine, I hadn't lost him.

Stay, Danny. Stay and rule with me.

I always thought you ruled, Sam.

Our gazes held, and the energy between us was no longer ice, but fire. He was so close, and the way he was looking at me... like, if I wanted to, I could kiss him, and maybe he wouldn't mind all that much and, oh, God, I wanted to, I really wanted to—

A loud noise startled us apart as Tucker appeared out of nowhere, driving... what was he driving, anyway? For a brief instant, I was ready to strangle him with my bare hands. Then, reality crashed in, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn't kiss him instead.

I'd almost kissed Danny. Danny. And not a fake-out make-out or anything I could explain away, either. How disastrous would it have been if I'd actually done it? Even forgetting for a moment that he was my best friend and I had no reason to think he had even the slightest interest in anything more, we were in the middle of the park, with pretty much everyone we knew out there, and Danny was in ghost form. The last thing either of us needed was the entire town thinking Danny Fenton's best friend was massively crushing on Danny Phantom.

The last thing I needed was for Danny to think that.

As if nearly killing him while hooked into Undergrowth's vines weren't bad enough, I'd almost gone and ruined our friendship. Well, probably not ruined. But it would have been awkward for sure if he'd found out that I felt a whole lot more than friendship toward him, because there wasn't a chance in hell he felt the same way about me.

And that was the worst part about it. After that whole "Gregor" nightmare a couple months ago, I'd thought that maybe experiencing what it felt like to like someone other than Danny would help clear my head, making it easier to finally get over him. Okay, so "Gregor" had turned out to be a supreme jerk, but still. It had been nice, liking someone else—having someone else like me—and just knowing I could like someone who wasn't Danny had been bolstering despite the jerk factor.

Yet, somehow, here I was, even worse than before. For one brief moment, I'd actually deluded myself into believing that Danny might not have thought that kissing me was the worst idea ever. That he might even have wanted me to. Which was ridiculous, because I knew he would totally freak. He just didn't feel that way about me, and I didn't even want to think about how mortifying it would have been if I'd actually done it. One stupid kiss, and I could have messed up everything.

Talk about a near miss.

Chapter 27: Dreams: Danny

Notes:

This one, Danny's POV specifically, is long. Significantly longer than I usually will allow for a single chapter. But not only is "Frightmare" a significant episode in terms of Danny's and Sam's relationship (and their understanding of what the other might be thinking), it also has a lot of holes to fill. Like... Danny's house has complete video surveillance? When did that happen, and how the heck has Danny managed to get away going ghost without his parents catching him? And when exactly did Danny have time to tell Sam about Tucker's dream? Seems like they'd fly directly from her house to FentonWorks, and Tucker would be along for the ride, so...? And how is it that Jazz started out in her bed, but ended up at her desk?

Most importantly, at least for my purposes in a fic about Danny's and Sam's relationship: why are Sam and Danny acting like she knows about his dream? Their embarrassment and shared moments read like they're on an equal footing here, rather than Danny only having seen Sam's dream. How is that?

So... in answering all those questions, plus just the overall importance of what these dreams mean to each of them and their reactions to them—and to each other—and I ended up with over 10,000 words for Danny's chapter alone. (Sam's is just over half that, since she doesn't wake up until more than halfway through Danny's story.) My apologies for such an unwieldy chapter.

Dreams
Danny

I should have known it was just a dream. The A-plus in Science alone should have been a dead giveaway. Or Dash calling me "buddy," and saving a seat for me in the cafeteria. Or the fact that I was one of the jocks and had thrown the winning pass in the last football game. Or the easy defeat of the Fright Knight as if he were no more a threat than the Box Ghost, all with everyone knowing my secret identity and chanting my name, but without the mobs and hysteria—or the Guys in White—that Danny Phantom often attracted. And don't even get me started on the—how did Dash put it?—"harem of girls all lovesick" for me.

But it was so clear, so real, that even though it was all too perfect to be true, I didn't know it was a dream. Not until I got the one thing I wanted more than good grades, popularity, and a harem of lovesick girls combined—and was even less likely to ever really get. Come on, guys. You know there's only one girl for me.

I sure hope you're talking about me.

It was Sam. Wearing a letter jacket. With my name embroidered on it. Can you make room for your girlfriend?

I smiled at her, completely unruffled by her addressing herself as my girlfriend, as if we'd been together forever. Nice jacket.

It's not black. But it's yours, and that's enough for me.

Please. Even in the completely improbable scenario where everything else that had just happened were true, up to and including Sam being my... my girlfriend, she would never, ever, not even upon threat of being force-fed a Nasty Burger Mighty Meaty Melt, wear a letter jacket or say something so sappy. Especially not about me.

But it was so real. I could smell the cafeteria's ever-present odor of beef goulash mixed with disinfectant and the cold sweat of teenagers trying to survive the hell that is high school. I could feel the smooth leather on the arm of Sam's jacket as I brushed my fingertips across her shoulder. I could see her eyes darken as they met mine, feel her hair against my cheek when she leaned toward me, until her lips were almost touching mine.

Then, I knew. Sam, my girlfriend? Sam, kissing me?

Impossible.

Jerking upright with a start, I gasped in shock as Sam and the cafeteria dissolved around me. "Huh? What? A dream?"

Damn. Only a dream. Except... why wasn't I in my bed? Or my room? Or my house? Why was I in ghost form, sitting on a slab of rock floating in the middle of the Ghost Zone? "Whoa. More like a nightmare!"

Climbing to my feet, I tried to nudge my sleep-addled brain into something resembling clear thinking. "How did I get all the way out here in the middle of the Ghost Zone?"

Images flashed through my mind. A hoard of featureless, green, humanoid ghosts, surrounding something else that was little more than a dark shadow. "I remember a shape. Dark. A ghost? Did I dream that, too?"

It was then that I saw something on the ground at my feet. Chunks of metal and circuitry, fried and broken. Bending to retrieve them, I turned the pieces over in my hands. A helmet of some kind that I must have been wearing it in my sleep, and when I'd awoken suddenly, it had cracked and fallen off. It looked like something Technus would throw together, but not quite. And Technus I knew. He wasn't a dark, formless shape that hovered at the edge of my dreams. "Something tells me that finding out how I got here isn't gonna be half as scary as finding out who put me here."

And where exactly was here, anyway? I looked around, trying to get my bearings, but it was easy to get disoriented in the Ghost Zone, with its black-and-green swirls of ectoplasm, and strange, purple, floating doors. There were no landmarks that I recognized, like Skulker's lair or the Ghost King's castle, and since I had no memory of how I'd gotten here, I could be literally anywhere in the Infinite Realms. Lucky for me, I'd been getting to know the Ghost Zone a lot better ever since meeting Frostbite and learning about the Infi-Map he and his people guarded—and were occasionally willing to loan out to the "Savior of the Ghost Zone." After a few minutes of flying around, I came across something I recognized: the acropolis that marked the entrance to Pandora's realm.

Nowhere near the Fenton Portal.

But at least I knew roughly how to get to there from here, and before long I was back in more familiar territory. Past Pariah's Keep, Skulker's lair, then, finally, the portal home.

Once inside our basement lab, I changed back into human form before my parents could catch me, but I needn't have worried. My parents, Jazz... the whole town was asleep, even though it was barely dusk. It was creepy, the entire town deserted except for a few random people I found sleeping out on the street. I even found a guy from the electric company hanging upside-down from his bucket truck. And everyone was wearing those helmets. No amount of shouting would wake anyone up, nor could I shake or even move them, because the helmets emitted some kind of electrical force field that shocked me whenever I tried to touch anyone wearing one.

Fortunately, I had a way of finding out exactly what had happened, at least at FentonWorks. When we got our house back from the Guys in White after they'd tried to use the Fenton Portal to destroy the Ghost Zone, my dad had gotten paranoid about government spying and had installed an elaborate video camera system, triggered by ecto energy, so that he could do the spying. Everyone and everything in the house, from the Op-Center on down to the basement lab and even inside our refrigerator, was under surveillance anytime a ghost showed up, or an ecto-weapon was fired. Never once did it occur to my dad that such a setup was useless against the human government spies he was so worried about, and the rest of us had an unspoken agreement not to point out the obvious, for fear he'd just make the thing motion-sensitive and we'd never get any privacy. The ecto-trigger was problem enough for me, but I'd learned pretty quickly that a small blast from my ice powers would freeze up the works and keep the cameras from triggering for an hour or so, allowing me to go ghost whenever I needed to without it being recorded for posterity. And now, I had to admit I was kind of grateful for a record of what had happened to my family. Apparently, the same green ghosts I'd sort of remembered when I woke up in the Ghost Zone had put everyone to sleep and outfitted them with those weird cyber-helmets. But why?

At Tucker's house, where a much cooler holographic surveillance system was installed, I'd learned a little more. Instead of one of the green ghosts, like I'd seen on the FentonWorks security system, the thing that had knocked Tucker out was a looming, black shadow. "A whole new ghost... And yet, he's kind of familiar."

The dark shape I remembered after waking up in the Ghost Zone.

Now that I knew what I was looking for—well, sort of—it wasn't hard to find them. There was an army of green ghouls flying all over town. A couple of them tried to grab me, but I was able to get away, thanks to my ice powers, and I lost them by turning invisible and ducking into an alley. That's when I realized Vlad might be behind this, but a quick trip to his mansion out in Polter Heights proved that Vlad was just as much a victim as anyone else... although, seeing him cuddle a plushie that bore a disturbing resemblance to my mother may have scarred me for life.

I was still at Vlad's house when the green goons found me again. They were obviously mindless drones of some sort, and pretty easy to fight, despite their large numbers, until a sinister laugh revealed the presence of their master—the dark shape from Tucker's holocam and my own fuzzy memories. He was tall, with a narrow, gray face and purple, ram-like horns that protruded from the sides of his head and curled around back behind him. His eyes were red, and his lips were purple, but the rest of him was... black wasn't the right word. Black was a color, it had presence. He was more like... a void. A body made of emptiness through which you could see the night sky, or space. And suddenly, the memories were no longer fuzzy.

"You!"

I'd first seen him—last night? I had no idea how long I'd been out cold in the Ghost Zone, but I remembered being awoken from my bed a little before dawn, and it was dusk now, so at least twelve hours. We'd fought, if you could call it a fight, but he'd been too powerful for me, and had managed to get behind me and get one of those helmet things on me. The next thing I knew, I was dreaming of kicking the Fright Knight's butt and kissing Sam—

Okay, so not where I needed to go, not if I wanted to clear my head. I had the general gist by now, anyway. Shadow ghost, helmet, dream, Ghost Zone. Obviously, he'd wanted me out of the way so that he and his minions could take their time knocking out the rest of the town.

I didn't fare much better this time around. Between Shadow-dude and all those green blobs, they were able to wrestle me down into Vlad's lab and strap me to one of his annoying examination tables, ready to ship me off into the Ghost Zone once more.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I am Nocturn, the Ghost of Sleep. And what I want, I already have. Your dreams." He leaned over me. "The dreams of everyone in this town. I travel from town to town, absorbing the energy from dreams. With billions of people in your realm, imagine the energy there is to harvest."

I thought of my own dream, how personal it was. The idea of a ghost harvesting it, feeding off of it, and everyone else's, to power himself up was beyond creepy. "O-okay, I get it already. But do you get that I won't let that happen?"

A burst of ice power cracked the cuffs around my wrists and ankles, and I was free. "All that beauty sleep's left me rested and stronger. Not a great idea." And before he could react, I went invisible, then intangible, and phased down through the table and beneath the floor of the lab, where I maneuvered myself under him and blasted through the floor with a massive bolt of ectoplasm. It hurled him upwards to crash into whatever mad-scientist contraption Vlad had built into the high ceiling above the lab. The thing shorted out, frying him with a bolt of electricity, and he crashed back down onto the floor at my feet.

I looked down at him. "That'll teach you to steal people's dreams."

He raised his head off the floor, not nearly as beaten down as I would have liked. "'Stealing' is such an ugly word. I prefer the term 'harvest.' For energy." He reached his hand out, and I geared up for an attack, but Vlad's whatever-it-was that I'd knocked him into must have shorted out his powers, because he wasn't able to generate much more than a flicker of blue light.

I grinned. "Looks like you need it. You're running out of steam."

He got up off the floor and backed away from me. Pressing my advantage, I floated toward him. "So what's the big deal about people's dreams?"

His purple lips curled into an ironic smile. "Asked the ghost boy who dreams of the goth girl."

I could feel my stomach curdle. "Oh, man. That was private." I knew this dream harvesting thing was not cool.

"Dreams are the gateway to the subconscious," he continued, as a green flare that looked almost like flames rose up around him. With a roar, he reached back and hurled a wave of blue energy at me.

I countered with my ghost ray, but was too slow. His blast hit me, knocking me to the floor and, before I could get up, he'd used some kind of power to levitate me and slam me into the wall. "My army will keep the world asleep so that I may remain all powerful."

I raised my head, defiant. "That's all you do? Put people to sleep? Are you sure you're not a teacher?" This time, I nailed him with a ball of ectoplasm, but it went right through him and he re-formed himself around the hole I'd created.

"Sleepwalkers, form!"

A moaning sound echoed around me as dozens of his minions—"Sleepwalkers," apparently—phased into the lab.

"As you will see, dreams also fuel my Sleepwalkers. We are unstoppable."

"This is where I say, 'Dream on.'"

I made short work of the Sleepwalkers, but more and more appeared, and their sheer numbers got the better of me. Nocturn made some threats about making my sleep permanent this time, but a massive burst of my ice powers managed to not only get rid of all the Sleepwalkers, but freeze Nocturn solid. A shot of ectoplasm finished the job, cracking him apart into hundreds of chunks of ice, but I had a feeling that wasn't going to be the end of him. To truly defeat him, I was gonna have to get rid of all the Sleepwalkers and wake up the town. And for that, I'd need help.

I started at Tucker's, pacing at the foot of his bed and talking to myself out loud so I could think over the rumble of his snoring. "Okay. How do I remove that headset without lighting myself up like a Christmas tree?" I frowned, as a thought occurred to me. "Wait a minute. Something obviously woke me up and knocked this thing off me. The question is, what?"

Unbidden, the last thing I'd dreamt before waking flashed through my head. Sam and I, leaning toward each other, her lips almost touching mine...

"Whoa. Yeah. That'd do it." The thing I wanted most... The thing I was most afraid of wanting. Not that I hadn't dreamed the same thing a thousand times before—awake and asleep. But I could feel my heart racing at just the thought of how real this dream had been. How I'd believed it was actually happening, and how the shock of that had run through my whole system.

That's what had woken me, and shorted out Nocturn's stupid dream helmet.

"Okay. I don't need to risk getting shocked to remove this thing." I circled around to Tucker's beside. "I just need to shock Tucker. Inside his dream." And I only knew of one way to get inside his dream. "No big deal. I've overshadowed Tucker before. Just slip inside and..."

That's when it hit me that it was a big deal, and unlike anything I'd ever done before. "...get inside his dream."

Overshadowing someone, at least as I'd always done it before, was a bit like slipping into the person and wearing them like a costume. I see through their eyes, hear through their ears, feel through their fingers. It's less controlling someone than dressing up as them in the best, most realistic costume ever made.

But there was another level to overshadowing, one I'd learned about a couple months later when Kitty had overshadowed Paulina in her bid to use me to make Johnny jealous. After finding out it was her, I'd wondered how it was that she was able to fool everyone, including Paulina's closest friends, into believing she really was Paulina, and I'd asked her about it. She'd explained that there was a level of overshadowing that went deeper than what I had done before. Instead of going just under the person's skin and wearing them like a costume, you burrow in further, going deep inside the mind until you can see their thoughts. If you go deep enough, you're not even controlling the person, but living like a parasite in their brain. That's why Paulina was still so... Paulina when I'd run into after she'd left the bathroom. Kitty was inside, learning everything she could about how to not just control Paulina, but to be Paulina.

It was something I'd never wanted to try. Controlling a person was invasion enough, but getting into their thoughts? I couldn't see that I had any choice in this case, though. Taking Tucker over the regular way wouldn't shock him out of his dream, it would just be me inside his skin, and I knew I wasn't gonna get that headset off him that way. To do this, I'd have to go deeper than his skin and get into his head. I took a breath to bolster my courage. "No sweat. Look out Tucker, I'm coming in!"

---

It wasn't anything like I'd imagined, this new level of overshadowing. I'd thought that it would be similar to the regular kind, where I'd see through Tucker's eyes, only instead of the outside world, I'd be seeing his internal world. But it was much closer to that time I'd had to fight Technus inside the Doomed video game, and I'd phased directly into it. When I got inside Tucker's head, I was still me, separate from him, like my own character in a virtual reality game.

As Tucker's dream resolved around me, I found myself floating under a bright, sunny sky. Below me was a mansion, but not like the old-fashioned colonials we had in the swankier parts of Amity Park, like Polter Heights. The architecture was more modern, with lots of wood and glass. A helicopter was perched on a landing pad out front, and a long flight of stone steps led to a circular parking lot filled with every kind of luxury vehicle imaginable, each with a vanity plate—Tuck 4 for the Hummer, Tuck 5 for the Bimmer, Tuck 13 for the Ferrari, and so on. "Nice, Tuck. Even your dreams have style."

The question was, now that I was here, how was I supposed to shock Tucker awake? He was nowhere in sight, and this was so different from the kind of overshadowing I was used to, I wasn't sure how it worked. Was I just an observer, or could I interact with this non-existent environment?

I took an experimental test flight toward the house, and it felt pretty much like flying in the real world. When I got to the door, I tried going invisible and intangible, and that worked, too. In fact, everything seemed to work just like it did in the real world, and I found I could manipulate my environment in all the same ways I could in real life. Phasing inside the house, I entered an elegant foyer, where a janitor was vacuuming the red carpet below me. When he moved further down the hall, I could hear Tucker's voice over the din from the vacuum cleaner.

"Can I interest either of you ladies in a beverage?"

Following the sound of the voice, I flew to the end of the hallway and peeked around a stone column into a sunken living room. Tucker was seated in the middle of a blue suede couch, with a blonde girl on either side of him. "Say, chocolate milk?" he finished, clicking a remote. A full-sized refrigerator rose up out of the floor, and its door swung open, revealing it to be fully stocked on every shelf with nothing but carton after carton of chocolate milk.

The girls got up to help themselves, and when they turned around I could see who they were—identical twin versions of Paulina's friend, Starr. Weird, that, since Tucker actually dated Starr for a few days while I was dating Paulina-overshadowed-by-Kitty, and he'd been miserable the entire time, leaving Starr the one girl besides Sam in the entire student body of Casper High whom Tucker did not have a crush on. Still, she wasn't exactly hard on the eyes, and Tucker wasn't famous for liking girls for their personalities, so maybe the dream Starrs were his way of getting the looks part—times two—without the insufferable bitch part.

While the Starr twins were getting their drinks, another janitor vacuumed behind the couch. Tucker leaned back, linking his fingers behind his head. "That will be all, Fenton."

Fenton?

The janitor looked up, and I could see his face now. Or, I should say, my face. "Yes, sir," he said with my voice and about as much enthusiasm as I would have mustered in the same situation.

I blinked at him... me... from my vantage point behind the stone column. "Wait. I'm the janitor?"

The two Starrs returned to their seats on either side of Tucker, and he produced another remote. "Now, for some ambiance." This time, a set of surround-sound speakers appeared from the floor, and the lighting dimmed.

Okay, time to break up this little party and get Tucker back to the real world—the one where I wasn't his janitor. "Hate to cramp your style, dude... Uh, actually, no I don't."

As Tucker turned to his right and started kissing Starr One's hand, I grabbed Starr Two by the arm and pulled her off the couch. Taking her place beside Tucker, I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned toward me, his eyes closed as he leaned in to kiss me. "I can't neglect you, my pet."

That's two for two in the Scarred for Life file. "Seriously. I'm your janitor?"

His eyes flying open, he screamed, and the entire world shattered around me. I felt a jerk, like a giant hand was grabbing me by the collar and yanking me backwards through the shards of Tucker's destroyed dream, forcibly ejecting me from his mind. I flew out of his head and back into his bedroom, tumbling head over boots to land in an ungraceful heap on the floor at the foot of his bed.

Scrambling to my feet, I could see him sitting up now, still screaming, with Nocturn's helmet lying in pieces around him. "What happened?" He shook his head, as if trying to clear out the last vestiges of his dream. "Oh, man. I just had the worst nightmare ever."

Like being Tucker's janitor and almost getting kissed by him was a day at Floody Waters for me. "Actually, you're now in a worse one." He almost jumped again to see me standing in his bedroom, but I didn't give him time to ask questions. "Come on. We've gotta free Sam." I started to walk toward his door, but then stopped to look back over my shoulder at him. "And just so you know... I don't do windows."

He blinked at me. "What? What's going on? What are you doing in my room?"

"Just come with me. I'll explain on the way to Sam's." And, taking him by the arm, I phased us both out of his room and flew us toward Sam's house.

As we went, I told him about Nocturn and his Sleepwalkers and those weird helmets. "I'm not even sure how long he's had the whole town knocked out. Twelve hours at least, maybe more. It was dawn when he first woke me up, and now it's dark again."

"What does he want? To power himself up by feeding off our dreams?"

"Pretty much. And who knows what he wants to do with all that power afterward?"

"Sounds like The Matrix. He keeps everyone hooked into those helmets and feeds us really good dreams so we won't wanna wake up and turn off the juice." He frowned at me. "So how did you get my dream to turn into a nightmare? And how did you wake up in the first place?"

"Something in my dream shocked me awake, and I realized that's how I could wake you guys, too. I overshadowed you to get into your dream so I could do the same thing to you."

He grimaced. "Next time, can you pick something a little less disturbing than taking the place of a girl I was about to kiss?"

"You mean Starr? Who you can't stand?" I shook my head. "Let's hope there isn't a next time. Your mind is a scary place, Tuck."

A low moan sounded behind us, and Tucker looked at me. "Speaking of scary... I'm guessing those are the Sleepwalkers behind us?"

I looked over my shoulder, and Tucker was right. Several of the green, featureless ghosts were chasing us, and more were gathering to join them. Not wanting to take them on until I had more backup, I turned Tucker and myself invisible and dove down toward the street. It confused them for a moment but, unlike when I was dodging them before going to Vlad's, they managed to figure out where we were somehow and kept coming after us.

I picked up my speed. "That's weird. Why can't I shake them? Turning invisible threw them off my trail before."

"Maybe they have a Ghost Sense?" Tucker suggested.

"A Ghost Sense just tells you a ghost is near, not where it is." We were above Sam's street, now, and her house loomed ahead of us. "I'm gonna drop you off and then try to shake them." Phasing through the wall of Sam's bedroom, I let go of Tucker, and he landed with a dull thud on Sam's carpet. Then, I turned around and phased back outside and flew away from Sam's house.

The Sleepwalkers followed, their numbers up to at least twenty. I turned invisible, but they kept coming. Why can't I lose them? They couldn't see me when I was invisible before. Even if Tucker's right about a Ghost Sense, how did I lose them before? Then, a thought occurred to me. I landed about a block away from Sam's house ducked into the shadows of one of the elegant homes. I was still invisible, but I made a point of using the smallest possible amount of energy to keep me so.

Above me, the Sleepwalkers scattered, confused, then flew off. When they were gone, I released the rest of my energy, turning myself visible again. "They can track my ghost powers," I said out loud. "The more power I used, the more they can sense me." And it took more power to fly than to turn invisible, which meant no more flying, at least not until I was ready to fight them.

I jogged down the block back to Sam's house. Standing in the street, I looked up at her bedroom window, trying to figure out the best way to get in without attracting the Sleepwalkers' attention. Flying was out. I could phase in through the front door and walk up the stairs to her room, but even phasing used more energy than invisibility, and I couldn't afford to draw them here, not before I got Sam awake. Better to save my energy until I had to use it to overshadow her, just to be safe. Noticing that her window was open, I decided the best way to get into her room under the circumstances was the same way she did when she was sneaking in and out behind her parents' back—climbing up the drainpipe beside her bedroom window.

Lucky for me, my ghost form gave me a boost of strength even when I wasn't using my powers, so I was able to get up there without too much difficulty. As I was climbing into her open window, I saw Tucker at Sam's bedside, reaching for the helmet on her head. It shocked him, and he shrieked, jumping back.

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Whoops. Uh, probably should've told you about that. My bad." I joined him beside her bed. "Don't touch anything else. Now that I know how to do this, it'll only take a second."

---

When Sam's dreamworld coalesced around me, I looked around to gain my bearings, then blinked in surprise. "The cafeteria?" After Tucker's elaborate mansion and parking lot full of luxury cars, I'd expected something really amazing from Sam. Not wealth—she already had that and didn't really care about it. But I figured I'd end up in a rainforest in need of saving, or an animal refuge filled with endangered and even extinct creatures, or maybe something that resembled a Tim Burton film. Instead, I get the Casper High cafeteria? What was that all about? "Come on, Sam. I expected bigger dreams from—"

I saw her, then, heading toward a table across the room from where I was standing. At the table, I could see myself in human form, sitting with Tucker... and Dash? And was that a letter jacket Sam was wearing?

She stopped beside me—the me at the table, I mean. "Can you make room for your girlfriend?" she asked the other me as she sat down beside him.

I blinked. "Girlfriend? Her dream is just like mine."

And then, it hit me. "Uh... her dream is just like mine!"

Euphoria washed over me. She was dreaming about me. That she was my girlfriend. Nocturn's words rang in my head: Dreams are the gateway to the subconscious. Was it possible that she wanted this? To be more than just friends? Was there a chance she actually felt the same way about me as I did about her?

But on the heels of the elation came a stark, paralyzing fear. What if she did feel the same way about me as I did about her? The very idea was terrifying on more levels than I could wrap my head around. First of all, just thinking it confirmed what I'd been trying to push to the back of my own mind ever since I'd watched her kiss Gregor: I wanted this. I wanted her. Not maybe. Not hypothetically. Not just a little bit. It was real, and it was huge. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized how much I'd been counting on the belief that she didn't like me in that way to keep me from really admitting to myself just how hard I'd fallen for her.

I wasn't ready to feel like this. Not about anyone, but especially not about Sam. I loved her. She was as integral to my life as breathing, and always would be. But if we became more than friends, if love became in love, there were only two possible outcomes—either we'd stay together, or we'd break up. And, at fifteen, what were the odds of us staying together? What was the likelihood that I wouldn't screw up and ruin any chance of a future with her? And how crazy was it to be thinking that long term when I hadn't even graduated high school yet, or gotten my driver's license, or so much as kissed a girl in any way other than a fake-out make-out?

So when Sam leaned toward the dream-me to kiss him in a way that clearly was not a fake-out make-out, I completely freaked. Gasping, I stumbled backward, colliding with the table that held all the silverware, condiments, and napkins to send the whole thing crashing to the floor.

This caught Sam's attention, and she frowned at dream-me in confusion. "Wait. You can't be in two places at once!"

Before she even finished her sentence, I turned invisible, forcing my mind back on the task at hand—coming up with a way to shock her awake. My gaze landed on Dash, who was sitting next to Tucker across the table from Sam. Rocketing across the cafeteria, I phased into Dash and overshadowed him, hoping such a trick was possible inside the dream that I'd already overshadowed the real Sam to enter.

To my relief, it worked and, inside Dash's body, I leaned across the table. "Actually, Sam... I'm Danny Phantom!" I stood up and pounded my right fist into my left hand the way Dash always did. "Going ghost!" And I triggered my transformation, changing Dash from human to a Dash-ish version of my ghost form, white hair, black jumpsuit, and all.

Sam screamed and, just like it had with Tucker, the world around me cracked, and I was expelled from her body like a gatecrasher out of a Hollywood club to land sprawled on my stomach on her bed.

Behind me, I heard Tucker's amused voice. "That must've been some dream!"

I turned around just in time to see Sam's eyes widen as she realized she wasn't alone. I'd become solid and visible again and was crawling toward her from where I'd landed at the foot of her bed when she caught sight of me. Our eyes met for a moment before we both turned away, mortified.

"I don't remember!" Sam said hastily at the exact same moment as I claimed, "I didn't see anything!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tucker arch a suspicious eyebrow at us, but it was Sam who spoke next as she tried to make sense of waking up with Tucker standing at her bedside and me lying in a heap at her feet. "What just happened?"

My cheeks still red-hot with embarrassment, I forced myself back to the task at hand. "We have another stop to make. We'll explain everything on the way."

"On the way where?"

"To my house. I think this party could use a fourth."

"Why don't you guys go on ahead?" Tucker had picked up two of the broken pieces from Sam's helmet and was turning them over in his hands. "I need to make a stop back at my house first. From what you told me on our way over here, I think I should do some scans of these helmets. One that's still in operation. If Nocturn is siphoning off people's dreams, he must be collecting them somewhere. I'm pretty sure I can get a general idea how these things work if I scan one that's still working, and then I might be able to trace back to where he's collecting the dreams, and we can shut down the whole system."

I frowned. "Why don't you scan Jazz's headset? We don't have a lot of time for you to go to your place first, especially if we have to walk."

"I don't have any of the gear I need on me. You didn't exactly clue me in as to what we'd need before we rushed after Sam. And what's wrong with flying?"

"I think that's how the Sleepwalkers found us before. The less I use my powers, the better."

"Well, if I borrow Sam's scooter, I can get from here to my house, grab the stuff I need, do a quick scan of my parents' headsets, and be at your house in the time it takes you guys to walk there."

"I don't know, Tuck. If they come after you while you're alone..."

"I'll be careful to avoid them. We need the data if we're gonna stop them for good."

"Uh..." Sam looked back and forth between us. "Would anyone like to clue me in on what the heck you're talking about?"

Tucker was already heading toward her door. "Danny'll tell you, and I'll meet you guys at FentonWorks. Your scooter's out back, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"I'll see you guys in a few." Then he gave me an odd, pointed look. "The walk will give you two a chance to talk."

---

As we walked from her house to mine, sticking close to the shadows of the buildings to avoid random Sleepwalker patrols, I filled Sam in on the situation with Nocturn, what he was up to, and how I'd figured out that I could shock people awake by overshadowing them and going into their dreams. It was during that last part that Sam got really quiet and, when I finished my explanation, she didn't ask any questions.

"Sam?"

"What?" Her voice had a hard edge, and she didn't look at me.

I frowned. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, Danny. I love waking up to find out you were rooting around in my brain, watching my dreams."

For a brief moment, I considered repeating my earlier lie that I hadn't seen anything, but I rejected that idea pretty quickly. She'd know I was lying, and would think I was patronizing her. Instead, I moved around in front of her, walking backwards so that I was in her line of sight. "C'mon, Sam. What was I supposed to do, leave you asleep and let Nocturn feed off your dreams? It was the only way I could think of to wake you and Tucker up. I couldn't shake you awake, because those helmets shocked me anytime I touched you. And making noise didn't work, either. It's not like I was trying to invade your privacy. I didn't pick up your diary and read it for fun or anything like that. I had to do it to wake you up. Besides, it was just a dream. People dream all kinds of weird stuff, and it doesn't mean anything. Heck, Tucker was dreaming he was drinking chocolate milk with twins that looked like Starr, and you know how he can't stand her."

I'd said it just to placate her, but even as the words came out of my mouth, I recognized there was some truth to them, and a knot of disappointment formed in my stomach. Just because she'd dreamed she was my girlfriend didn't mean she actually wanted to be.

"I get that you had to do what you had to do, Danny, but that doesn't make it feel any less like an invasion. How would you like it if someone had seen your dream?"

"Like, say, the bad guy? And it's not like he was above throwing it in my face when we were fighting, either. 'Dreams are the gateway to the subconscious,' blah blah blah."

"Yeah, but I bet you weren't dreaming about him, were you?"

She'd ground the words out with about as much gusto as she might have swallowed a mouthful of the school's chipped beef that someone had force-fed her, and that was when I realized what the real problem was. It wasn't that I'd seen her dream. It was that I'd seen her dream. It didn't matter whether it was something she really wanted, or just one of those what-the-heck dreams. It had been about me, and I'd been witness to it. How would I have felt if I'd awoken from my dream to find out she'd seen the whole thing? My cheeks were burning just at the thought of it. And I knew, then, that there was only one way to fix this.

I had to level the playing field.

"You're right. I wasn't dreaming about him," I admitted. "I was dreaming about you."

She stopped walking, her face turning a shade of crimson I hadn't seen on a human since the time my dad had tried out the tanning bed he'd bought on eBay and modified in an attempt to make some sort of ecto-impurity sterilizer. Her jaw tight and her eyes narrow, Sam glared at me. "That's just great, Danny. It's not bad enough that you invade my privacy, however justifiable the reason, but now you have to mock me, too? Thank you for being so considerate." Then, she brushed past me and started walking really fast.

I turned and gaped after her a moment, then had to jog to catch up. "Sam, wait!" When she didn't stop, I grabbed her arm and turned her toward me. "Sam, would you hold on for one second? I'm not mocking you. I wouldn't... I'd never..." I paused, trying to collect my thoughts. "I'm telling you the truth. My dream was the same as yours. Exactly the same as yours."

She wouldn't even meet my eyes. "Don't, Danny."

"I'm serious, Sam! Nocturn must've been getting a two-for-one deal or something, because he was feeding us both the same dream. I mean, come on. I'm on the football team, and popular, and you're wearing a jock jacket? Does that sound like your dream?"

Once again, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that what I was saying was true. Our dreams weren't just about the same thing; they'd been exactly the same, down to Sam wearing a letter jacket that belonged to me. While it was true we were close enough we often knew exactly what the other was thinking and could even complete each other's sentences sometimes, we were hardly so much on the same wavelength that we could have identical dreams. It must have been manipulation on Nocturn's part, feeding the same dream to both of us. And that begged the question: if dreams were the gateway to the subconscious, then whose subconscious had he pulled this one from? If the stuff about the football team and being popular came from me—and clearly it had, since it was the antithesis of everything that mattered to Sam—did that mean the part about her being my girlfriend, and us almost kissing, had come from me as well? That it wasn't something she wanted or had ever even considered before, but something that had been yanked out of my head and imposed upon her by Nocturn? I couldn't discount the possibility, and the disappointment was almost crushing.

Then again, Tucker had theorized that Nocturn's plan was like The Matrix, where he fed us good dreams, dreams where we had our fondest desires, so that we'd want to stay asleep rather than return to the real world. That argument had merit, too, and it gave me a spark of hope. Maybe being my girlfriend was something she did want, even if the details came more from my head than hers. Maybe it wasn't all just me...

Sam was watching me, chewing on her lower lip as she considered what I'd said. "Really? You really dreamed that you and I... that we were...?" She blushed and looked down.

"Yeah. I dreamed we were... and we almost..." I couldn't say it out loud, either.

She pressed her lips together, still not looking at me, and gave a sort of ironic chuckle, but there was an edge of pain there as well. "So, I guess that was the horrible nightmare that woke you up."

"Who said it had to be a nightmare? Good dreams can be a pretty big shock, too."

The words were out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying, and she jerked her head up, her eyes locking on mine as they widened in astonishment at what I'd just let slip out. While it fell short of a confession of how I felt about her, it certainly pointed in that direction, and the question it begged hung between us, an almost palpable, living thing. Was it a good dream? Do you want us to be... something more?

It wasn't the thought of having to answer that question that truly terrified me, however. It was her response to the question that would necessarily follow: How about you? Do you want us to be something more? I didn't want to know the answer to that. If she said no, that it was just a dream, she didn't like me that way... just imagining it was painful enough. Hearing her say it out loud? I don't think I could have taken it. It's one thing to know in your heart that what you want isn't gonna happen. It's another thing altogether to hear the words laid out plainly. It'd be worse, even, than watching her kiss Gregor because, this time, it would be directed at me.

But... what if she said yes? If she did want this? If she wanted me? Then what? Would we kiss? I could feel my mouth go dry just at the thought. Go out on a date? Become boyfriend and girlfriend? I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready...

I could barely breathe as I stared at her, and I realized then that she was just as scared as I was. Whether she was afraid of the awkwardness of finding out I had feelings for her she didn't share, or the heartache of finding out I didn't share her feelings for me, I couldn't tell, but seconds seemed to drag into minutes, hours, days as we stared at each other, the question left hanging, unasked, between us until I finally found my voice.

And changed the subject.

"So... if Nocturn is duplicating people's dreams, do you think maybe Starr is dreaming that she's on a date with two Tuckers?"

I could see the relief in Sam's eyes as her eyebrow twitched and a mischievous grin spread across her face. "Now, that would definitely qualify as a nightmare shock."

I laughed. "Yeah. I think we'd be hearing Starr scream from here."

We started walking toward my house again, lapsing into silence, and I couldn't quite tell if it was the comfortable kind or the awkward kind. A little reluctant to re-open the subject, but not wanting to let it drop before I knew things were okay between us, I nudged her with my shoulder. "So... are we good, then? You're not still mad at me? 'Cause the last time I invaded your privacy, you didn't talk to me for, like, three days, and I really don't wanna go through that again. Ever."

A smile ghosted across her face. "Yeah, we're good." Then, she gave me a hesitant look. "I mean, we're best friends, right? We'll always be best friends, no matter what?"

It sounded like a question, but I wasn't sure if she was looking for reassurance, or if she was hinting at an answer to the earlier question neither of us had asked, trying to let me know gently that friends was all we'd ever be. As distasteful as that thought was, the fact that our friendship was so significant to her bolstered me a bit. "We'll always be best friends. No matter what." Which meant she'd always be in my life. And that was more important to me than anything.

---

We could hear the hum of Tucker's scooter—well, Sam's scooter that he'd borrowed, anyway—just as I was unlocking the front door to my house. He left the scooter and bike helmet, also borrowed from Sam, on the sidewalk and jogged up the porch steps to join us. "Sorry, it took longer than I thought, but I got some good scans of my mom and dad's helmets. I'm pretty sure that we can trace the dreams he's feeding off of back to where he's collecting them and, from there, I should be able to take out the whole system. That'll shut down all the helmets, and everyone will wake up." Then, he frowned. "Wait. Are you guys just getting here, too? What took you so long?" He arched his eyebrow. "Did you take a nice, long stroll or something?"

"It's a long walk from Sam's, especially when you've gotta stick to the shadows and avoid Sleepwalkers patrolling the city," I snapped. "Let's just get inside, okay?"

"Okay, okay, geez. Lighten up."

I decided not to respond to that, and Sam wisely kept quiet as well as the three of us headed up the stairs toward Jazz's room.

We found her slumped over her desk, and my brow furrowed in worry. "She's not in her bed."

"Maybe she was working on something when the Sleepwalkers got her," Tucker suggested.

"Yeah, but so were my parents and you, and you all ended up in your beds. And Jazz was in bed when I checked on her earlier. So, how did she get to her desk? Unless..." I shuddered. "I'll bet the Sleepwalkers came here looking for me after I got away from Nocturn. Do you think they were trying to take her, maybe to use her as leverage or bait?" Another thought hit me, and I gasped. "Be right back."

Dashing out of the room, I ran to my parents' bedroom. When I got there, I breathed a sigh of relief. They were both asleep on their bed, exactly as I'd left them.

I returned to Jazz's room where Sam and Tucker were waiting at the door. "My parents are fine. Still asleep, but fine."

Sam looked over at Jazz. "She might have woken up on her own, like you did..." Her eyes widened slightly as she, no doubt, remembered what exactly it was that had shocked me awake, and we both blushed and averted our gazes.

I could see Tucker giving us that same suspicious look. "Just what did you dream that was so shocking, anyway?"

"Never mind that," I said quickly. Brushing past him and Sam, I walked over to stand behind Jazz's chair. "Whatever happened here, we'll have to worry about that later." I looked up at Tucker and Sam as they joined me. "Any objection to me waking up Jazz?"

Sam answered for the both of them. "Nope. The more of us, the better."

"You guys stay alert. I'll be right back."

Jazz's dreamworld was pretty much what I expected—dull as a poetry slam with Mr. Lancer as the keynote speaker. I found myself in what looked like an old, musty school building. A sign over a set of double doors on my left read: Yale University, Kirtland Hall. I could hear applause coming from inside, so I pushed open one of the doors, which led to a large auditorium. It was a full house, and the crowd was standing and clapping. On stage, standing behind a lectern, was a woman wearing a white lab coat, with red hair pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. Jazz.

Turning invisible, I flew above the audience toward the stage. As I neared the front, I began to recognize faces in the crowd. It seemed like the entire town of Amity Park was there, applauding my sister. My parents were in the front row, my mother dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Tucker, Sam, and yet another dream version of me were a few seats down, cheering wildly, and dream-me elbowed the person next to him, gushing, "That's my sister!"

"I know!" came the response, and I realized it was Dash. "Wasn't that the most eloquent lecture on the effects of parapsychological structures on the cognitive development of the corporeal-slash-incorporeal hybrid that you've ever heard?"

The real me rolled my eyes, but the dream-me nodded enthusiastically. Finally, the applause started to die down as Jazz motioned for everyone to take their seats. "Thank you, thank you. There are many people I would like to acknowledge, without whose support and encouragement I would not be here today. My family, of course—my parents, Jack and Madeline Fenton, and my brother, Danny."

My parents and dream-me stood up, waving as the crowd clapped for us. When we took our seats, Jazz continued. "And most of all, the man who has stood behind me through all the years of study, all the long nights at the lab and hours of research..."

I saw where this was going and got an idea. Grinning to myself, I dove down toward the first row, and overshadowed Dash just as Jazz was finishing her speech: "...my loving husband—"

Inside Dash's body, I bolted up from my seat. "Me! Dash Baxter!"

This time, I was ready for the world-shattering scream and the forcible ejection that followed. As soon as I was clear of Jazz's body, I arced backwards over her head to land on my feet behind her and next to Tucker and Sam.

Jazz gripped her desk. "Did I just dream I was a professor at Yale? And married to... Dash?"

I stifled a snicker. "Yep. Dash is really coming in handy today." I leaned toward Sam with a conspiratorial look. "He's, like, the poster boy for nightmares."

Sam blinked, giving me an odd look, and I realized that, this time, I'd been the one to remind us both of her dream—the dream we'd shared. Blushing once more, we turned away from each other and chuckled in unison. "Yeah... heh. Nightmares."

Before Tucker could question us again, Jazz whirled around in her desk chair. "What's going on? What are you doing in my room?"

"It's a long story," I told her, grateful for the return to the matter at hand. "We'll fill you in on the way..." I frowned, scratching my head. "Tucker? Where are we going, anyway?"

He'd already pulled out his PDA and was thumbing the buttons. "Looks like the signal traces back to the lakefront. Down by the docks."

"The docks it is. But first, a quick trip to the basement lab. We're gonna need some weapons."

---

The sky was just beginning to turn pink over Lake Michigan when Tucker's equipment led us to our destination: an old mattress factory right on the waterfront that happened to have a huge, brand-spankin'-new antenna built onto the roof. The plan was simple: take out the Sleepwalkers, get Tucker inside to hack into the antenna and bring it down, then take Nocturn out with a Fenton Thermos.

Outside the factory was a pretty standard battle against the Sleepwalkers, but when we finally got inside to go after the antenna, we got a nasty surprise. Nocturn was asleep inside some sort of suspended animation chamber, and he was huge. I'm talking fifty feet tall at least. His face alone was as big as my whole body. The chamber he was in was impossible to destroy, but it occurred to me that since he was asleep, I might be able to get inside his dream the same way I did Tucker's, Sam's, and Jazz's, and shock him awake by defeating him there. Then, he would come out of that contraption and we could grab him with the Fenton Thermos.

Sam wasn't so sure it would be that simple. "Danny, you can't go into the dream alone. You don't know what's in there. I'm coming with you."

She had that look, and I knew arguing with her was a lost cause. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"No, not so much." She flashed me a self-satisfied grin.

Tucker leaned forward around Sam. "You kids have fun. I know I always say I wanna be the man of someone's dreams, but this isn't what I meant."

"Tuck, you and Jazz stay out here and calibrate your PDA to shut down this dream machine. That should stop the Sleepwalkers, at least." I turned back to Sam. "You sure you wanna do this? I've never overshadowed someone with a partner before."

Her smile turned a little sheepish. "Can you... make room for me?"

Always. But I didn't say anything; I just smiled instead, her reference to our shared dream—very deliberate this time—making my stomach do a little flip-flop. Turning intangible, I reached for her hand and extended my power to cover her as well until we were both translucent, as if made of smoke.

"You okay?" It was kind of a lame question to ask her, since I'd turned her intangible a million times before, but I was a little nervous, both because taking someone with me while overshadowing someone else was uncharted territory and because, well... after my dream and her dream, I was unduly conscious of the fact that I was holding her hand, and it made me feel a little more flush than it should have.

"Tingly, but good," she replied, and my mind might have locked on the word tingly, had she not followed up with a determined, "Let's do this." I nodded in confirmation, then floated the two of us off the ground and flew toward Nocturn's head, concentrating on burrowing both of us deep into his mind.

The world that materialized around us was a barren landscape of purple rock under dark skies, with an enormous, glowing, violet tower fortress rising up in the center of it, taller than all of the surrounding mountains combined. There were thousands of Sleepwalkers, moaning as they marched in lockstep and converged upon the fortress. When they reached the bottom, they flew into the air, spiraling around the towers, while Nocturn sat atop it all, a giant spider in his web, laughing maniacally like a comic book villain.

Peeking out from behind a rock, I experimentally let go of Sam's hand. When I was satisfied that I didn't need to maintain contact with her in the dreamworld to keep her here, I focused on Nocturn. "You gotta hand it to the guy—he's got a vision."

There was a flash of lightning, then Nocturn glanced in our direction and disappeared.

I looked at Sam. "Uh-oh. Did he just see us?"

A noise behind us startled us, and we turned just as Nocturn materialized above us. "Ah, the ghost boy and his girlfriend, once again together in Dreamland."

Later, it would occur to me that neither of us bothered to contradict him when he called Sam my girlfriend. We'd been called that so many times over the course of our friendship that denials had become second nature, and popped out without us even thinking about it. I tried not to read too much into the fact that, this time, neither one of us said a word. We'd been in the middle of a battle, with more important things on our minds, after all. Still, I couldn't help but wonder... did it mean something? One dream, one conversation where I almost sort of implied I wouldn't mind if she were my girlfriend and, suddenly, the concept didn't seem so foreign anymore. At least, not to me.

Did she feel the same way?

But that was later. At the moment, we were too busy trying to take out the giant, dream-sucking ghost to give it much thought. He went down pretty easily—too easily, as Sam pointed out. Two blasts from my ghost ray, and Sam was sucking him into a Thermos like he was the Box Ghost.

Sure enough, it was nothing more than a ruse. Nocturn, about a hundred times bigger now, his face filling the sky behind us, rose up from the mountainside, laughing at us. "Did you honestly think you could defeat me in my own dream? I am the King of Dreams! You cannot win in my world!"

Reaching for Sam's arm, I pulled her toward me. "Then we'll just have to take back the home field advantage. Let's get out of here." Concentrating my energy, I tried to leave Nocturn's mind the same way I'd leave any body I was overshadowing. But it didn't work. The dream didn't fade, and we were trapped.

Nocturn toward over us. "I told you, I control all dreams, especially my own. And in my dream, you two shall remain... forever."

We turned and ran, but an entire legion of Sleepwalkers was behind us. "Oh, boy."

Sam shouldered a bazooka she'd pulled from her backpack and extended it to full-size. "Fight, Danny!" She blasted at the Sleepwalkers with it, while I used my ghost ray, but neither one had any effect.

"Your weapons no longer work. The dreams of your families and friends have made me and my army unstoppable. Now you will join them, and patrol the nights for eternity!"

It was then that I figured out what the Sleepwalkers were—they were his victims. People he'd put to sleep and sucked dry until they couldn't wake up. And unless something happened really soon to turn the fight in our favor, we were about to join them.

We tried backing away, but they had us surrounded. Two of them grabbed us, pinning our arms behind us as Nocturn cackled with glee. "Only a miracle could save you now."

And then we had one. The Sleepwalkers dropped us and disappeared, leaving us alone with Nocturn.

Sam blinked in surprise. "What happened?"

"Tucker and Jazz did it!"

Nocturn looked at his hands,which were shaking, his fingers crooked as if he were suffering from arthritis. "I don't understand. Why do I suddenly feel... weak?"

Sam's eyes glinted in victory. "Because this is now your worst nightmare."

Flying between her and Nocturn, I let loose with a burst of ice from both hands, freezing him solid. Then, I moved aside. "Sam, will you do the honors?"

She shouldered the bazooka, kneeling down to get a better shot. "My pleasure. Sweet dreams!"

Note to self: chicks with bazookas are hot.

The ecto-missile hit him straight in the chest, shattering the ice, and then the dreamworld around us. I had a moment of panic when I realized we were about to get ejected from Nocturn's mind and I didn't know what would happen to her if we weren't in contact. Reaching out blindly, I grabbed for her. My fingers brushed hers—she was reaching for me, as well—and I managed to snag her wrist and clutch it tightly before we were jerked up and out. But it was different this time. Instead of it being a physical thing, like being bodily tossed out of a room, I felt something almost like electricity course through us. It didn't shock us, but seemed to... disassemble us, like my father's perpetual threat to tear me apart "molecule by molecule." The next thing I knew, we were zapped back into being, kneeling on the floor of the mattress factory. I breathed a sigh of relief when I could still feel Sam's wrist in my hand, and when I opened my eyes to find that all our molecules seemed to be in the right place.

The bad news, however, was an awake and very pissed-off Nocturn, growling in fury as he stood over us. "I shall destroy you for waking me! Sleepwalkers, form!"

Nothing happened. Sam and I got to our feet, Sam grinning up at the dream-stealing ghost. "Boy, somebody woke up cranky."

"In your dreams, Nocturn!" I added. "The antenna's gone, and so is your dream machine. Everyone you put to sleep is waking up. You have no power."

With a roar of fury, he came at us but, before he could reach us, a blue beam of light struck him and pulled him back. It was Tucker, sucking him into a Fenton Thermos. "Consider this your wake-up call."

---

The sun was coming up over the lake, painting the sky a brilliant orange as the four of us left the mattress factory to take a breather on the dock before heading back home for some hopefully dreamless sleep.

"Think everyone will believe this was all a dream?" I wondered aloud.

Tucker sighed. "I gotta say, Nocturn was an evil creep, but I wouldn't mind having my dream again. I could get used to that."

Without me vacuuming your rugs, please, I thought.

"Me, too," Jazz agreed. "Yale professor? What's not to love?" She turned to me and Sam. "What about you two?"

We both gasped, neither one of us wanting to be put on the spot. "I..."

"Uh..."

"I don't even remember what my dream was about," I managed to get out.

"Uh... me, neither."

We both grinned a little too widely, but Jazz didn't seem to notice. "Really? That's too bad."

I gave an uneasy laugh. "Oh, yeah, well... dreams... 'gateway to the subconscious...' Uh... I don't think so."

Sam nodded in ready agreement. "Yeah, dream on."

As we caught each other's eye, we blushed and turned quickly away. But when I took a furtive glance in her direction, I caught her doing the same thing back at me, and we both smiled, still embarrassed, but almost with a sense of... camaraderie at our shared secret.

Can you make room for your girlfriend? she'd asked in both of our dreams. Even if I wasn't ready to say it to her—and was even less ready to hear if she could make room for me—I finally knew for sure what my answer was.

There was no need to make room. She'd been there all along.

Chapter 28: Dreams: Sam

Dreams
Sam

I should have known it was just a dream. The permanent ban on dissecting animals in biology lab alone should have been a dead giveaway. Or Paulina having the worst hair day ever. Or the fact that there'd just been an announcement over the PA system that the next Morbid Antisocial Youth music video, which would be zombie-themed, was being filmed at Casper High and all students were invited to meet the band and be extras in full zombie makeup. And don't even get me started on the entire school (minus Tucker) voting to make the cafeteria all-vegetarian all the time.

But it was so clear, so real, that even though it was all too perfect to be true, I didn't know it was a dream. Not until I got the one thing I wanted more than animal rights, being a zombie in one of my favorite band's music video, and an all-veggie menu in the cafeteria combined—and was even less likely to ever really happen. Can you make room for your girlfriend?

I was in the cafeteria, where Danny was waiting for me. And I'd just called myself his girlfriend and he didn't even blink. In fact, it was as if we'd been together forever. He just smiled as I sat down beside him. Nice jacket.

That's when I noticed I was wearing a letter jacket. With Danny's name embroidered on it.

Okaaaaay. Even in the completely improbable scenario where everything else that had just happened were true, up to and including me being Danny's girlfriend, I would never, ever actually wear the symbol of our oppression at the hands of all things popular: the jock jacket. And why would Danny have one, anyway?

But it was so real. I could smell the stale odor of beef goulash that the cafeteria would never be able to get rid of even if they went all veggie for a hundred years. I could feel Danny's hand through the jacket as he put his hand on my shoulder. I could see his eyes turn a deeper shade of blue as they met mine, smell the fresh scent of his favorite shower gel as he leaned toward me, until his lips were almost touching mine.

Then I knew. Danny, my boyfriend? Danny, kissing me?

Impossible.

Before our lips could meet, however, a loud crash sounded across the cafeteria. Startled, we jerked apart and looked toward the source of the noise.

Danny Phantom had just knocked over the entire table of silverware and condiments.

Confused, I looked at the Danny sitting next to me. Wait. You can't be in two places at once!

Across the table, Dash Baxter leaned toward us. Actually, Sam... I'm Danny Phantom! He stood up and pounded his right fist into his left hand. Going ghost!

And then, Dash Baxter turned into Danny Phantom—or, at least, a Dash-like version of Danny Phantom—and I screamed. The cafeteria dissolved around me, and I was sitting upright in my own bed, which meant... it was only a dream. Not just the Dash-as-Danny-Phantom part, but the me-as-Danny's-girlfriend part, too.

Damn. Only a dream.

"That must've been some dream!"

I blinked, suddenly aware that I wasn't alone. Tucker was standing next to my bed. As if that wasn't weird enough, the mattress moved with the weight of someone other than me moving on top of the bed and I turned to see Danny, in ghost form, crawling toward me. Confusion as to what the hell he was doing there gave way almost immediately to mortification at what I'd just been dreaming about him—dear God, please tell me I wasn't talking in my sleep—and I turned away. "I don't remember!" I lied, while at the exact same moment Danny, sounding equally embarrassed, shouted "I didn't see anything!"

That's when enough of my senses returned that I realized that Danny and Tucker were in my room while I was sleeping. "What just happened?"

"We have another stop to make," Danny replied. "We'll explain everything on the way."

"On the way where?"

"To my house. I think this party could use a fourth."

What party? What the heck was he talking about?

Tucker, meanwhile, had grabbed something from my bed and was holding it in his hands, examining it. It looked like some broken tech, and I didn't have the first clue what it was or how it had gotten on my bed, but Tucker seemed to know what it was. "Why don't you guys go on ahead? I need to make a stop back at my house first. From what you told me on our way over here, I think I should do some scans of these helmets. One that's still in operation. If Nocturn is siphoning off people's dreams, he must be collecting them somewhere. I'm pretty sure I can get a general idea how these things work if I scan one that's still working, and then I might be able to trace back to where he's collecting the dreams, and we can shut down the whole system."

He might as well have been speaking in Esperanto as far as I was concerned, but Danny seemed to understand what he was talking about. "Why don't you scan Jazz's headset? We don't have a lot of time for you to go to your place first, especially if we have to walk."

"I don't have any of the gear I need on me. You didn't exactly clue me in as to what we'd need before we rushed after Sam. And what's wrong with flying?"

"I think that's how the Sleepwalkers found us before. The less I use my powers, the better."

"Well, if I borrow Sam's scooter, I can get from here to my house, grab the stuff I need, do a quick scan of my parents' headsets, and be at your house in the time it takes you guys to walk there."

"I don't know, Tuck. If they come after you while you're alone..."

"I'll be careful to avoid them. We need the data if we're gonna stop them for good."

I'd had about all I could take. "Uh... Would anyone like to clue me in on what the heck you're talking about?"

Tucker was already on his way out. "Danny'll tell you, and I'll meet you guys at FentonWorks. Your scooter's out back, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"I'll see you guys in a few." Then, he gave Danny a strange look I couldn't quite interpret. "The walk will give you two a chance to talk."

---

The story Danny told as we walked to FentonWorks was a strange one. Apparently, there was a new ghost we'd never seen before, who called himself Nocturn, the Ghost of Sleep. He'd woken Danny up in the middle of the night... last night? Danny wasn't sure. But they'd fought, and Danny had lost, so Nocturn put him to sleep with this helmet-thing, which was what Tucker had been looking at in my bedroom.

Later, Danny woke up again and discovered what Nocturn had done, not just to him, but to the entire town. He'd put everyone to sleep, and the helmets were a sort of twisted version of the Native American dream catchers, only instead of keeping bad dreams away, they sucked the dreams right out of people. Nocturn, along with an army of drone ghosts he called "Sleepwalkers," fed off the stolen dreams. After Danny woke up the second time, they fought again, and Danny was able defeat him with a one-two punch of his ice powers and ghost ray. But the Sleepwalkers were still all over town, everyone else was still helmeted and sleeping, and Danny was guessing that Nocturn was only temporarily out of the picture.

"The helmets keep you asleep, and they also generate some kind of electric shield that keeps anyone else from touching you and waking you up."

I frowned. "So, how did you wake up?"

He winced, looking a little uncomfortable. "Something in my dream happened that was... well, kind of shocking, I guess. And that woke me up. So I realized that I could wake you and Tucker up the same way—by going inside your dreams and shocking you awake. There's this kind of overshadowing that goes deeper than the regular kind, sort of getting me right inside someone's mind. So I went into Tucker's dream first, then yours, and woke you guys up. The thing with Dash turning into Danny Phantom? That was me."

I could feel my insides shrivel and turn to dust. Danny had gone into my dream. He'd made Dash turn into Danny Phantom, which meant he'd heard me say to the other Danny—the dream Danny—that he couldn't be in two places at once, which meant he saw what had preceded that...

Oh, God. Danny saw me dream that we were about to kiss. That I was his girlfriend... It was probably the reason he'd knocked over that table, because he'd been so horrified by the sight of me almost about to kiss him...

Kill me now.

"Sam?"

I couldn't look at him. Could barely speak more than a single word, and that came out hard and brittle. "What?"

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, Danny. I love waking up to find out you were rooting around in my brain, watching my dreams."

He moved around in front of me, walking backwards so we were face to face and I couldn't completely avoid looking at him. "C'mon, Sam. What was I supposed to do, leave you asleep and let Nocturn feed off your dreams? It was the only way I could think of to wake you and Tucker up. I couldn't shake you awake, because those helmets shocked me anytime I touched you. And making noise didn't work, either. It's not like I was trying to invade your privacy. I didn't pick up your diary and read it for fun or anything like that. I had to do it to wake you up. Besides, it was just a dream. People dream all kinds of weird stuff, and it doesn't mean anything. Heck, Tucker was dreaming he was drinking chocolate milk with twins that looked like Starr, and you know how he can't stand her."

I knew he was right, that he hadn't been intending to cross any boundaries or see anything he shouldn't have seen, but it didn't really help. If anything, it only made me more frustrated because I couldn't be mad at him. "I get that you had to do what you had to do, Danny, but that doesn't make it feel any less like an invasion. How would you like it if someone had seen your dream?"

"Like, say, the bad guy? And it's not like he was above throwing it in my face when we were fighting, either. 'Dreams are the gateway to the subconscious,' blah blah blah."

He was missing the point completely and, if I'd have been smart, I would have let it die, but it was too late for saving my dignity or pretending that he hadn't seen what he'd seen or that I didn't care. Gritting my teeth to keep down the bile that was churning in my stomach, I threw away any pretense that the specifics of what I'd been dreaming didn't matter. "Yeah, but I bet you weren't dreaming about him, were you?"

This gave him pause, and he seemed to be wrestling with something. "You're right," he said at last. "I wasn't dreaming about him. I was dreaming about you."

I stopped short, a mixture of anger and a humiliation worse than any I'd ever felt before boiling over inside me and making my cheeks burn. How dare he? What he saw in the course of trying to wake me up and get me out from that ghost's dream helmet wasn't really his fault, but to make light of what he saw? Nearly two years of trying to squelch my growing feelings for him and, to him, it's all a big joke? My eyes narrowed into slits as I glared at him, seething. "That's just great, Danny. It's not bad enough that you invade my privacy, however justifiable the reason, but now you have to mock me, too? Thank you for being so considerate." Brushing past him, I started walking away as fast as I could.

"Sam, wait!" A moment later, I felt his hand on my arm, and he pulled me to a stop and turned me toward him. "Sam, would you hold on for one second? I'm not mocking you. I wouldn't... I'd never..." He paused a moment. "I'm telling you the truth. My dream was the same as yours. Exactly the same as yours."

I couldn't even look at him. "Don't, Danny."

"I'm serious, Sam! Nocturn must've been getting a two-for-one deal or something, because he was feeding us both the same dream. I mean, come on. I'm on the football team, and popular, and you're wearing a jock jacket? Does that sound like your dream?"

Now I did look at him, a little thrown by what was actually a really good point. How was it that, in a dream where everything I ever wanted in life came true, I'd been wearing a jock jacket? And Dash had been sitting with Danny and Tucker in the cafeteria like we were part of the so-called "A-List"? That was about as far from my dream as the all-veggie cafeteria menu would be from Tucker's.

But it was Danny's dream.

Chewing on my lower lip, I studied him a moment and, in his eyes, I could see the truth. For all that he'd managed to keep his identity secret from everyone he knew other than his sister, Danny was a terrible liar. He'd get nervous, and stutter, and sound like whatever he was saying he was making up on the spot. But he wasn't doing any of that now. He was absolutely sincere, and I was having difficulty trying to wrap my mind around the idea. "Really? You really dreamed that you and I... that we were...?" Blushing, I looked down at my boots. Were we really having this conversation?

"Yeah. I dreamed we were... and we almost..."

He was as embarrassed as I was and, for just an instant, I wondered if that could mean he... But then, I came to my senses. It didn't mean anything. If Nocturn was doubling up on dreams and had pulled the popularity stuff out of Danny's, then it stood to reason that he'd gotten the girlfriend stuff from me.

That's when something else occurred to me. Danny had said that he'd figured out he could startle us awake because something had shocked him in his dream and woken him up. Pressing my lips together and still avoiding his gaze, I forced myself to laugh it off as a bit of self-deprecating humor. "So, I guess that was the horrible nightmare that woke you up."

"Who said it had to be a nightmare? Good dreams can be a pretty big shock, too."

My head jerked up, my eyes widening in stunned disbelief as they locked onto his. He was clearly just as surprised by his own words as I was, as if he'd just let slip something he'd never intended to say out loud, and that made my heart pound a little harder in my chest. Had he really just said what I thought he'd said? Could it possibly mean what it sounded like it meant?

In the year and a half since I'd first started feeling more than friendship toward him, I'd never allowed myself to entertain even the slightest hope that he could ever return those feelings. And, if I did get the occasional glimmer, I'd quash it without mercy, reminding myself that I knew full well what his type was, and I was not it.

This was different, though, and I couldn't hold back the euphoria that was flooding over me at the thought that maybe he did want this. Maybe he wanted me. He hadn't said so in so many words, but what he had said—and the look in his eyes as he stared into mine—certainly hinted at the possibility, and the question it begged hung between us, an almost palpable, living thing. Was it a good dream? Do you want us to be... something more?

Just the thought of how he might answer, however, turned elation into cold, stark terror. If he said no, that it was just a dream, he didn't like me that way... just imagining it was painful enough. Hearing him say it out loud? I don't think I could have taken it. It was one thing to know in your heart that what you want isn't gonna happen. It was another thing altogether to hear the words laid out plainly. It'd be like when he'd said that he liked Valerie, only a million times worse because, this time, it would be directed at me.

But... what if he said yes? If he did want this? If he wanted me? A dark voice whispered a warning to me: If you get what you want, you'll lose everything.

You'll lose him.

It was my deepest fear, and one I usually kept buried deep under layers of ideology and conviction that Danny was exactly who he was always meant to be. Fighting ghosts, fighting for others who couldn't fight for themselves... it was just so right. Risky, yes—for Danny, and for Tucker and me as well, and anyone else who was a part of that fight. But risk came with anything that was worthwhile in life, and we all accepted that as part of the package.

Still, I was a goth at heart and, for all my determined optimism that the world could be a better place if we worked to make it that way, there was a part of me that believed in the eternal nature of Darkness, and that life operated on a sort of Monkey's Paw principle: you can get what you wish for, but it will come at a very high cost.

I'd gotten what I hadn't even known I'd been wishing for the day Danny stepped into that portal... and it could cost him his life. That is the price you will pay for the part you played in his becoming who he was meant to be, the Darkness insisted. In finding him, you've lost him. How you lose him depends upon how much you have to lose.

It was an irrational fear, I knew. I didn't believe in Fate, or Destiny, or that denying how much Danny meant to me was any sort of magic talisman that could keep him safe from the dangers he faced by virtue of being who and what he was. But the fear was a real, living thing inside me, telling me that I could lose him to a Paulina or a Valerie... or I could lose him to a Vlad or a Ghost King.

But one way or another, I was going to lose him.

And a year and a half of carefully constructed defenses clicked into place. You're making too much of this. He didn't say you were anything more than a friend to him. All he said was that dreaming about kissing you wasn't necessarily a nightmare. Was it a good dream? Of course it was. He's a fifteen-year-old boy. Any dream remotely connected to sex would be a good dream, even if it was about someone who would always only be a friend to him. Does he want you to be something more? Maybe, but that doesn't mean it would mean the same thing to him that it does to you. You're a reasonably attractive girl, and he has to know by now you're available to him. There are worse ways he could pass the time than a friends-with-benefits arrangement with you until something better comes along...

An uncharitable thought, that. And, if I were being honest with myself, not really in Danny's character. If meaningless fun was all he was after, he could have had any number of make-out sessions with Paulina just by hitting on her in ghost form. But he'd never done that, not even at the height of his crush on her. Still, it was easier to convince myself that he'd want such a thing with me than it was to open the door to hope... and the fears that followed in its wake. Whatever the answer to the question—Do you want us to be something more?—I wasn't ready to hear it, so I left it hanging, unasked, between us.

It was Danny who finally broke the silence. "So... if Nocturn is duplicating people's dreams, do you think maybe Starr is dreaming that she's on a date with two Tuckers?"

I almost sagged in relief at the change of subject, and my lips twitched into a mischievous grin. "Now, that would definitely qualify as a nightmare shock."

He laughed. "Yeah. I think we'd be hearing Starr scream from here."

Crisis narrowly averted, we started walking toward his house again. After we'd gone a little ways, however, Danny nudged me. "So... are we good, then? You're not still mad at me? 'Cause the last time I invaded your privacy, you didn't talk to me for, like, three days, and I really don't wanna go through that again. Ever."

The quiet intensity in his voice made my stomach do a small flip, and I smiled in spite of myself. "Yeah, we're good." But the reminder of what he'd seen in my dream made me nervous all over again. Would it change things between us? Would our friendship mean the same to him as it always had, even if he knew I wanted more? Had the dream opened a door in his mind that hadn't been there before? This time, I needed to know the answer. "I mean, we're best friends, right? We'll always be best friends, no matter what?"

His reply was emphatic. "We'll always be best friends. No matter what." And that was all the answer I needed.

---

Tucker caught up with us just as we'd arrived at FentonWorks and Danny was unlocking the front door. Leaving my borrowed scooter and bike helmet on the sidewalk, he joined us on the front porch "Sorry, it took longer than I thought, but I got some good scans of my mom and dad's helmets. I'm pretty sure that we can trace the dreams he's feeding off of back to where he's collecting them and, from there, I should be able to take out the whole system. That'll shut down all the helmets, and everyone will wake up." He paused, frowning. "Wait. Are you guys just getting here, too? What took you so long?" He gave us a suspicious look. "Did you take a nice, long stroll or something?"

Danny's answer was testy. "It's a long walk from Sam's, especially when you've gotta stick to the shadows and avoid Sleepwalkers patrolling the city. Let's just get inside, okay?"

"Okay, okay, geez. Lighten up."

Danny didn't answer, and I was more than happy to let the subject drop as we went inside and upstairs.

Heading straight to Jazz's room, Danny frowned when he saw her slumped over her desk. "She's not in her bed."

Tucker shrugged. "Maybe she was working on something when the Sleepwalkers got her."

"Yeah, but so were my parents and you, and you all ended up in your beds. And Jazz was in bed when I checked on her earlier. So, how did she get to her desk? Unless..." His eyes widened in alarm. "I'll bet the Sleepwalkers came here looking for me after I got away from Nocturn. Do you think they were trying to take her, maybe to use her as leverage or bait?" Then, he gasped. "Be right back."

He took off down the hall, and Tucker and I exchanged glances, trying to decide if we were supposed to follow him, but he returned a moment latter, rejoining us at the door to Jazz's room. "My parents are fine. Still asleep, but fine."

I looked inside the room at Jazz, asleep at her desk. "She might have woken up on her own, like you did..." The thought of what exactly had awoken him hit me, and I stopped short. Danny realized it, too, and we both blushed and turned away.

Tucker was eyeing us before he asked Danny, "Just what did you dream that was so shocking, anyway?"

I had to bite my lip to keep from threatening death and dismemberment. It was Danny's dream, not mine, and defensiveness on my part would only serve to raise his suspicions.

Danny just brushed him off with a hasty, "Never mind that," before heading into his sister's room. "Whatever happened here, we'll have to worry about that later." He looked over to me and Tucker as we came in after him. "Any objection to me waking up Jazz?"

I shook my head. "Nope. The more of us, the better."

"You guys stay alert. I'll be right back." And he turned intangible and did a swan dive right into Jazz's head.

As soon as Danny was gone, Tucker took the opportunity to grill me. "So... what were you dreaming about?" His eyebrows waggled in a way that suggested he had a pretty good guess.

Feigning indifference, I shrugged. "Oh, you know... nothing specific. I was just sharing a glass of chocolate milk with two friends who looked just like Starr." I gave him a pointed look, wondering how long it would take him to put together what I was doing, especially since it was a tossup which I was less likely to do: drink milk, or willingly spend time with Starr.

Given the surprised smile I got in response, it didn't hit him right away. "Hey! That's what I—" He stopped, his smile turning into a disgruntled frown. "Oh. Danny told you my dream. I'm pretty sure that violates the Dude Code."

My grin widened, but I almost jumped out of my own skin a second later when Jazz bolted upright in her chair, screaming. The helmet on her head shattered, and Danny shot out of her, turning solid in midair and performing an impressive back flip before landing gracefully on his feet behind her.

Jazz's knuckles were turning white as she gripped her desk. "Did I just dream I was a professor at Yale? And married to... Dash?"

Danny looked a little too smug. "Yep. Dash is really coming in handy today." He flashed me a conspiratorial grin. "He's, like, the poster boy for nightmares."

I almost choked on the reminder of how he'd used Dash to wake me up—and what had happened just before that. After a second, he remembered, too, and we were both turning away from each other again, blushing, as we chuckled together. "Yeah... heh. Nightmares."

I thought Tucker was going to start in on us, in which case I was going to have to kill him, but Jazz interrupted, spinning around in her chair to face us. "What's going on? What are you doing in my room?"

"It's a long story," Danny said, sounding as grateful as I was for the distraction. "We'll fill you in on the way..." He paused, scratching his head. "Tucker? Where are we going, anyway?"

Tucker consulted his PDA. "Looks like the signal traces back to the lakefront. Down by the docks."

Danny nodded. "The docks it is. But first, a quick trip to the basement lab. We're gonna need some weapons."

---

It was a little before dawn when we arrived at the docks. Tucker's equipment led us to an old mattress factory, which had a newly-installed antenna sticking out of the roof. We went over the plan once more: take out the Sleepwalkers, get Tucker inside to hack into the antenna and bring it down, then take Nocturn out with a Fenton Thermos.

Outside the factory was a pretty standard battle against the Sleepwalkers, except for a harrowing moment when two of them grabbed me and flew me several hundred feet into the air. Jazz blasted one of them with her ecto-weapon, and Danny got the other with his ice ray, but that left me with nothing holding me aloft. I screamed as I fell, but Danny caught me a safe distance above the ground and set me down on me feet on the docks, leaving me a little breathless—whether more from the fall or from an embarrassing bout of hero-worship at the way Danny so effortlessly plucked me out of the air and saved my life, I can't honestly say.

Once inside, however, things got much more dicey. The center of the main warehouse had a huge contraption that was connected to the antenna above. The front of it was an enormous glass chamber, inside of which was a ghost I didn't recognize, but seemed vaguely familiar anyway. He was at least fifty feet tall and dressed in what looked like black robes that ended in spidery tails, like Morticia Addams' dress in The Addams Family. His face was gray, with purple ram-like horns sticking out the side of his head, and his eyes were closed in deep sleep.

Danny seemed shocked by him. "No! Nocturn! He's huge!" He flew up to the top of the chamber to where the ghost's giant face was. "He's absorbing dreams and getting more powerful. We have to stop him!" He tried to pry open the glass door but couldn't budge it. Punching it with his fist had no effect, and neither did his ghost ray.

I called up to him. "Danny, you need to stay focused! The longer Nocturn's in there—"

"The stronger he gets," Danny finished. "I know. That's why I'm trying to break in and wake him up." He stopped as an idea occurred to him. "Wait a minute. Wake him up. We wake him up, the same way I woke all of you." He flew back down to land on the floor in front of me, Tucker and Jazz. "Think about it. You all woke up by being surprised. If I beat him in his dream, it'll startle him awake, and then we can—"

"We catch him," Jazz said, holding up a Fenton Thermos.

I wasn't crazy about this plan, however. At least not with Danny facing Nocturn in his dream by himself. "Danny, you can't go into the dream alone. You don't know what's in there. I'm coming with you." I gave him my best don't-even-try-to-argue-with-me look.

He got the message. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"No, not so much." I grinned, victorious.

Tucker leaned toward us. "You kids have fun. I know I always say I wanna be the man of someone's dreams, but this isn't what I meant."

Danny nodded in agreement. "Tuck, you and Jazz stay out here and calibrate your PDA to shut down this dream machine. That should stop the Sleepwalkers, at least." He stepped closer to me. "You sure you wanna do this? I've never overshadowed someone with a partner before."

I'm not sure why I did it, but something about the way he was looking at me reminded me of the way he'd looked at me in my dream, but instead of embarrassing me this time, it felt like a link between us, something we shared that no one else did. "Can you... make room for me?" I asked, intentionally repeating the phrase I'd used in the dream, only without the girlfriend part.

His responding smile nearly turned my legs to water. He went intangible, then reached for my hand. I shivered as his powers washed over me, making me into a temporary ghost.

"You okay?"

"Tingly, but good," I responded, not sure whether it was the ghost powers or him that made me feel that way, but I shook it off, focusing back on our mission. "Let's do this."

---

I'd phased through walls and stuff with Danny more times than I could count, but this was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced before. It felt like getting pulled down through a drain, shrinking as we went, two Alices tumbling through the Rabbit Hole.

When the pulling stopped, I opened my eyes to find myself in a strange world with black skies and neon-violet craggy mountains. A few miles away, a gigantic tower rose up above the mountain peaks, and thousands upon thousands of green Sleepwalker ghosts were marching toward it, an army heading back to base. On top of the tower, Nocturn stood like a symphony conductor, orchestrating it all.

Beside me, Danny was still holding my hand. We both looked and felt normal and even solid, as if we'd phased into just another section of the Ghost Zone instead of inside Nocturn's mind. With a little hesitation, Danny let go of my hand, but even without the contact, I stayed put and, satisfied that I was okay, he turned to watch Nocturn. "You gotta hand it to the guy—he's got a vision."

As if in answer, lightning flashed around the dream ghost, who glanced in our direction before disappearing.

Danny looked at me. "Uh-oh. Did he just see us?"

Nocturn reappeared behind us, answering that question. "Ah, the ghost boy and his girlfriend, once again together in Dreamland."

Later, it would occur to me that neither of us bothered to contradict him when he called me Danny's girlfriend. We'd been called that so many times over the course of our friendship that denials had become second nature, and popped out without us even thinking about it. I tried not to read too much into the fact that, this time, neither one of us said a word. We'd been in the middle of a battle, with more important things on our minds, after all. Still, I couldn't help but wonder... did it mean something? One dream, one statement where he almost sort of implied he wouldn't mind if I were his girlfriend, and suddenly the dam I'd carefully constructed against hoping he could ever think of me that way was cracked and leaking.

But that was later. At the time, we'd been too busy trying to stop Nocturn to give it much thought. After two blasts from Danny's ghost ray, I had him trapped in a Fenton Thermos. Capping it, I looked up at Danny. "That was too easy. Something's not right."

He landed beside me. "Why didn't Nocturn wake up?"

The ground shook in response, and Nocturn, huge as ever, rose up beyond the hill where we were standing. "Did you honestly think you could defeat me in my own dream? I am the King of Dreams! You cannot win in my world!"

Danny grabbed me by the forearm. "Then we'll just have to take back the home field advantage. Let's get out of here." He closed his eyes, and the dreamworld around us faded, but only for a moment, and then we were back, trapped. "It didn't work! I can't get us out!"

Nocturn rose up, towering a good fifty or sixty feet over us. "I told you, I control all dreams, especially my own. And in my dream, you two shall remain... forever."

We turned and ran, but an entire legion of Sleepwalkers was behind us. Danny grimaced. "Oh, boy."

I pulled a mini bazooka out of my backpack, extended it to full-size, and threw it up on my shoulder. "Fight, Danny!" I shot at the Sleepwalkers surrounding is, but they absorbed both the bazooka blasts and Danny's ghost ray without sustaining any damage.

"Your weapons no longer work," Nocturn told us. "The dreams of your families and friends have made me and my army unstoppable. Now you will join them, and patrol the nights for eternity!"

Even for a self-proclaimed creature of the night, patrolling the nights as a vaguely humanoid-shaped blob under this windbag's control wasn't my idea of a good way to spend eternity. But we were vastly outnumbered, and two of them grabbed us and pinned us back while Nocturn laughed. "Only a miracle could save you now."

And then, we had one. The Sleepwalkers dropped us and were gone.

I looked around, confused. "What happened?"

Danny grinned. "Tucker and Jazz did it!"

Above us, Nocturn was shaking like an old man. "I don't understand. Why do I suddenly feel... weak?"

"Because this is now your worst nightmare," I informed him with a smile.

Danny flew in front of me, blasting him with his ice ray and freezing him solid. Then, he moved aside. "Sam, will you do the honors?"

I knelt down with the bazooka, switching it from ray to missile, and took aim. "My pleasure. Sweet dreams!"

I hit him right in the chest, and he shattered. A moment later, the world around us shattered, too, leaving us in blackness. I felt a violent jerk, like someone pulling me by the collar, but I couldn't feel a hand or any other sign that Danny was near me. I tried to call out to him, but my lungs felt flat, and I couldn't take a breath, so I reached out wildly, hoping against hope that he'd find me. Finally, I felt my fingers brush against something—his glove, I think—and then I felt the reassuring grip of his hand around my wrist just before something like lightning went through us. It didn't hurt or feel like a shock, but more like it was taking us apart, like we were being beamed out of Nocturn's dream via a Star Trek-style matter transporter.

The next thing I knew, we were back in the mattress factory, kneeling side-by-side on the floor, Danny's hand still firmly grasping my wrist.

It wasn't quite over, though. Nocturn was awake and out of his chamber, and he roared in fury at us. "I shall destroy you for waking me! Sleepwalkers, form!"

Nothing happened. Danny and I climbed to our feet, and I grinned up at the giant ghost. "Boy, somebody woke up cranky."

"In your dreams, Nocturn!" Danny added. "The antenna's gone, and so is your dream machine. Everyone you put to sleep is waking up. You have no power."

He came at us as if to attack, but before he could even lash out at us, he was caught in the beam of a Fenton Thermos and was gone. Tucker, grinning, capped the Thermos. "Consider this your wake-up call."

---

Danny, Tucker, Jazz and I sat on the edge of the dock outside the mattress factory, watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan. Danny looked up at the orange sky. "Think everyone will believe this was all a dream?"

Tucker gave a wistful sigh. "I gotta say, Nocturn was an evil creep, but I wouldn't mind having my dream again. I could get used to that."

Jazz nodded. "Me, too. Yale professor? What's not to love?" She turned to me and Danny. "What about you two?"

We both gasped, neither one of us wanting to be put on the spot. "I..."

"Uh..."

Danny winced. "I don't even remember what my dream was about."

"Uh... me, neither."

We both grinned a little too widely, but Jazz didn't seem to notice. "Really? That's too bad."

Danny laughed, but it sounded false to my ears. "Oh, yeah, well... dreams... 'gateway to the subconscious...' Uh... I don't think so."

"Yeah, dream on," I agreed quickly.

We both blushed and turned away from each other. But when I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, I caught him doing the same thing back at me, and we both couldn't help but smile. It was almost like our mutual embarrassment over the shared dream connected us to each other, rather than putting distance between us. A secret just between the two of us.

It was terrifying, this new link between us. For so many reasons, I was afraid to hope where it might lead. But I had to admit, scary as it was... I kind of liked it.

Chapter 29: Camping Out: Danny

Camping Out
Danny

I was so not looking forward to summer camp. Eight weeks—eight weeks!—of no video games, no DVDs, no computers or cell phones. Eight weeks—that's fifty-six days, thirteen-hundred forty-four hours, eighty thousand six-hundred forty minutes, four million eight hundred thirty-eight thousand four hundred seconds (yes, I did the math)—of living every day, every hour, every minute with Dash and his crew of goons.

Eight weeks of living every day, every hour, every minute with Sam.

Actually, I couldn't figure out if that one was a good thing or a bad thing.

Ever since the whole Nocturn dreaming-about-each-other incident, things had been... different between me and Sam. Not bad or painful, like I'd feared. We'd reached a sort of unspoken accord that the dreams and what they might mean was a Forbidden Topic, and that was working well enough. But I could feel it under the surface, and I could tell that she could, too.

I have to admit that, in some ways, it was kinda nice. There was almost an electricity between us, like the air around us was constantly charged, and sometimes the charge became a spark.

But sometimes the spark was more like a jolt. I'd be looking at her, she'd be looking at me, and the electricity would be there but, instead of just sparking, it would shock us, rattling our nerves and setting our teeth on edge. I still couldn't tell what it meant, though. I knew why I was scared to look too deeply at what was happening between us, but I couldn't tell what she was afraid of. That I might like her and she didn't want that kind of relationship? That she liked me and thought I wouldn't want that kind of relationship?

That we both liked each other and were headed for something big and unknown and really, really terrifying?

At least we had Tucker. He was a nice buffer, like rubber insulation that kept things from getting too charged. That made it easier to keep everything like it had always been—the three of us, best friends, doing everything together, from fighting nausea in the school cafeteria to fighting ghosts in my parents' basement. With Tucker, maybe eight weeks of summer camp wouldn't be so different. I mean, it's not like we didn't spend pretty much every waking minute together at home anyway. And it was kinda cute the way she was all excited about being out in nature and junk. Campfires weren't so bad, either. Roasting marshmallows for s'mores, laughing behind Dash's back at the irony of him trying to scare me with lame ghost stories, and seeing Sam's eyes lit up by the warm glow of a campfire... Yeah. Maybe camp wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Unfortunately, that tiny crumb of optimism died a horrible death when we arrived at Camp Skull and Crossbones on creepy (with two e's) Lake Eerie (also with two e's) and found out who our camp counselors would be.

Lancer and Tetslaff. The Lancer and Tetslaff. As in, our vice principal and P.E. teacher.

Oh, and there was the little matter of monsters in the woods and one of the campers going missing. That was bad, too, I guess, though not nearly as bad as the Lancer and Tetslaff thing. And that was all just on the first day. We still had fifty-five to go.

Have I mentioned how much I so didn't want to be at summer camp?

At least monster hunting was more fun than hanging in the cabin with Dash and Kwan. Even when Sam and Tucker nearly got eaten, then thrown off a cliff by what turned out to be some kind of green, bug-eyed fish-frog-monster ghost, it was still better than the alternative. After I finally got the thing trapped in a Fenton Thermos, I sent Sam and Tucker back to camp to get some sleep while I stayed up all night searching for Lester, the missing camper. All for nothing. The only sign of him I found was his camera, and it was one of those old-school, thirty-five millimeter jobs with no digital screen, so I couldn't even check the pictures he'd taken for any clues. All I could do was hope he'd found a cave somewhere to hole up in after being scared off by Frog Face.

Day Two was shaping up to be even worse than Day One. We hadn't even finished our breakfast, which I was pretty sure was something like gruel or whatever it was they fed orphans in Dickens' London, when Dash ran in screaming that the monster had gotten Kwan. And then, Starr disappeared, too. But I'd trapped the monster, so what was happening to the campers?

It looked like I wasn't gonna get a chance to find out, at least not for a while. Lancer and Tetslaff split us into groups, with Tetslaff taking one group, including Sam, on a search-and-rescue mission masquerading as a hike, while Lancer kept the rest of us back at camp to do "nice, normal camp stuff." Tucker and I spent the morning weaving potholders and lanyards until I thought boredom would turn my brain into some of that gray gruel and send it leaking out of my ears.

By the time we'd finished lunch, a revolting conglomeration of bologna sandwiches that were older than I was, stale corn chips, and "bug juice" that I was pretty sure was made up of actual bugs, Tetslaff's group still hadn't come back, and I was starting to worry about Sam. Lancer, trying to distract us, took us out to the lake for some canoeing, and while we were out there, a creepy-with-two-e's afternoon fog rolled in, finally giving me the cover I needed to do a little searching of my own. Leaving Tucker in our canoe, I went ghost and flew off toward the woods.

I found Sam just in time. A second monster, this one something like a cross between one of Frostbite's Yeti creatures and a purple-backed gorilla, was attacking her. I blasted the thing off her with a ghost ray, but I'd managed to leave my Thermos behind with Tucker, so I couldn't trap it. Instead, I used my ice powers to freeze it solid. Not a permanent solution, but at least it would be a while before it melted.

Things got even creepier when Sam and I went looking for Tetslaff to warn her about the monster. She and her group of campers were nowhere to be found. We searched the woods for hours, and couldn't find a trace of them. It was nearly dinnertime when we gave up and headed back to camp, hoping they'd gone back early, but the place was deserted, too. No Tetslaff and her group of hikers. No Lancer and his group of canoers. Worry turning into panic, we rushed out to the lake, but all we found there were a bunch of beached boats and Tucker's broken handheld video game player.

No campers. No Tucker. No Thermos.

That's when a third monster showed up. I hurled myself at it, preparing to nail it with a few bursts of ectoplasm, but when I got a good look at its face, I stopped short. My momentum gone, I crashed to the ground in a heap at its feet.

It wasn't a monster at all. It was Wulf, the giant ghost wolf that spoke Esperanto and was a fugitive from the Ghost Zone's self-proclaimed rule-maker and jail warden, Walker. He was hurt pretty badly, his claws broken and bleeding, probably from him using his special ability to tear a hole between the Ghost Zone and our dimension to escape Walker's prison.

We brought him back to the empty camp, where Sam took him to the infirmary and made some sort of salve out of mashed berries, which she smeared onto his wounded paws. She was also the one who put it all together—the monsters we kept running into must have come from the hole Wulf tore through from the Ghost Zone. I wanted him to lead us back to the opening so we could close it up, but he was exhausted and fell asleep in the corner of the infirmary instead.

Sam looked down at the snoring ghost wolf. "I think we're gonna have to wait."

I ran my hand through my hair, impatient to get moving, to do something. "Then I should go look for the campers. Who knows what happened to them?"

I had a theory, actually. If Wulf was here, then Walker couldn't be far behind. And if Walker was around... I blinked, rubbing my eyes with my fists in an attempt to banish that unwelcome thought.

Sam put her hand on my shoulder. "You're as exhausted as Wulf is. You didn't sleep at all last night, and you've fought two monsters. How are you gonna help anyone if you're too tired to fight... whatever's chasing them? Why don't you follow Wulf's lead? Take a nap, and then we can go look for the hole to the Ghost Zone and the rest of the campers when you're both well-rested."

I grunted in frustration, but she had a point. After about thirty-six hours without sleep, my eyes were bleary, and I was feeling a little shaky. And if it was Walker I'd have to fight instead of just some random monsters...

"Yeah, okay. Maybe you're right. But let's stick together. I don't want you disappearing on me, too. I'll lie down on one of the cots in here, and you can keep an eye on Wulf. Wake me up in a couple of hours, or if you hear anything. Even a twig branch breaking outside. Got it?"

"Wake you if I hear anything. Got it."

---

When I opened my eyes, the infirmary was dark, lit only by the pale glow of moonlight from the windows and a hole in the roof. Alarmed and disoriented, I sat straight up in my cot. "Sam!"

I heard a rustling sound from the next cot over, and Sam's groggy voice. "It's okay, I'm here."

I blinked, trying to see her in the dim light. "Were you asleep, too? I thought you were gonna wake me in two hours!"

"No way two hours was gonna be enough, for you or for Wulf. I figured I might as well get some rest, too, so we could go looking for the Ghost Zone and the campers in the morning."

"What time is it?"

"Hang on. There's a clock on the nurse's desk." There was more rustling as she got up from her cot and walked across the infirmary to a desk in the corner. "It's almost three A.M. The sun will be up in a couple of hours—"

"Three A.M.! Geez, Sam, you let me sleep almost all night! We need to get Wulf up—"

"No, Danny. He's really hurt. Let him sleep at least until sunrise. Then we'll have enough light to really search those woods. Besides, you and I could stand for some food. We haven't eaten since lunch."

"If you could call that eating." I cocked my head at her. "You didn't have to eat the rancid bologna they gave us, did you? Even Tucker was ready to swear off meat."

"No. I got wilted lettuce and unripened tomatoes on pasty white bread instead. How is it possible to ruin raw vegetables?" Even in the moonlight, I could see her shudder.

"I've seen you eat worse." I rubbed my eyes, wiping away the last of the sleep. Wulf was still snoring in the same corner, his paws twitching. Every so often he'd make a soft whimpering noise, like he was still in pain. Sighing, I gave in once again. "Okay. We'll let him sleep some more. But just until sunrise. We gotta close that hole to the Ghost Zone and find the rest of the campers."

"I know. I'm worried about them, too. Tucker..." She trailed off. "Let's go to the mess hall and see if we can find something edible."

"You and I have very different definitions of 'edible.'"

"Yeah, well, I kinda doubt we'll find anything that fits either of our definitions."

She was right again. The best we could do was a couple of hotdogs for me and some mealy, bruised apples and blackened bananas for her. Still, we were both starving, so it tasted better than it probably should have and, when we were finished, we did a quick clean up, then went outside to sit on the mess hall's rickety porch. The full moon lit up the sky, bathing the camp in its pale, blue glow. It made Sam's hair look blacker than usual, like rich silk that framed a luminous face. It was all I could do to keep from reaching over and touching her cheek or running my fingers through her hair.

Not now, Fenton. But I couldn't help but be aware of how alone we were. No Tucker, no buffer of any kind. Just me and Sam, and man, she looked amazing in the moonlight...

Then I saw the concern etched into her eyes, and it brought me to my senses, reminding me why we were alone, and that she needed reassurance more than... whatever else I'd been thinking. "Don't worry, Sam. We'll find everyone."

"I know. But Tucker, out there with a monster. Or worse—with a monster and Dash and Kwan!"

Or Walker. And if that bastard did have Tucker, or if he went after Sam...

No. No way I was letting him hurt them. "Come on. You know I'd never let anything happen to either of you. I couldn't imagine my life without you."

She blinked, and there it was again. A spark, crisscrossing the air between us, making my skin prickle in a way that was both thrilling and unbearable. Panicked at having skirted the edge of the Forbidden Topic, I started backpedaling, casting around for a way to make it seem like I hadn't meant to single her out as integral to my life in a way no one else was. I needed our buffer, our safety net...

"Or Tucker," I finished, feeling lame. I was about as convincing as one of Tucker's pick-up lines, and her cheeks turned a shade of pink so deep I could see it even in the dim light. But she was also smiling, like maybe she kind of liked that I'd singled her out. Like maybe she wanted me—

A rustle in the bushes across the yard broke the spell, and we both gasped as a black shadow darted from one tree to another. Break time was over. "Stay here," I told her, standing up. "Go wake up Wulf."

She stood up beside me. "Be careful. I couldn't imagine my life without you, either."

The spark was back, and she blushed again. "Or Tucker."

She wasn't any more convincing than I'd been, and I couldn't help but smile.

---

My worst fears about the fate of Tucker and the other campers were confirmed when Walker's Goons showed up—with Tucker's red beret. They knew we had Wulf, and wanted to trade. Furious, I flew back to the camp. Sam had started a campfire in the fire pit and was waiting there with Wulf. Landing beside them, I held out Tucker's hat. "Wulf, you need to remember where that portal is right now."

Grabbing the beret from my hand, he buried his nose in it and inhaled deeply, then thrust it at Sam while he took off on all fours, sniffing the ground like a bloodhound. Sam and I followed, but when we passed by the infirmary, she darted in that direction.

I frowned after her. "Sam, where are you—?"

"I just have to get something. It'll only take a second." She ducked inside, then returned a moment later carrying a large, red duffel bag.

"What is that?" I asked her as we jogged after Wulf.

"We can't just hand him over to Walker, Danny."

"Of course we're not—" I stopped short when it hit me. She hadn't even bothered to ask where I'd found Tucker's hat when I'd returned. She just knew it had come from Walker. I started jogging again to catch up to her. "You knew all along that Walker had them and not one of the monsters."

"I figured that was the most likely thing, although I was kinda hoping it wasn't him. He's a lot harder to fight than the monsters."

More lights went on in my head. "That's why you made me sleep."

She nodded. "Fighting Walker takes brains, not just muscles and ghost powers. You weren't gonna beat him if you were sleep-deprived."

"So what's in the bag?"

"Walker wants to trade Wulf for the campers, right?" She didn't wait for me to confirm what she already knew. "Obviously it's a trap for you as well. He wants you as much as he wants Wulf."

"Most likely, yeah."

"So, we bait and switch." She tugged on the bag's zipper, pulling it partway open and revealing something black and furry inside. "It's a bear costume. Scruffy, the Camp Mascot. Lancer was wearing it when Starr went missing, remember? Instead of handing Wulf over to Walker, you'll give him me. If I'm wearing the costume and stuffed into the bag, it'll look like Wulf is in there."

I blinked at her. "What? Are you crazy? He's already got Tucker. I'm not giving him you, too!"

"Well, you can't give him Wulf. He'll be expecting that, and you, too."

"I'll just give him the bag with the bear suit and let him think it's Wulf. I'm not giving him you!"

"But what good will that do? It'll keep Wulf safe, but he'll still have you!"

"Better than him having you!"

"Danny, think about it. If Tucker had your Thermos, then that means Walker has it now. He'll be prepared for Wulf, and for you, too. But he's not expecting a human. The Thermos won't work on me, which will catch him off guard. That should buy me just enough time to get him with your dad's Wrist Ray." She reached into the bag and pulled out the prototype weapon I'd "borrowed" from my dad's lab and smuggled to camp. "He won't know what hit him."

"No."

"Danny—"

"Sam. The guy is a lunatic. I am not handing you over to a lunatic."

"I can handle myself. I fight ghosts with you all the time."

"I know, but you said it yourself—Walker's not just some monster or run-of-the-mill ghost. He likes to play mind games. He knows what matters to me, and he'll use it against me. It's bad enough he has Tucker, but if he got you, too..."

She pressed her lips together a moment before speaking. "How do think I feel about you going off to face him without any backup?" When I couldn't bring myself to answer, she tried again. "You have a better idea, then?"

I didn't have an answer for that, either.

---

It was a little after sunrise when another monster attacked. I dropped the duffel bag, which I was taking a turn carrying, and put myself in front of Sam and Wulf, but before I could even shoot a ball of ectoplasm at the giant, blue tiger-thing that jumped out at us, Wulf was at its throat. He made short work of the creature, hurling it by the tail into a grove of trees in the distance. I blinked, amazed at his quick recovery, which Sam attributed to the berries she'd smeared on his paws.

Half an hour later, we arrived at a clearing surrounded by a ridge of low, rocky cliffs. A crystal waterfall emptied into a clear, blue stream, and Wulf was already lapping at it. I knelt down and refilled my water bottle, amazed by how clean the water was. "Wow, this is pretty cool."

"Nature is full of nice surprises."

"So I've heard."

I liked seeing Sam in her element. It was a reminder that she was no damsel in distress in need of protecting. Maybe I needed to rethink my stance on her plan. It's not like during the hike here I'd thought of anything better and, as much as the thought of Walker getting a hold of her made my blood turn cold, she was pretty kick-ass with the ecto-weapons.

Wulf suddenly straightened and sniffed the air. Pointing at the waterfall, he said something in Esperanto that I couldn't quite make out, but guessed was something along the lines of Follow me. Then, he bounded off into the stream and straight through the waterfall.

Sam and I followed. Behind the falls was a cave. It should have been dark at the far end, away from the opening through the water, but instead, there was a green glow. We'd found the portal Wulf had clawed open between the Ghost Zone and our world. "Another amazing wonder of nature," I deadpanned, then turned to Wulf and Sam. "Okay. Are we ready to break into prison?"

Wulf growled as he sharpened his claws on the wall of the cave, and Sam arched her eyebrow at him. "I'd say that's a 'yes.'"

"Hold on, buddy. You can't just rush in there." I slung the duffel bag down off my shoulder and held it out in front of me. "We have a plan."

Sam blinked. "We do?" Then, seeing my small nod of concession, she smiled. "We do."

---

Sam's plan worked perfectly. As she'd predicted, Walker had my Thermos, and he'd sucked me into it after only a few exchanges of banter. The next thing I knew, Sam was releasing me in a completely different part of Walker's jail, and he and his Goons were shooting at us. Sam was having a little too much fun with the Wrist Ray, and I had to yank her back behind a wall for cover. As soon as we gave them the slip, I showed her what I'd found when I'd first arrived, when she was still in the duffel bag—Tucker and the rest of the campers, floating in some kind of suspended animation glop that looked suspiciously like the oatmeal-gruel the camp fed us for breakfast.

"How do we free them?" she asked.

"The question is, when do you join them?" It was Walker, and before we could even react, four of his Goons grabbed us.

Unable to free myself, I tried bargaining with him. "Listen, Walker. You've got me. Let Sam go."

He glared down at me. "Let someone go? That would be against the rules." Holding up something silver in his hand, he stepped closer. That's when I recognized what he was holding. It was the collar Wulf had been wearing when we'd first met him. The one Walker had used to deliver electrical shocks to him to keep him in line. "This collar always worked on Wulf, but since he's not here, I'll just have to put it on someone else."

"You can't scare me, Walker," I told him with all the bravado I could muster, although I was not crazy about the thought of him snapping that thing around my neck.

I was even less crazy about his actual plans for the torture device. "I'll make a note of that, Ghost Boy, but you're not the one who's gonna wear this."

And then, he stepped over to Sam.

She gasped, shrinking back away from him against the Goons who were holding her. Fear gripped me, and I struggled as hard as I could to free myself from my own captors. "NO!"

It was no good. They had me tight, and so did the ones holding Sam. Walker was advancing, laughing as he reached for her...

A low growl cut through the air, and a mass of black fur and claws flew at Walker, knocking him to the ground.

"Wulf!" Sam and I cried out in twin voices of relief. I was so gonna buy that mangy ghost the biggest box of dog biscuits the world had ever seen when this was over.

Sam's captors released her to take aim at Wulf, but Walker warned them off, afraid they'd hit him instead. He blasted Wulf off of him with his own pink ghost ray, sending him flying into a wall, but Sam already had her Wrist Ray out and was shooting at the guards. She knocked them into Walker, sending all three of them rolling out of the room.

Meanwhile, the guards holding me were distracted enough that I was able to transform to human. In the Ghost Zone, we're the ones who are out of phase with everything else and can go intangible, allowing me to back right through the wall behind us and get away from them. While they were trying to figure out where I went, I stuck my hands back through the wall and knocked their heads together, then came back through the wall again.

"Nice job!" I told Sam and Wulf as I returned to ghost form.

Sam held out her arm with the weapon strapped to it. "I'm loving this Wrist Ray. It's the perfect accessory... of pain!"

I would have loved to have taken a moment to appreciate how hot she was when she was kicking ghost butt, but Walker returned with eight more Goons, and we were back to brawling. We did pretty well, considering we were outnumbered three-to-one, but Walker managed to grab me until Sam shot the hat clean off his head and sent him running. I chased after him while Sam and Wulf saw after the campers.

Unfortunately, Walker found Sam and Wulf before I found him. But just barely. I was able to get a shot off, catching him in the back before he could hurt either of them.

Turning, he glowered at me. "Firing from behind! How very cowardly!"

I was in no mood to hear it from that slime bag after everything he'd done. "You'd know all about that! Torturing Wulf, almost torturing Sam..."

He attacked me with a roar, slamming me back against a wall, but I went human again and hurled myself right through him to get to where Sam and Wulf were. Then, I turned back into ghost form and used my ice powers to freeze him solid, just like I'd done with the monster that had attacked Sam in the woods. After that, it was just a matter of getting the campers and flying them, suspended animation chamber and all, back out of the Ghost Zone and through the portal Wulf had clawed into the cave in the woods.

Once we were all back safely in the Human World, I used the Thermos on reverse polarity to seal up the portal, then set Wulf free. He bound away, but only after he'd slurped me with his ginormous tongue. "Amiko!" Friend.

Then, Sam and I were alone again. Well, alone with a plexiglass chamber full of campers in suspended animation, anyway. She turned to me with a searching look. "You okay?"

She's the one who almost got fitted with an electro-shock collar and she was asking me? "Yeah. Come on, let's get everyone back to camp."

She got a glint in her eye, and another spark lit the air between us. "We don't have to wake them all up right away, do we?"

Another night at camp alone with Sam? Yeah, I could live with that.

---

We did wake up our buffer, however. I have to admit, I was kinda tempted not to, but Tucker was my best friend, too, and it didn't seem right to leave him with the others. Not that it was right, technically speaking, to leave any of them overnight again, but the allure of having the camp all to ourselves, with no Dash and Kwan, no Paulina and Starr, no Lancer and Tetslaff, was too good to pass up.

It was dark by the time he was fully awake. While Sam started another campfire in the fire pit, Tucker and I raided the mess hall again. With his almost supernatural ability to root out food, especially meat and junk food, we fared a lot better than Sam and I had the night before. Not only did we find decent hotdogs and marshmallows for roasting, but he also discovered a popcorn machine buried way in the back of the pantry, and some actual soda. The choices for Sam were a little slimmer, but I did manage to dig up a big bag of trail mix and dried fruit that didn't seem to have any animal products in it, and she seemed happy with anything that wasn't wilted or moldy.

The hotdogs and trail mix were gone when Sam and I finished filling Tucker in on everything that had happened since Walker's Goons had dragged him and the rest of Lancer's group out of the canoes on the lake. We all agreed we'd wake everyone else in the morning and let them think it had all been a dream. While I shook the ashes of an overcooked marshmallow off my stick, Tucker set up his portable DVD player and speakers with Bloodbath 3: The Final Spill. "Okay, we're ready." Clicking play, he grabbed a cup of popcorn in one hand and a soda in the other. "It's showtime!"

Sam groaned. "No, no, no. That's not what we're watching." Settling back against one of the logs that bordered the fire pit, she leaned back and looked up at the night sky.

Tucker and I shrugged. Sam may have been outvoted, but we knew we'd never hear the end of it if we didn't at least try to camp out her way. Tucker turned off the DVD player, and the two of us settled in on either side of Sam.

"Now it's showtime," she said.

I had to admit, the view was amazing. I was an avid stargazer, but the lights of Amity Park made it hard to see much in the city. Out here in the wilderness, I could see whole constellations I'd never seen outside of photographs. A shooting star even streaked across the sky, completing the picture, and I sucked in a breath. "Wow."

"I know."

I turned to her, wanting to watch her as she soaked in the nature she so loved, but she wasn't looking at the sky, either. When our eyes met, another spark sizzled between us. The good kind this time. The kind that made every nerve ending in my body come alive. The kind that made me want to forget how scared I was of my feelings and her feelings and just reach over and pull her into a long, slow—

A loud snore behind Sam startled us both. Tucker, already bored after only fifteen seconds without a tech fix, was asleep, his mouth hanging open and drool dripping out of the corner. Sam and I laughed at the sight, until a wolf—an actual wolf, I think, not our ghost friend—howled in the distance.

"We have our own soundtrack," I said, settling back against the log once more.

"It's perfect."

Perfect.

Or it would have been, had she been sitting just a little closer. I stretched, putting my arm across the back of the log—lame move, I know, but I couldn't stop myself. She was just out of reach, however, and my fingertips barely brushed her shoulder.

Still, the stars were brilliant, and soon we were lost in them. One of the things Sam and I had always shared, even before the ghost hunting stuff, was a love of astronomy. She liked the mythology attached to the various constellations, while I would imagine the worlds that revolved around the distant suns and what it would be like to explore them. Out in the woods, away from the city lights, it was easier to pick out the familiar patterns than it was back at home. There was Cassiopeia and Cepheus. Draco the Dragon. Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, which contained the Little and Big Dippers and, of course, the North Star at the tip of the Little Dipper's handle. Though she'd heard it all before, I explained to Sam how sailors and explorers used the position of the North Star to determine both the direction they were headed and their latitude. She, in turn, recounted the myths behind the stars. Cassiopeia, the queen who boasted of her beauty, and Cepheus, her king. Draco, who may have been killed by Cadmus, or possibly was the dragon that guarded the golden apples Hercules was supposed to steal. The tragic tale of Callisto, who bore a child to Zeus and was turned into the Big Bear, or Ursa Major, by a jealous Hera, while her son became the Little Bear, Ursa Minor.

I'm not sure how long we were talking, but it must have been a while, because the fire had burned down to embers. I hadn't even noticed until Sam pointed it out. "We should probably throw another log on." She made no move to do so, though she was hugging herself.

"Are you cold?"

"A little. Aren't you?"

I shook my head. "I don't really get cold anymore. Not since Frostbite showed me how to control my ice powers."

Her eyebrows went up. "Really? That's handy. I suppose the rest of us mere mortals should've brought out some sleeping bags."

"Here." Without thinking, I moved closer and drew her toward me, wrapping my arms around her and rubbing my hands along her bare arms to warm them. "Better?"

She tensed, her breath catching, and it was only then that I was really aware of the fact that I was holding her in my arms. For a terrifying moment, I thought she was going to jerk away from me, but she only looked up and nodded. "I... I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold." Her voice was halting and a little high. If I hadn't known her sense of humor so well, I would have missed the fact that she was being ironic.

And speaking of ironic, I don't think it was possible to feel less cold than I did right at that moment. But it wasn't like I could tell her that. Instead, I said, "Half human," my own attempt at dry wit falling even flatter than hers.

"Right." She turned toward the dying fire, then, after a moment, relaxed a little and leaned back against my shoulder.

Now I was the one who wasn't relaxed. Every nerve ending was aware of her. The weight of her against my chest. The prickle of goose bumps along her arms that didn't seem to be going away even though her skin felt warmer under my fingertips. The smell of wood smoke in her hair. A tidal wave of everything I'd been feeling—struggling against feeling—for her surged up inside me, crashing against the walls and barriers I'd built against them, until I could no longer contain them.

"Sam—"

I could tell the gravity in my tone startled her. She turned to look at me, her eyes wide and almost black in the moonlight.

And I froze. Tidal wave and all, just frozen, like Walker after I'd zapped him with my ice powers. I couldn't speak, couldn't move, could barely think. All I could see was the image of Sam slipping away from me if I told her how I felt about her. Maybe not now. Maybe a part of her was even hoping to hear what part of me wanted so much to say. But eventually, she'd be gone. I'd screw up, or we'd burn out because we'd gotten too close too soon, or something, and I'd lose her. I'd lose this, whatever this was, and this was better than nothing.

Hell, it was better than anything I'd ever felt.

It was untenable, I knew, this place between just friends and something more. It was like... well, like camping out. No matter how wonderful a place it was, it could only be a temporary stopping point. Eventually, we'd have to find a permanent home. Whether that home would be on the just friends side of the divide, or the something more side remained to be seen. But not now. Not when the wrong word could push us where I didn't want to go, away from this temporary but really, really nice place where I could hold her in my arms and talk about the stars and not think about whether she wanted to eventually move on to the same place I did.

But she was still waiting for me to say something. I let out a breath, reaching for words that wouldn't freeze in my mouth. "Are you... are you comfortable?"

She took a long time answering and, for a moment, I thought she was going to call my bluff. But then, she smiled again and, slipping her arms around me, she closed her eyes and rested her head against my shoulder. "Yeah. I am."

I closed my eyes as well and gripped her a little more tightly. We couldn't stay here. I knew that. But for now, this was where I wanted to be, camping out here, with her.

Chapter 30: Camping Out: Sam

Camping Out
Sam

I was so looking forward to summer camp. Eight weeks—eight weeks!—of being out in the woods, away from the smog and congestion and the concrete jungle. Eight weeks—that's fifty-six days, thirteen-hundred forty-four hours, eighty thousand six-hundred forty minutes, four million eight hundred thirty-eight thousand four hundred seconds (yes, I did the math)—of living every day, every hour, every minute far, far away from my parents.

Eight weeks of living every day, every hour, every minute with Danny.

Actually, I couldn't figure out if that one was a good thing or a bad thing.

Ever since the whole Nocturn dreaming-about-each-other incident, things had been... different between me and Danny. Not awkward or painful, like I'd feared. We'd reached a sort of unspoken accord that the dreams and what they might mean was a Forbidden Topic, and that was working well enough. But I could feel it under the surface, and I could tell that he could, too.

I have to admit that, in some ways, it was kinda nice. There was almost an electricity between us, like the air around us was constantly charged, and sometimes the charge became a spark.

And that's what scared me. More and more, this strange new dynamic between Danny and me made it harder to tell myself we were only friends, that we would only ever be friends, and nothing more. It made it harder not to hope.

I didn't want to hope. Hope would only lead to heartache and disappointment. Hope only gave me more to lose.

At least we had Tucker. He was a nice buffer, like a human Berlin Wall that kept us from crossing borders that shouldn't be crossed. That made it easier to keep everything like it had always been—the three of us, best friends, doing everything together, from rocking out to Dumpty Humpty, to rock-'em-sock-'em action in the Ghost Zone. With Tucker, maybe eight weeks of summer camp wouldn't be so different. I mean, it's not like we didn't spend pretty much every waking minute together at home anyway. Besides, it was my big chance to get those two away from their video screens and out in the wilderness to really see what the natural world had to offer. Yeah. Camp was gonna be awesome.

Or so I thought, all the way up until we arrived at Camp Skull and Crossbones and found out who our camp counselors would be.

Lancer and Tetslaff. The Lancer and Tetslaff. As in, our vice principal and P.E. teacher.

As if that weren't bad enough, Dash and Paulina started in with the urban legends about monsters in the woods and the lake, which would have been beyond lame had one of the campers not gone missing. And that was all just on the first day. We still had fifty-five to go.

Camp can still be fun... camp can still be fun...

At least monster hunting got me out of hanging in the cabin with Paulina and Starr. Yeah, so it got a little dicey when Tucker and I ended up hanging from a tree branch over a cliff after this Creature from the Black Lagoon thing went after us, but it was still better than the alternative. But Danny wasn't crazy about involving us after that, so he sent us back to camp after getting Frog Face into a Thermos and me and Tuck back on solid ground. He, meanwhile, would keep hunting for Lester, the missing camper.

We didn't see him again until morning. Danny, I mean. Lester was still missing, and the only sign of him Danny had found was his camera. To make matters worse, we hadn't even gotten a chance to eat any of the gray mash that the camp was trying to pass off as breakfast before Dash ran into the mess hall screaming that the monster had gotten Kwan. Danny tried to convince him that was impossible—he'd captured the monster the night before, after all—and suggested that maybe Kwan just wandered off to use the bathroom. When Dash started jabbering about Kwan's "amazing bladder," that pretty much killed any shred of appetite that the gunk they were serving hadn't already decimated, and I headed outside for some air.

As I walked across the camp, trying to think of how we could salvage what was quickly shaping up to be a really long eight weeks, I heard arguing behind one of the cabins. Hoping it was Kwan or Lester and that maybe someone was just pulling a practical joke on us all, I crept up onto the cabin porch and ducked my head around the corner. There I saw, not Kwan or Lester, but Lancer and Tetslaff.

And Lancer was wearing... was that a bear costume?

"I did not spend a year at the gym getting a sculpted summer physique so I could hide it in a bear suit!" he was complaining to Tetslaff, the costume head slung under his arm.

There were so many things wrong with that sentence, I didn't even know where to begin. Putting aside the fact that I'd need brain bleach to get rid of the mental image of Lancer's "sculpted summer physique," why on Earth would he be wearing a bear costume? Were he and Tetslaff pulling some kind of prank? Were they the ones responsible for Lester and Kwan disappearing?

Tetslaff looked supremely annoyed with him. "That's the Scruffy the Camp Mascot costume. You'll wear it to keep the kids happy and take their minds off the disappearances." She grabbed him by the costume's neck and jerked him toward her. "I'll handle the tough stuff... like killing the monster in the woods."

A bear costume to keep us "happy?" What did she think we were, kindergarteners? At least they weren't up to something more nefarious, although the thought of Tetslaff wrestling with a creepy ghost monster like the one Danny caught last night was going to require even more brain bleach.

Lancer, looking like he'd suddenly decided he was getting the better part of the deal, put the bear head on and shouted "Hello, Campers!" in a clown-like voice as he headed off toward the mess hall.

Before he got far, however, a shrill scream sounded behind me, and Paulina ran out of the woods. "The monster got Starr!"

While she was explaining how she'd found Starr's suntan lotion next to a giant claw footprint, the rest of the campers rushed out of the mess hall to see what the commotion was. Tetslaff then drew a line down the middle of the campers, with me on one side and Danny and Tucker on the other. She took my side of the line on what she called a "hike," but I knew was actually a search-and-rescue. Lancer, meanwhile, stayed back at camp with Danny and Tucker's group to do "nice, normal camp stuff."

Considering their idea of "nice, normal camp stuff" included entertainment by an out-of-shape teacher in a bear costume, I was thinking maybe a hike with Tetslaff, even without Danny and Tucker, wouldn't be so bad.

I changed my mind after a few hours of Tetslaff's "demonstrations" on how to "defend ourselves" from "wild animals." Like squirrels. Lunch didn't improve my mood any. While I didn't have to eat the putrid-smelling bologna sandwiches the rest of the campers were trying not to vomit over, my soggy tomato-and-lettuce on white bread wasn't much better.

After lunch, I was hanging back from the group while Tetslaff "disabled" another squirrel, when I was startled by a rustling in the bushes behind me. Hoping it wasn't another frog creature, I grabbed the biggest stick I could find.

It wasn't big enough.

The thing in the bushes was huge. Towering over me by a good ten feet, it was purple and hairy and had horns on its head that reminded me a little of Danny's Yeti friend, Frostbite. It leaned over and roared in my face, then grabbed the stick from my hand before I could even swing it. I thought I was dead, but before it could attack me, it got blown backwards by a blast of green.

Danny's ghost ray.

They grappled for a while, and I told him to stop playing and use the Thermos but, apparently, he'd left it with Tucker. He froze the monster with his ice powers instead. It wasn't a permanent solution, but at least it would keep while we went looking for Tetslaff to warn her.

We never found her. She and the rest of our group had completely disappeared.

After searching the woods for hours without finding a trace of them, we gave up and headed back to camp around dinnertime, hoping they'd returned and we'd just missed them. But the camp was empty. Not only was Tetslaff's group not there, neither was Lancer's. Including Tucker. All we found at the lake where Danny had last seen him was a bunch of empty canoes and his broken handheld video game unit.

No campers. No Tucker. No Thermos.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, yet another monster showed up. Danny flew at it, but before he even reached it, he stopped dead in mid-air and crashed to the ground at its feet. "Wulf!"

I almost melted in relief. What we'd thought was a monster was actually an old friend, the Esperanto-speaking ghost wolf that was once again on the lam from Walker, the Ghost Zone's self-proclaimed jail warden. My relief was short-lived, however, when I got a good look at him. He was a mess, his claws broken and fur matted with ectoplasm, which was the ghost equivalent of blood. He obviously had used his special ability, tearing a hole between the Ghost Zone and our world, to escape Walker, and had injured himself in the process.

We brought him back to camp and took him to the Infirmary, where I mixed some berries together into a healing salve and spread it on Wulf's paws. As we talked about Wulf's escape from Walker, it occurred to me that the hole he'd ripped between dimensions must have been how all the ghost monsters were entering our world. Danny wanted Wulf to take him right away to close up the opening, but the poor thing was so exhausted, he just jumped off the examination table, curled up in a ball next to the door, and fell asleep.

That answered that. "I think we're gonna have to wait."

Danny ran a hand through his hair, impatient. "Then I should go look for the campers. Who knows what happened to them?"

I had a pretty good idea what happened to them, actually. If Wulf was here, then Walker couldn't be far behind. And if Walker was around...

But Danny looked even more worn out than Wulf. There was no way he was in any shape to fight Walker. I put my hand on his shoulder. "You're as exhausted as Wulf is. You didn't sleep at all last night, and you've fought two monsters. How are you gonna help anyone if you're too tired to fight..." I hesitated a moment. If I said I thought Walker might have them, that would only make Danny more anxious to go after them right away. "...whatever's chasing them?" I finished instead. "Why don't you follow Wulf's lead? Take a nap, and then we can go look for the hole to the Ghost Zone and the rest of the campers when you're both well-rested."

He grunted, clearly not happy, but it didn't take him long to figure out just how tired he was. "Yeah, okay. Maybe you're right. But let's stick together. I don't want you disappearing on me, too. I'll lie down on one of the cots in here, and you can keep an eye on Wulf. Wake me up in a couple of hours, or if you hear anything. Even a twig branch breaking outside. Got it?"

"Wake you if I hear anything. Got it," I told him, being very careful to not mention the part about waking him in a couple of hours, since I had no intention of doing so. He and Wulf needed a full night's sleep, and we needed a plan before we went after Walker.

Danny was too tired to notice the omission. Crawling into one of the cots, he was asleep within a few minutes.

While he and Wulf slept, I sat with my feet propped up on the nurse's desk, chewing on a pen and thinking. If Walker did have all the campers, what did he want with them?

That was easy. Leverage. He'd probably want to trade them for Wulf. Not only that, he'd want Danny as well, so whatever deal he cooked up would no doubt be a trap. And if he had Tucker, it was a good bet that he had the missing Fenton Thermos as well, which he could use to spring just such a trap.

Knowing that put us at an advantage, but how to use it? We couldn't leave the campers with Walker, but we couldn't turn Wulf over to him, either. Not after the way he'd tortured the poor creature in the past with that electric shock collar of his. And I sure as hell wasn't gonna let Danny just walk into a trap without backup. But I was the only backup he had, and a single human wasn't going improve the odds much, not even with that cool new Wrist Ray Danny had "borrowed" from his dad's lab before we'd left for camp.

Although... a human couldn't be sucked up in the Fenton Thermos. If Walker didn't see me coming, maybe the surprise would be enough to even the odds. But how could I sneak in without him seeing me? He'd certainly be watching Danny as he approached whatever rendezvous he set up. We'd have to pull some sort of Trojan Horse on him, but what did we have that Danny could bring with him that would hide a hundred-and-change-pound human girl?

Hide...

Lancer's voice sounded in my head. I did not spend a year at the gym getting a sculpted summer physique so I could hide it in a bear suit...

I smiled as a plan began to form in my mind.

---

"Sam!"

I opened my eyes at the sound of my name. At first, I was a little disoriented, not sure where I was. It was dark, except for moonlight streaming in through a windows and... was that a hole in the ceiling? Then I remembered—camp. I was in the infirmary. After I'd gotten together what I needed for my plan to go after Walker, I'd decided to get some sleep myself on the cot next to Danny's. And now he was awake, and probably wondering where I was and why I hadn't woken him after two hours, like he'd asked.

Rolling over, I cleared the sleep out of my throat. "It's okay, I'm here."

"Were you asleep, too? I thought you were gonna wake me in two hours!"

"No way two hours was gonna be enough, for you or for Wulf. I figured I might as well get some rest, too, so we could go looking for the Ghost Zone and the campers in the morning."

"What time is it?"

Good question. "Hang on. There's a clock on the nurse's desk." I got up from my cot and walked over to the desk and looked at the little digital clock. "It's almost three A.M. The sun will be up in a couple of hours—"

"Three A.M.! Geez, Sam, you let me sleep almost all night! We need to get Wulf up—"

"No, Danny. He's really hurt. Let him sleep at least until sunrise. Then we'll have enough light to really search those woods. Besides, you and I could stand for some food. We haven't eaten since lunch."

"If you could call that eating. You didn't have to eat the rancid bologna they gave us, did you? Even Tucker was ready to swear off meat."

I shuddered at the thought. "No. I got wilted lettuce and unripened tomatoes on pasty white bread instead. How is it possible to ruin raw vegetables?"

"I've seen you eat worse." My eyes having adjusted to the dim light now, I could see him rub his own eyes, then look over to the corner by the door, where Wulf was sleeping. "Okay," he relented at last. "We'll let him sleep some more. But just until sunrise. We gotta close that hole to the Ghost Zone and find the rest of the campers."

"I know. I'm worried about them, too. Tucker..." I stopped, trying not to think of where Tucker might be... and who might have him. "Let's go to the mess hall and see if we can find something edible."

"You and I have very different definitions of 'edible.'"

"Yeah, well, I kinda doubt we'll find anything that fits either of our definitions."

Never have I been so sorry to be right. We found some frozen hotdogs that Danny boiled on the stove for himself, while I ate some nearly rotten apples and bananas. Still, it was food, and we hadn't eaten in fifteen hours, so it wasn't too bad. When we finished cleaning up after our so-called meal, we went outside and sat down on the porch.

Despite the dilapidated camp and awful circumstances, it was actually a beautiful night. The moon was full, and it illuminated the campground in its pale, blue light. Sitting next to Danny, shoulder to shoulder in the moonlight, I was suddenly very aware of how alone we were, without even Tucker with us to act as our usual buffer. It was all I could do to keep from reaching over and touching his hand, lacing my fingers through his...

Not now, Manson. There's a reason we're here alone, and it isn't a romantic one. Walker probably has all our classmates, our teachers, our best friend...

Danny must have sensed my concern as my thoughts turned to our missing friend. "Don't worry, Sam. We'll find everyone."

"I know. But Tucker, out there with a monster. Or worse—with a monster and Dash and Kwan!" Or Walker...

Danny looked resolute. "Come on. You know I'd never let anything happen to either of you. I couldn't imagine my life without you."

I couldn't imagine my life without you...

Something about the way he said that sparked the air between us, and I stopped breathing. He didn't mean that the way it sounded, like something specific about me. It's just a friendship thing, that's all. Just a friendship thing.

Wasn't it?

He seemed to realize he'd just skirted the edge of the Forbidden Topic, because he added, "Or Tucker." But it was so obviously an afterthought, I couldn't help but smile. My God, maybe he did mean it the way it sounded...

A rustle in the bushes across the yard broke the spell, and we both gasped as a black shadow darted from one tree to another. "Stay here," Danny directed me as he stood up. "Go wake up Wulf."

She stood up, too. "Be careful. I couldn't imagine my life without you, either."

The spark was back, and I could feel my cheeks redden. Now who's skirting the edge of the Forbidden Topic? "Or Tucker," I finished.

And now he was smiling.

---

My worst fears about the fate of Tucker and the other campers were confirmed when Danny returned. He landed by the campfire I'd built while Wulf and I were waiting for him, and held something out toward us. "Wulf, you need to remember where that portal is right now."

I gasped when I saw what it was in the firelight. Tucker's red beret.

Wulf grabbed the hat away from Danny and buried his nose in, inhaling deeply. Then, he shoved it into my hands and took off on all fours, sniffing the ground like a bloodhound. Danny and I followed but, as we passed by the infirmary, I remembered my plan and took a detour.

Danny called after me, confused. "Sam, where are you—?"

"I just have to get something. It'll only take a second." I darted inside and grabbed a huge, red duffel bag I'd stashed by the door earlier.

"What is that?" Danny asked as we took off after Wulf once more.

"We can't just hand him over to Walker, Danny."

"Of course we're not—" He stopped short, then caught up with me again a moment later. "You knew all along that Walker had them and not one of the monsters."

"I figured that was the most likely thing, although I was kinda hoping it wasn't him. He's a lot harder to fight than the monsters."

"That's why you made me sleep."

I nodded. "Fighting Walker takes brains, not just muscles and ghost powers. You weren't gonna beat him if you were sleep-deprived."

"So what's in the bag?"

"Walker wants to trade Wulf for the campers, right? Obviously it's a trap for you as well. He wants you as much as he wants Wulf."

"Most likely, yeah."

"So, we bait and switch." I pulled the zipper, opening the bag just enough to show him what was inside. "It's a bear costume. Scruffy, the Camp Mascot. Lancer was wearing it when Starr went missing, remember? Instead of handing Wulf over to Walker, you'll give him me. If I'm wearing the costume and stuffed into the bag, it'll look like Wulf is in there."

I could tell right away he hated the idea. "What? Are you crazy? He's already got Tucker. I'm not giving him you, too!"

"Well, you can't give him Wulf. He'll be expecting that, and you, too."

"I'll just give him the bag with the bear suit and let him think it's Wulf. I'm not giving him you!"

"But what good will that do? It'll keep Wulf safe, but he'll still have you!"

"Better than him having you!"

"Danny, think about it. If Tucker had your Thermos, then that means Walker has it now. He'll be prepared for Wulf, and for you, too. But he's not expecting a human. The Thermos won't work on me, which will catch him off guard. That should buy me just enough time to get him with your dad's Wrist Ray." I pulled the weapons I'd stashed with the suit out of the bag and showed them to him. "He won't know what hit him."

"No."

"Danny—"

"Sam. The guy is a lunatic. I am not handing you over to a lunatic."

"I can handle myself. I fight ghosts with you all the time."

"I know, but you said it yourself—Walker's not just some monster or run-of-the-mill ghost. He likes to play mind games. He knows what matters to me, and he'll use it against me. It's bad enough he has Tucker, but if he got you, too..."

The Forbidden Topic again. Only, I didn't have the luxury of beating around any bushes right now. Not with everything that was at stake. "How do think I feel about you going off to face him without any backup?" He didn't answer, so I added, "You have a better idea, then?"

Apparently not, because he just kept walking.

---

We were still walking when the sun came up over the horizon and shone through the trees, casting long shadows. Not long afterwards, another monster attacked. This time, it was some sort of blue, tiger-like creature. Danny, who had been taking a turn carrying the duffel bag despite the fact that he still was stubbornly refusing to go along with my plan, dropped it and formed a glowing, green ball of ectoplasm in his hands, but before he could even throw it at the ghost monster, Wulf was attacking it. Before we even knew what had happened, Wulf had hurled it by the tail into the woods far away from us.

Danny marveled at Wulf. "Boy! He sure recovered quickly."

I smiled, pleased that my salve had worked so well. "I'm telling you, it was the berries."

It was about another half an hour before we reached a clearing surrounded by a ridge of rocky, gray cliffs. A waterfall poured down the side of the rocks into a stream of water so clear it was like looking at liquid glass. Wulf went straight for the water, lapping it up with his tongue, while Danny and I knelt down beside him to refill our water bottles. Danny looked around, impressed. "Wow, this is pretty cool."

"Nature is full of nice surprises."

"So I've heard."

It might have turned into another one of Those Moments, had Wulf not said something in Esperanto, calling our attention to him. He was pointing at the waterfall. Without further warning, he jumped into the stream and straight through the cascading water.

Danny and I followed. Behind the waterfall was a cave. Inside, we were met with an eerie, green glow—the portal Wulf had clawed open to escape Walker and the Ghost Zone.

"Another amazing wonder of nature." Danny turned to me and Wulf. "Okay. Are we ready to break into prison?"

Wulf was using the cave wall to sharpen his claws. I gave Danny a wry grin. "I'd say that's a 'yes.'"

"Hold on, buddy. You can't just rush in there." Danny held the duffel bag out in front of him. "We have a plan."

I blinked, confused. "We do?"

He gave me a small nod, and I finally understood. He'd just conceded our battle of wills. We were going with my plan.

Smiling, I agreed with him. "We do."

---

The bear suit was too big, both for me and for the duffel with me in it, so we settled for me wearing just the bottom. I managed to fold myself into the bag in such a way that the costume was poking through the half-opened zipper, and then Danny stuffed the bear's head in on top of me to make sure I was completely covered.

From that point, it was hard to tell what was going on, but it was a damned good thing I wasn't claustrophobic, because it seemed to take forever to get to where we were going, and being stuffed into that bag while wearing fake bear fur... so not fun. Danny kept giving me progress reports as we went, letting me know when we arrived at Walker's jail and that there were no guards, meaning Walker was waiting for us. Once inside, he dropped me with a painful thud on the floor, uttering an apology to "Wulf," then said something else I couldn't make out through the costume and bag.

There was no mistaking Walker's arrival, however. I could feel Danny pick up the bag again as he and Walker traded a few barbs, then he tossed me over to land with another slightly less painful thud at what I assumed was Walker's feet, since his voice got louder and more distinct.

"The important thing is, this game of cat and mouse is now over. And in case you had any doubts, you're the mouse!"

There was a whine that sounded like one of Danny's dad's ecto-weapons—the Thermos, I was guessing. Danny yelped, and was silenced.

I tensed, waiting for my opportunity.

Above me, Walker sounded smug. "Now I have the campers, the Ghost Boy, and Wulf. That Phantom punk should've known better than to engage in a game of wits with me. And now, Wulf..."

I could feel his hands on the bag above me, and that's when I leapt out. "Aha!"

He was so surprised, it gave me enough time to jump back away from him and the bag to put a little distance between us. Before he even realized what had happened, I'd taken aim with the Fenton Wrist Ray attached to my right arm and nailed him and all four of his Goons. No longer needing the costume, I stepped out of it and kicked it away from me. "It's hard to engage in a game of wits when your opponent is missing a few pieces!"

I saw the Thermos, then, on the floor in the corner, and made a dash for it. Just as I scooped it up, Walker got me with a burst of pink ectoplasm. It hit me hard, knocking me toward the wall. I braced for impact... but it came later than I expected, and from the floor instead of the wall. Opening my eyes, I was surprised to find myself in a different room altogether. It took a second before it clicked into place. "Oh, right! Humans pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone! Cool!"

I grabbed the Thermos again and ran through another wall to put more distance between myself and Walker. When I found myself in another empty room, I uncapped the Thermos and thumbed the release, letting Danny out.

"Nice save!"

I didn't have time to answer, because Walker was there with two of his Goons, shooting at us again. We ducked behind a wall, then I bagged a few more of them before Danny grabbed me by the waist and dragged me away, and we gave them the slip once more.

"Look," he said when he'd put me down. He put his hands against one of the walls and used his powers to turn it invisible. Through the now transparent wall, I could see a tank full of something that looked an awfully lot like the oatmeal they'd tried to feed us for breakfast. Floating inside it were all the missing campers, including Tucker. Danny explained that it was some kind of suspended animation and that they were okay.

"How do we free them?" I asked.

"The question is, when do you join them?" Walker was back, and before we knew it, four of his Goons had grabbed us.

When Danny couldn't get himself free, he started bargaining for my release. "Listen, Walker. You've got me. Let Sam go."

Walker leered at him. "Let someone go? That would be against the rules." He moved closer to us, holding up something silver in his hand. "This collar always worked on Wulf, but since he's not here, I'll just have to put it on someone else."

"You can't scare me, Walker," Danny shot back.

Walker flashed him a malicious grin. "I'll make a note of that, Ghost Boy, but you're not the one who's gonna wear this." And he stepped over to me.

I gasped, having remembered what that thing had done to Wulf when he'd been wearing it. And if it could hurt a humongous ghost wolf, what would it do to a human an eighth of his size? I struggled against my captors, but I couldn't shake them.

"NO!" Danny sounded even more panicked then I felt, as Walker laughed and kept coming toward me...

And then there was a deep growl, and Walker was knocked to the ground by a huge ball of fur and claws.

"Wulf!" Danny and I cried out together. And then I was free, as the Goons holding me let go to take aim at Wulf. Walker barked at them not to shoot, lest they hit him instead. He got Wulf with his own ectoplasm ray, which blasted him back against a wall. Before Walker could get to his feet, however, I was ready with the Wrist Ray. I got both of the guards that had been holding me and knocked them into Walker, bowling them all over and out of the room.

Danny, meanwhile, was able to free himself while his captors were distracted. He reverted to human, backed through the wall behind him, with only his hands reappearing long enough to grab the two guards' heads and knock them together. When they collapsed in a heap on the floor, Danny stepped back through the wall and went ghost again. "Nice job!"

I held out my right arm, admiring the weapon strapped to it. "I'm loving this Wrist Ray. It's the perfect accessory... of pain!"

Walker returned with eight more Goons, and we were back in the thick of it. We were outnumbered three-to-one, but were able to hold them off for a bit, until Walker managed to grab Danny. I took aim with the Wrist Ray, and shot the hat right off his head. He and his Goons went running, and Danny directed me and Wulf to see after the campers while he chased after Walker.

Unfortunately, he found us before Danny found him. Right after we found the campers, we heard Walker behind us. But then, there was a shot, and Walker howled in pain.

Turning, he glared at the source of the shot behind him. "Firing from behind! How very cowardly!"

Danny, floating just beyond him in the hallway, looked pissed. "You'd know all about that! Torturing Wulf, almost torturing Sam..."

Walker roared and attacked Danny, slamming him back against a wall, but he went human again and phased right through Walker to get back to me and Wulf. Then, transforming back into ghost form, he used his ice powers to freeze Walker solid, just like he'd done to that monster in the woods. Walker taken care of, all that was left was for us to get the campers back to the human world. There wasn't time to wake them and get them out individually, so Danny just picked up the entire suspended animation chamber and flew it back through the portal Wulf had made into the cave behind the waterfall. Once back, Danny put the Thermos on reverse polarity, sealed up the portal, then set Wulf free.

Excited, the huge wolf ghost slurped Danny with his tongue. "Amiko!" Friend. Then, he was gone.

And Danny and I were alone again. If you didn't count a plexiglass chamber full of campers in suspended animation, that is. Glad that was over, I turned my attention to Danny, looking for any wounds he might have gotten in the fight. "You okay?"

He looked at me like I was crazy. "Yeah. Come on, let's get everyone back to camp."

Suddenly, I was in no hurry to get back to that death trap masquerading as a camp, where I'd be sharing a cabin with Paulina and Starr for the next eight weeks. Would it really be so bad if we had just one more night? I flashed Danny a mischievous look. "We don't have to wake them all up right away, do we?"

Another spark lit the air between us, and I knew what his answer would be.

---

We did wake up our buffer, however. I have to admit, I almost didn't want to. But, even putting aside the fact that he was our best friend, too, the very fact that I really sorta kinda wanted to be alone with Danny again was enough to clue me in that it would be a Very Bad Idea.

It took a while for Tucker to wake up, however. By the time he was fully alert, it was dark and we were starving, so he and Danny went to the mess hall to see if they could find anything halfway decent while I started another campfire. Fortunately for us, if there was such a thing as a Food Detecting superpower, Tucker had it. Somehow, he managed to find where the edible stuff was kept, and he and Danny returned with much better hotdogs (or so they assured me) than we'd found the night before, plus marshmallows for them to roast, popcorn they'd made in a movie theater-style machine they'd found, and real soda. Danny even dug up a bag of trail mix and dried fruit for me, meaning I didn't have to suffer through another "meal" of wilted or moldy produce.

I'd gone through most of the bag, and Danny and Tucker had finished off the hotdogs when we were done getting Tucker up to speed on what he'd missed while he was enjoying Walker's "hospitality." We decided the rest of the campers would write everything off a as dream once we woke them in the morning, hopefully saving us from having to explain how they were rescued.

While we were talking, Tucker was fiddling with something next to one of the logs that served as benches around the fire pit. "Okay, we're ready." He backed away, and I saw that he'd been setting up his portable DVD player. The title screen for Bloodbath 3: The Final Spill came on, and Tucker grabbed a cup of popcorn and a soda. "It's showtime!"

I groaned. A night camping out in the woods, without our annoying classmates or teachers to pester us, and he wanted to spend it watching a movie we'd seen a gazillion times already? I shook my head. "No, no, no. That's not what we're watching." I sat down against one of the log-benches and leaned back, looking up into the night sky.

Knowing I wasn't about to take no for an answer, Danny and Tucker joined me, sitting down on either side of me. "Now it's showtime," I told them.

And what a show it was. Even though we'd spent many nights stargazing from the roof of the Ops-Center at FentonWorks, the sky was darker out here, away from the city lights, and we could see a lot more stars than back home. I even saw a shooting star, and had to resist the urge to make a wish, remembering how wishing turned out the last time.

Beside me, I heard Danny suck in his breath. "Wow."

I turned to him, and almost missed a breath of my own. The moonlight lit up his face, and I could see the wonder in his eyes as he looked up at the sky.

Wow indeed.

"I know," is what I said out loud, hoping he'd think I meant the sky, too.

I don't think he did, because he turned to me, then, and there was that spark again, and I once again was finding it very hard to breathe as I drank in the way those blue eyes were looking at me in a way that definitely did not seem like the way you look at your friend. In that moment, I wanted so much to believe it was real, that there really was more there in his eyes, that it wasn't just the moonlight or hormones or an idea put into his head by Nocturn that he'd never have had on his own. I wanted to believe, to hope that he wanted—

A loud snore behind me made both of us jump. Tucker had fallen asleep, his head lolling off to the side, and a little trail of drool running out of the corner of his mouth. I turned back to Danny, and the two of us chuckled together, until we were interrupted once more, this time by the howl of a wolf in the distance.

Still smiling, Danny settled back against the log next to me. "We have our own soundtrack."

"It's perfect," I agreed.

And it was. Just me and Danny, gazing at the stars together. We'd always shared a love of the stars, from the time we first became friends when we were twelve. To Danny, the stars were suns and planets that he wanted to visit as an astronaut. To me, they were stories and myths and legends, and I recounted them all to Danny. Cassiopeia, the queen whose bragging about her own beauty got her in trouble with Hera. Her husband, King Cepheus, who voyaged with Jason as one of the Argonauts. Draco, the dragon with several legends. Callisto, who was raped by Zeus, bore him a child, only to have a jealous Hera turn both her and her son into the Big and Little Bears, or Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Danny, meanwhile, talked of sailors using the North Star to navigate, and how its position relative to the horizon could tell you the latitude of your location.

They were stories we'd told each other a million times before, but it never seemed old, not when it was the two of us, together.

At some point, I realized that the night was getting cooler, and the fire had almost gone out. "We should probably throw another log on," I told Danny, but I was so comfortable lying by the log beside him that I couldn't bring myself to get up to do so, even though I was beginning to get cold in my sleeveless shirt.

He noticed me rubbing my arms. "Are you cold?"

"A little. Aren't you?"

He shook his head. "I don't really get cold anymore. Not since Frostbite showed me how to control my ice powers."

"Really? That's handy. I suppose the rest of us mere mortals should've brought out some sleeping bags."

"Here." Before I even realized what he was doing, he'd moved closer to me. Pulling me into an embrace, he began rubbing his hands along my cold, bare arms to warm them. "Better?"

Better wasn't the word. Every muscle tensed, every nerve ending started shouting conflicting messages at me, telling me to bolt, but also telling me that this was really, really nice. Unsure what else to do, I just looked up at him and nodded. "I... I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold." My voice almost squeaked, ruining my attempt at dry humor, and I felt like a supreme idiot.

It was only then that he seemed to realize that he'd crossed a line, but he didn't let go, instead reminding me, "Half human."

"Right." I looked back at what was left of our campfire, my heart racing. You should get up, a voice insisted somewhere in the back of my brain. This is not good. It's making you hope for what you won't ever have.

But a louder, more insistent voice was telling me, No. Stay. This is really, really nice. What's the big deal? Just enjoy it for what it is.

For once, I listened to the second voice and told the first voice to shut the hell up. Relaxing a little, I leaned back to rest my head against his shoulder and just enjoy the warmth of being in his arms.

But now I could feel him tense and, for a horrible moment, I thought he was going to push me away and tell me this was all a terrible mistake.

Instead, he said my name. "Sam—"

That's it. Just my name. But there was something in his voice, so serious, so... something, that my heart started racing again, to the point where I was sure he could hear it pounding inside my chest. I turned to look at him, waiting for him to tell me whatever it was he was going to say and, for an instant when our eyes met, I knew. Oh my God, he really does feel something more than friendship for me.

And on the heels of that, I'm going to lose him.

But he didn't say anything. For a long, long time, we just stared at each other, too terrified to move or to say a word.

Then, it was over. "Are you comfortable?" was all he said.

I didn't know whether I was more relieved or disappointed. See? the first voice insisted. See what happens when you make something out of nothing? See what happens when you hope? All that's left after that is to lose. Do you want to lose him? Do you want to lose this?

No, I didn't. Not ever. Not him, and not this. Even if this was confusing and scary and completely insane because we couldn't stay like this, in this place between just friends and something more. It was like... well, like camping out. A beautiful place to stop and look at the stars, but not somewhere we could stay very long. Whatever he felt for me, there was no way it was what I wanted it to be, and allowing this to go on, the two of us dancing around each other in this confusing middle ground was setting myself up for heartache. One way or another, you're going to lose him.

But he was here now. I was here now. We were camping out here together, and I couldn't bring myself to let go. The truth was, I liked this place. I was comfortable, at least for the moment. So, instead of running, I slipped my arms around him, lay my head against his shoulder, and closed my eyes. "Yeah," I told him. "I am."

I was crazy. Completely insane. And a coward. I should have walked away, kept the boundary between just friends and something more firm and well-defined. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. We couldn't stay here. I knew that. But for now, this was where I wanted to be, camping out here, with him.

Chapter 31: Normal: Danny

Notes:

We're now to Phantom Planet. I've already done a lot of writing about the events in Phantom Planet, from many points of view, in Tales from the Phantom Planet. I don't want to repeat myself, but neither do I want to leave out of this series one of, if not the most crucial episode in the evolution of Danny and Sam's relationship. And there is still so much left to say about everything that happened in those short forty-four minutes. So much so, that I can even cover a couple of different themes.

Therefore, there will be three chapter pairs devoted to Phantom Planet. I'll do my best to not cover old ground, so for more, check out Tales from the Phantom Planet. For this particular pair, chapters one and three, "The Halfa's Tale" and "The Rookie's Tale" cover the same events but, hopefully, from slightly different perspectives.

Normal
Danny

I just wanted to be normal. Was that really so much to ask? To live my life like any other just-turned-sixteen-year-old, whose biggest worry was getting a zit before prom?

It’s not like it’s the first time I felt this way, either. When I first got my powers, I felt like a freak. I couldn’t control them, kept turning intangible and dropping things, or fading in and out of sight at random moments. I did eventually get used to them, I guess. Maybe I even began to enjoy them a little. Flying, phasing, getting to beat the bad guy and be the hero. Yeah, it could be fun sometimes, I’ll admit that.

But then the Ghost King came along. Valerie got beaten to a pulp by my enemies. The entire town got sucked into the Ghost Zone, and I was the only one who could save us.

The only one. And I could have died because of it.

So was it any wonder that after that, I wanted a break? To take some time off and just hang with my friends? But no, there were always ghosts to chase, bad guys to vanquish, wrongs to set right. Maybe splitting myself in two wasn’t the best plan, but can you blame me for just wanting to be normal for a while?

Then, there was summer vacation after freshman year. All I wanted was the same thing every other kid my age got—a couple of months to goof off and do nothing. No school, no responsibilities, and a cross-country trip with my best friends. (Okay, maybe not every other kid got that last part, but still.) We did get the trip, but Freakshow turned it into, well, a freak show by revealing my identity to the world, kidnapping my family, along with Tucker’s and Sam’s parents, and bending reality itself. In the end, I bent it back so everything would be back to normal—or what passes for normal in my life, anyway—but the whole thing wasn’t exactly a restful vacation.

Then there was the thing with Undergrowth, and the way he took over Sam. I still had the occasional nightmare about it, how he burrowed into her mind and made the most independent-thinking person I know do and say things she would never do or say. Would he have focused on her, picked her out of the crowd, if it hadn’t been for me? I’d already come so close to losing her in so many ways before. She’d fallen from a building because I was under a spell, fallen from a high wire because I’d cut it out from under her while under a spell, nearly gotten blown up at the Nasty Burger by my evil future self. No spells even necessary for that one. In some ways, though, seeing her mind-controlled was the worst of them all, and I knew it was somehow my fault, that she’d gotten the fallout from the ghost weirdness that surrounds me because of my stupid powers.

Was it any wonder that when my parents sold out to the Guys in White not long after that, I used our new wealth to duck who I was and the responsibilities I had to the world? I was so tired of hurting my friends. So tired of hurting her.

Now this. Vlad hires those stupid “Masters’ Blasters” to take care of the ghost problem—that he, no doubt, was causing—and make me look like an idiot. And what do I do? Nearly get Sam and Tucker killed—again—by attacking a parade balloon ghost because I thought it was real. Seriously. A parade balloon. I make a stupid mistake because of my powers, and who pays? Sam and Tucker.

That’s the thing. It’s always someone else who pays. My friends, my sister, my parents, and I was sick of it. They were the most important people in my life. Sam... she was important to me in ways I was only beginning to really understand. And she almost died because of me. She and Tucker both. Again. I just wanted it to stop. I didn’t want to risk losing them—to risk losing her—anymore.

It was an observation by Sam that gave me the idea of how I could do it. My parents had shut down the Fenton Portal to upgrade it, and we were in the basement watching while I tried not to think about how Sam and Tucker could have died because of me. Sam was the one who noticed the portal. “It kind of looks the same way it did when you first got your ghost powers, Danny.”

I wasn’t in the mood to hear it. “Can we stop talking about my powers, please? They’re causing me nothing but problems lately. I’m starting to think that maybe we’d all be better off without them.”

When my parents took a break from their upgrading work, I found myself staring at the non-functioning portal. She was right. It looked exactly the same. This portal, shut down like this, was the last thing I’d seen before getting my powers. The last thing on the last day I’d ever been normal. I’d stepped into it as Danny Fenton, and stepped out of it as Danny Phantom, and that was that.

Or was it? The Fenton Thermos had reverse polarity, which made it do the opposite of what it usually did. What if I reversed the polarity on the Fenton Portal? If I stepped into it as Danny Phantom, what would I step out as? “This thing gave me my powers. I wonder if it could...”

Jazz overheard me talking to myself. “Danny, what are you thinking?”

“Name one good reason I should keep my powers.”

“You’re the target of hundreds of evil ghosts,” Tucker replied for her. When Sam gave him a dirty look, he realized what he’d said. “Oh, wait. That’s a bad thing.”

So she took a stab at it. “Danny, think of all the good you’ve done and are doing. If you took your powers away now—”

She was interrupted by the doorbell upstairs. Masters’ Blasters had come to arrest my parents for “harboring a ghost” because their “readings indicate an ectoplasmic entity on the premises.” Me. And now my parents were going to jail.

“That does it.” I was sick of my powers, sick of the people I loved getting hurt because of them, sick of not getting to live a single day of my life just being normal. “I’m going ghost!” Hopefully for the last time.

Flying back down to the basement and over to the Fenton Portal’s control console, I dialed up the start-up sequence from memory, then reversed the polarity of the entire setup. The Portal began powering up, but it would take flipping the last switch, the one inside the tunnel itself, to get it going. That switch was supposed to be turned on before setting the start-up sequence, but I was glad to see my parents never did correct the wiring glitch that allowed me to power up before turning it on inside.

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker tried to stop me, but I was done hurting them. “Sorry, guys,” I told them as I entered the portal and hit the internal ON switch. Sorry for everything.

It was as bad as getting my powers had been. The last thing I remembered before passing out after Sam, Tucker, and Jazz pulled me away from the exploding portal was Sam putting her hand on my chest. “Danny! Can you hear me? How do you feel?”

I covered her hand with mine. “Human.”

---

My first clue that maybe this wasn’t going to go over well with Sam was right after I woke up again. I tried to go ghost and couldn’t and was thrilled. It worked! It actually worked!

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz looked less thrilled. And by “less thrilled,” I mean they looked like I’d kicked their puppy.

“Oh, come on, you guys! Don’t you realize what this means?”

Sam’s arms were crossed and the expression on her face could have withered a rhino on the rampage. “Yeah. That you’re just an average, everyday, not special human again.”

That stung. I wasn’t special to her as just a human? What did that mean? What about—? No. Being normal again was a good thing. She’d think so to, once she saw how our lives could be without the ghosts and the fighting and the danger. “Oh, come on, Sam. Think of how great this is gonna be. I won’t have to fight ghosts anymore. Now we can all just be normal teenagers and hang out as much as we want.” Maybe even more than just hang out...

Or not. Sam was really not going to be happy with this any time soon. “Yeah, normal rocks.” And she stomped off.

Determined not to let her get me down—she’d come around, right?—I worked on Tucker and Jazz. They didn’t look like they wanted to rip my arms off and feed them to me the way Sam did, but they still had that why’d-you-kick-my-puppy? look to them.

They’d come around, though. They all would.

---

My dad’s portal was a shambles but, somehow, the ghosts kept finding a way into our world to cause trouble. The big difference was, it wasn’t my problem anymore. Sam’s sarcasm notwithstanding, being normal did rock. I could sleep in on weekends. I didn’t have to miss class when ghosts showed up at school. And most of all, no one close to me was in danger. Sam wasn’t in danger. And with all that free time, maybe I could figure out if I was ready to tell her how I felt about her.

There was a big problem with that, however. Things seemed to have changed between us. I tried to brush it off at first, figuring things would get back to the way they were once she got used to me being normal again, but it was like there was this wall between us. Those little electric moments never happened anymore, and nothing I did seemed to bring them back.

A few days later, she, Tucker, and I were in her basement home theater, just hanging out, like I’d always wanted. We were watching a movie on cable when a news break came on. It was all about Masters’ Blasters and all the ghosts they were catching that were no longer my problem. Yeah, Vlad was extorting money from people to pay for all those ghosts his “crack team” was catching, but that wasn’t my problem, either. I mean, I’m a kid, right? Why should a corrupt, megalomaniac, half-ghost mayor be my problem?

I leaned back, determined to enjoy the lack of burden on my shoulders. “Ah. This is the life. Just sitting around not fighting ghosts with my totally ordinary pals.” I gave Sam a hopeful look. When I couldn’t get a spark out of her, I tried for food instead. “Could you pass me a corn dog?”

She passed me a corn dog, all right. A perfect slam dunk, with my face as the basket. Then, she stormed upstairs.

It’s just because she thinks I’m eating meat in her house, I tried to tell myself as I followed her upstairs and out onto her front porch. “Sam! Wait! There’s no reason to get mad. The corn dogs are made of tofu.”

She looked up at me from the bottom step. “I’m not mad about corn dogs. You’re not you anymore. You’re just a normal kid. And a selfish one at that.”

There it was again. She was using the word normal like it was the lowest insult. Like being normal made me not good enough. And selfish? What was that about? “How am I selfish? Because I don’t want to endanger the people I care about the most?” Like you?

“Danny, don’t you get it? Your powers gave you a chance to change things. A chance no one else had. And I was thrilled to be helping you. But now you’re just one of the crowd again.”

She sat down on the bottom step, her back to me, and my heart fell down somewhere to about my knees. I’d blown it. Really and truly blown it. Getting rid of my powers had shoved us out of that middle ground between friends and something more, all right. We’d landed pretty squarely on the friends side. And that was the best-case scenario. If I was so not-special, maybe she didn’t even want that much anymore.

Trying to keep from upchucking the twenty tons of cheese puffs and corn chips I’d eaten, I sat down beside her. “What’s wrong with that?” What’s wrong with me?

“Everything! You got to fight ghosts after school, while other kids fought acne. And you don’t really seem to care about what you gave up!”

“I care! It’s just...” I swallowed. “I care about you... and my family more.”

“When you had your powers, I knew that this town was protected from evil.” She looked over to the shoe store across the street. Masters’ Blasters had just happened to pick that exact moment to extort some money from the shop owner as part of that whole protection racket thing Vlad had going. Sam’s jaw tightened. “But now? Who knows where we’re headed.”

She turned back to me as she stood up. “I’ll always be your friend, Danny. And I’ll always be there for you. But I can’t live life just sitting on the sidelines. I’m surprised you think you can.”

And then she was gone, leaving me to chew on her final words. It should have been encouraging, that she at least still wanted to be my friend. That she’d always be my friend. I was anything but encouraged, however. All I could hear ringing in my ears were the words she didn’t say. And nothing more.

---

Realizing how badly I’d blown it with Sam was only the beginning of my understanding just how much I’d screwed up everything by giving up my powers. She was right. I wasn’t me anymore. Danny Phantom had changed me in ways that ghost powers alone couldn’t account for. I was stupid to think I could go back to being the kid who kept his head down and stayed off everyone’s radar. What happened to the guy who jumped in and did the right thing, not just because he had powers, but because it was the right thing? If Sam and Tucker and Jazz and my parents could fight ghosts without powers, why couldn’t I? I’d still be a not-special human, but at least I’d show her I did care. That the guy who was willing to put himself on the line to help others was still inside me. I didn’t need ghost powers for that, right?

I got my first chance to be that guy again the very next day at school. The Lunch Lady went on a rampage over veggie burgers in the school cafeteria, and I decided I’d had enough of sitting on the sidelines.

It probably would have gone a little better, though, if I’d remembered I couldn’t fly anymore. Nothing like leaping into action only to fall flat on my face. Then the Lunch Lady picked me up like I was a rag doll and guess who had to save us? Masters’ Blasters. And for a mere three hundred bucks, too.

So, yeah. Doing the right thing without ghost powers not so easy.

And truth be told, I missed my powers. I missed being able to fly, and phase through things. I missed being the one who could save the day. I missed fighting the ghosts, and the banter, and being able to really get in there and make a difference.

Too embarrassed about my spectacular failure with the Lunch Lady to even want to talk about it with Tucker (and definitely not Sam), I went home alone after school. Bored and mad at myself and feeling at a loss as to how to make any of it better, I found myself in the basement lab staring at the busted portal. Even charred from the explosion with loose wires cables hanging everywhere, it still looked like it had when I’d first gotten my powers. Both times, actually, if you count Sam’s wish-verse.

Are you sure about this? she’d asked me after convincing me what I was supposed to have become.

No. But you saw those things. Those... monsters, ghosts. Those ghosts were attacking our school! Besides. I always wanted to go in here. Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?

Now I knew. And there were all kinds of awesome, super-cool things on the other side of that portal. And there were scary things, too. Things like the Ghost King and his skeleton army that could have destroyed our whole town. Like Skulker and Ember, who sometimes weren’t half bad, but sometimes got out of control and needed a smackdown to keep them from messing with people.

Things like Vlad and like me, who straddled both worlds and had to decide exactly where we fit in and what we were meant for. Vlad never got it, but I did. Or I had once. And now...?

Feeling more empty than the broken portal, I climbed inside. “I’m going ghost!” I shouted into the emptiness, as if by merely wanting it I could make it happen. Nothing did happen, except my own lonely voice echoing back at me in the now useless chamber.

What have I done?

No. I couldn’t let this be the end. Ghost powers or no, I would get back to who I once was. No more excuses.

And then the world ended.

Or, it was about to end, anyway, in just one week, according to the news broadcast. An asteroid, a huge one, was heading straight for Earth, and if it hit, we were all dead. Game over. And there I was, sitting on the sidelines, exactly like Sam had said, powerless to do anything. Sitting on the sidelines and watching as Vlad revealed his identity and told the world he could use his ghost powers to make the asteroid intangible—just so long as every country paid him a huge ransom and made him their ruler.

If I’d still had my ghost powers, I could have done it. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t, so we had to give in to Vlad. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Or could I?

When Vlad’s plan failed, that’s when I figured out how to save the world. Without my ghost powers.

I’d been watching alone in my room when he and my dad launched into space. I was too ashamed of how I’d messed everything up to join my mother at the launch site, or Jazz, Sam, and Tucker down in the basement lab to watch on the huge multi-screen setup my dad had put in when FentonWorks had become a sort of mission control for one of the earlier failed attempts to destroy the asteroid. The reason this latest plan failed was because the asteroid was made of something he called “ectoranium,” which was some sort of anti-ghost element that wouldn’t allow ghosts to touch it. So no making the asteroid intangible.

But phasing is about two objects existing in the same place at the same time because one of them is intangible. And if the asteroid couldn’t be made intangible...

It would take more than just a ghost, though. More than just a dozen or even a hundred ghosts. We’d have to rally the whole Ghost Zone, and before we could do that, we’d need to find a way in, now that my dad’s portal was destroyed.

Reaching into my desk drawer, I pulled out a scroll of parchment that I’d stashed there a couple of weeks ago and ran downstairs into the basement to find Tucker, Sam, and Jazz. They were still watching the end of the broadcast, and I heard Tucker say, “What are we going to do?”

“What if we didn’t make the asteroid intangible?” I responded as I came down the stairs.

The three of them turned around to look at me, but it was Tucker who answered. “Then it would obliterate the Earth.”

“Not if we make the Earth intangible.”

Sam blinked in disbelief. “The whole Earth? Intangible? Are you kidding?”

Tucker looked just as dubious. “Yeah. You’d need, like, a bazillion ghosts to do that.”

I pulled out the scroll. “Behold, the addresses of a bazillion ghosts.”

It was the Infi-Map. Vlad had stolen it from Frostbite two weeks earlier, and we’d gotten it back from him, but with all the Masters’ Blasters stuff, getting rid of my powers, and then the asteroid crisis, I’d never gotten around to taking it back to the Far Frozen.

A smile spread across Sam’s face and, for the first time in days, I saw her eyes light up as they met mine. She jumped up from her seat, radiating enthusiasm. “Now that’s the Danny I know. So much for sitting on the sidelines, huh?”

For just an instant, I thought that maybe the spark was back. That maybe I could salvage things between us after all, even without my powers. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because Tucker was talking again. “But how are we going to get into the Ghost Zone? Your portal’s ruined, and we’re never gonna get near Vlad’s place now that everyone knows who he really is.”

“I’ve got that covered. Come on.”

---

We headed out in the Specter Speeder for the location indicated by the map. A glowing green swirl in midtown Amity Park, not far from our old middle school, marking one of the temporary natural portals that occasionally opened up between our world and the Ghost Zone. This one happened to be right in the middle of a Nasty Burger billboard, making it appear like we were flying into a giant kid’s mouth as he was taking a bite of a Double-Nasty with cheese.

Once we were through the portal and in the Ghost Zone, I heard Jazz suck in a breath. “I don’t believe it!”

That’s when I realized she’d never been to the Ghost Zone before. Well, not if you didn’t count the time the entire town got sucked in during the whole Ghost King thing. “Believe it, Jazz. Welcome to the Ghost Zone. Sort of a Ghosts ’R Us.”

“But the shelves are empty,” Tucker pointed out. “Where the heck is everybody?”

Good question. Usually you could spot a ghost or two flying around, but there didn’t seem to be anybody here. Not even Skulker or Ember or any of the other usual suspects. We flew for a while, headed toward the Far Frozen, for lack of a better place to go, and soon enough, we started seeing ghosts. None that were familiar to me, just a banshee or two. I’d have to find someone I knew if I had any hope—

A blast outside rocked the Speeder, sending us into a tumble that landed us inside some sort of containment field. When we finally stopped tumbling and got our bearings back, Jazz pulled herself up behind my seat. “What’s going on?”

Outside the containment shield, Skulker appeared. “Foolish of you to come here in your human form, Ghost Child. Seeking refuge in the Ghost Zone like all the others?”

I frowned. “What others?”

“All these ghosts!” He waved his hand behind him, and I saw there were more of those banshee-types behind him. A lot more. More than I’d ever seen all in one place, in fact.

Skulker continued. “They’ve returned here because you humans put your world in danger. Now the Ghost Zone is bursting at the seams!”

Perfect. That many ghosts was exactly what we needed for our plan to work. But before I could explain what I wanted to do, Tucker pointed out the obvious. “But it’s the flip side of our world. If the Earth gets destroyed, the Ghost Zone goes, too.”

Or maybe it wasn’t so obvious, because Skulker seemed pissed. He pressed some button on the belt of his cyber-armor and, the next thing we knew, the Specter Speeder was being jolted with some sort of strange vibrations. I thought the whole ship was going to shake apart, but I managed to press a button in the dashboard, which activated a device that disrupts ecto-energy. The vibrating stopped, and the containment field disappeared as well. As soon as she realized we were free, Sam wasted no time in getting us out of there.

There were too many ghosts, however. And they were mad at me, not the others. If I could draw them off... “You guys get into the escape pod.”

Tucker and Jazz wasted no time following my directions. Sam, however, stayed in her place behind the Speeder’s controls. “But Danny...”

There were no sparks when our eyes meet this time. Just fear in hers and what I hoped was resolve in mine. I guess it was, because it was only an instant before she gave in and followed Jazz and Tucker into the escape pod in back, while I slid into the seat she’d vacated and took over the controls. When they were safely inside the pod with the door sealed, I ejected it, then flew as fast and as far as I could from them, drawing all the ghosts after me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get far before an enormous shape loomed before me. The behemoth ghost that once guarded the key to the Ghost King’s sarcophagus. I couldn’t pull up fast enough and crashed into the monster, and then Skulker and the other ghosts were on me from behind.

“It’s not enough you destroy your own world. Now you have to destroy ours, too?” He raised his arm, activating some sort of nasty-looking ecto-gun.

Yeah. Like the asteroid was my fault. “Wait! You don’t under—”

“FIRE!”

They all started shooting at me. Skulker’s gun, ectoplasm from the other ghosts. It was the most massive onslaught of ectoplasmic energy I’d ever seen. I closed my eyes against the intense light surrounding me, but I couldn’t shut out the sounds and feel of the Specter Speeder disintegrating around me, leaving me floating alone, completely defenseless in the middle of the Ghost Zone.

But they didn’t stop. Without the Speeder to protect me, I was the sole target of all of their fury. It was like activating the portal from the inside all over again. Energy pulsed around me, like taking a bath in liquid nitrogen with electric eels. I thought my very molecules were going to shatter until... I felt a different kind of energy. Something more familiar, like a twinge starting in my gut and expanding outward in twin rings toward my head and my feet.

When it was over and I could open my eyes again, I didn’t need to see the black jumpsuit or white gloves or the white hair hanging in my eyes to know what had happened. I could feel it in my skin and my gut and my veins.

And it felt like home.

Somehow, impossibly, the massive ghost attack had re-triggered my ghost powers, just like activating the portal had in the first place. (And the second place, if you counted the wish-verse thing.) Only this time, instead of knocking me out and making me stumble around, temporarily weak from the explosion, I felt instantly strong. Stronger than I ever remember feeling before, in fact.

And just in time, too, since I was still surrounded by Skulker and a critical mass of ghosts. I looked up at them, feeling the energy building inside me. “You just made a big mistake.”

Then, I took about two seconds to consider my options. I needed the ghosts, true, but they clearly weren’t going to help willingly. Not only that, my first priority was getting my sister and my friends to safety. Afterward, we could come up with a plan to get them to help save the world—both our worlds, actually. But for now, I had to get out of here, and fast. And there was only one way to do that.

“Well, gang,” I told the crowd of ghosts pressing around me. “There’s good news and bad news. The good news? My powers are back. The bad news? My powers are BACK!”

On the last word, I took in as big a breath of air as I could, then let it all out in a single, wailing shriek. My Ghostly Wail slammed against the wall of ghosts, sending them hurtling away from me like I was the epicenter of the explosion. When they were gone, I stopped wailing, surprised at how much energy I still had left. When I’d first gotten this power, it would sap me so dry I’d revert to human form whether I wanted to or not. Now, I felt a little tired, but nowhere near exhausted or reverting to human form.

Good thing, too. I’d been hiding behind my human form long enough.

The escape pod from the destroyed Specter Speeder floated into view, and I flew toward it. I could see Jazz, Tucker, and Sam looking out the pod’s little porthole, and even from a distance and through closed hatch, I could see the wonder in Sam’s eyes and the excitement in her voice as she greeted me. “Danny! It’s you! Well, it was always you, but...”

It feels like home. I reached the pod and put my hand up to the porthole. “I know what you mean, Sam. Thanks.”

This time I did feel a spark, even through the plexiglass of the porthole. Now it really felt like home, and it was all I could do to rip my eyes away from hers when Jazz reminded us this was far from over. “Those ghosts are going to come back. And something tells me they’re not going to be too happy about helping us.”

“You’re right. We’d better get out of here until we got this thing figured out.”

The pod didn’t have much in the way of propulsion, so I just started pushing it back toward the portal we’d used to get here. Tucker gave me an apprehensive look. “If we went in through the billboard’s mouth, I don’t want to know where we’re coming out!”

I wanted to phase through the pod and hug him. Hug them all. Jazz was being bossy and smart, Sam was looking for a cause to fight for, and Tucker was cracking lame jokes. Everything felt right again. Well, except for the Earth-destroying asteroid headed our way. But we’d beat that. I was sure of it. It’s what we did, after all. And how could we fail, now that everything was finally back to normal?

Normal rocks.

Chapter 32: Normal: Sam

Normal
Sam

Why in the world would he ever want to be normal? Was that really what he was looking for? To live his life like any other just-turned-sixteen-year-old whose biggest worry was getting a zit before prom? Why would he want that when he actually had the power to change the world?

I know it’s not the first time he’d gone on about wishing he were normal. When he first got his powers, they freaked him out. A lot. And I can’t say that I really blame him. He couldn’t control them, kept turning intangible and dropping things, or fading in and out of sight at random moments. But then he got used to them. I’d even go so far as to say he grew to like them. Flying, phasing, getting to beat the bad guy and be the hero. No way he didn’t get off on that.

Not that it couldn’t be scary sometimes. I get that, I do. I mean, there was that whole Ghost King thing when he went off to face him and save the town because he knew he was the only one who could, even if it meant he might never...

No. What matters is, he beat him. He beat him, and he came back, and the whole town finally saw him for the hero he was. So yeah, okay, after that he deserved a break. I understood that he needed time off to just hang, I really did. But his answer for making that time was to split himself in two. And what did we learn from that? That as bad as it was to be a full-time superhero, it was just as bad to be the full-time “fun dude” who didn’t care about anything but a good time. No thanks.

I’d have thought that after that he’d give up on the whole “normal” kick, but then came summer break after freshman year, and all he could talk about was our stupid vacation. Even when Freakshow attacked, he was all, Not my problem. Until Freakshow made it his problem by revealing his identity on national television and kidnapping his, mine, and Tucker’s parents. Yeah, running from the Guys in White might not have been the best way to see the country, but it kind of says something when even Dash and Paulina not only recognized all the good he’d been doing for the better part of the year, but actually put their own necks on the line to step up and help.

That’s the kind of difference he’s made. How is that not way better than being normal?

And don’t even get me started on what he turned into when his parents got a little money from selling out to the feds. Thank God that didn’t last long.

The thing with Danny was that he seemed to live his life on this giant pendulum that was constantly swinging back and forth between Super Danny and Slacker Danny. He’d either want to take responsibility for everything or nothing. And the more I fell... I mean, the more I grew to care about him, the more frustrating and even scary those pendulum swings were.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him. It was a constant refrain in my head. I’d always thought that meant I’d either lose him to a girl or a ghost. But now, with Vlad’s lame “Masters’ Blasters” embarrassing him at every turn, and all this talk about how we’d all be better off if he didn’t have his powers, it hit me that there was another way I could lose him. I could lose him if he lost himself.

That scared me almost as much as the possibility of a ghost or the Guys in White finally getting the best of him. There were worse things than losing your life, after all, and I’d seen him when he was on the “slacker” end of the pendulum swing. It was like he’d lost his soul.

So when he started getting this crazy idea that he could use his parents’ portal to reverse what it had done to him in the first place, I scrambled to convince him it was a bad idea. “Danny, think of all the good you’ve done and are doing. If you took your powers away now—”

The doorbell rang upstairs, and we could hear what sounded like a scuffle. When we went up to see what was going on, we found Masters’ Blasters in Danny’s living room, arresting his parents for “harboring a ghost” because their “readings indicate an ectoplasmic entity on the premises.”

Danny was livid. “That does it. I’m going ghost!” And he flew off back down to the basement.

Tucker, Jazz and I ran after him, but by the time we got down there, he’d already started up the portal and was getting ready to step inside. Jazz got to him first. “Danny, stop! This isn’t the way!”

“You’re a hero, Danny!” I reminded him. “We can talk about this!”

Tucker wasn’t much help, going on about slogans and rhyming something with Phantom, but Danny wasn’t listening anyway. “Sorry, guys.” And before any of us could move, he stepped into the powered-down portal and hit the ON switch.

It was like watching the Accident all over again. The bright light as the portal powered up. The ozone smell of overloading circuits and frying wires and then, the sound of his screaming as the thing did whatever it was doing to him. I wanted to scream myself, but I bit my tongue and buried my face in my hands. I felt Tucker’s hands on my shoulders drawing me toward him as if he could somehow shield me from what was happening. Oh, God, Danny, no...

When the screaming turned to groans, I looked up from Tucker’s shoulder in time to see Danny stumble out of the portal and collapse in a heap on the floor. Smoke was pouring out of the tubing behind him, and it looked even worse than after the Accident. Whatever he’d done this time, instead of opening up the portal, he’d overloaded it completely, and I was pretty sure the thing was going to blow.

Jazz and Tucker had the same idea, and the three of us together made a dash for Danny to drag him away. We got him behind one of the workbenches just before the portal exploded. It was only then that I realized that Danny was in human form. Was he more vulnerable like that? What if it was only the fact that he’d gone ghost for the first time when the Accident happened that had kept him alive back then? What if this time...?

Trying to fight back the panic, I dropped to my knees beside him. “Danny! Can you hear me?” I put my hand on his chest, hoping to God I’d feel a heartbeat there. “How do you feel?”

He put his hand on mine and, for a moment, all that went through my head was, ohmygod, he’s alive, he’s still alive, thank God he’s still alive...

His eyes blinked open and he gave me a weak smile as he answered my question. “Human.” And then he passed out again.

---

I was trying hard to not to go into a full-blown panic when Masters’ Blasters came down into the basement. They did a scan of the whole lab, and I gripped Danny a little tighter when they came near him, but they found no sign of spectral activity. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that Danny wasn’t going to get arrested and hauled off to some sort of Area 51, or even more terrified what that said about his condition.

When they decided the place was “clean,” Masters’ Blasters left without even noticing or caring that there had obviously just been an explosion and that someone was injured and unconscious. Oh yeah, there’s some real heroes for you. See, Danny? That’s why we need you.

He woke up right after they left and scrambled to his feet a lot more quickly than I would have liked. “What happened? Did it work?” He patted his chest and legs as if to verify that they were, in fact, solid, then ran over to a mirror on the wall, probably to see whether he was in ghost form or human form.

It was only then that I really noticed what he looked like. In addition the torn clothes and the bruises and soot covering his face and arms, something weird had happened to his hair. It was black, like it usually was in human form, except for one streak down the middle that was pure, Danny-Phantom white. It was almost like he’d somehow succeeded into blending ghost and human all into one form. Except...

“You didn’t register on the Blasters’ scanners,” Tucker said, following him.

“So that means...” Danny threw his arms up into the air. “I’m going ghost!”

Nothing happened. Unless you count my stomach doing a slow somersault and threatening to toss up my lunch. What did you do, Danny? What did you do to yourself?

“I said, ‘Going ghost!’” And then, he crowed in victory. “It worked! I don’t have my ghost powers anymore! I’m normal again! Isn’t that awesome?”

Fear and worry became disgust. “Yeah.” You risked your life for this ?

Tucker and Jazz didn’t sound any happier. “Great.”

“Thrilling.”

“Oh, come on, you guys! Don’t you realize what this means?”

Oh, I knew exactly what it meant. He was off the hook. He didn’t have to fight ghosts. Or help people. Or care. Did I ever know what it meant. “Yeah. That you’re just an average, everyday, not special human again.”

“Oh, come on, Sam. Think of how great this is gonna be. I won’t have to fight ghosts anymore. Now we can all just be normal teenagers and hang out as much as we want.”

Just as I’d suspected. One big fat excuse to not care anymore. “Yeah, normal rocks.” And that was all I could take. I had to get out of there.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him. I just never expected it to be like this.

---

The next few days confirmed my worst fears. Even with Danny’s dad’s ghost portal destroyed, the ghosts kept coming, and Danny just couldn’t bring himself to care. As if somehow not having powers gave him a pass. Never mind that Tucker and I had been helping him for two years now, and we didn’t have powers. Never mind that Jazz had been helping before any of us knew she was helping, and she didn’t have powers. Never mind Danny’s parents, or Valerie, or hell, even Masters’ Blasters. Where was the guy who, after fighting his first ghost, said he knew what his powers were for? Where was the guy who took on things that were bigger and badder than himself because he didn’t want to see anyone else suffer? Where was the guy who was willing to stand up for the scary-looking girl with the shaved head just because it was the right thing to do? Where was that guy?

What really bothered me was that Danny knew what the ghosts were capable of. He knew what Vlad was capable of, that Masters’ Blasters were a sham, that everything was going to hell, and he was acting like without his powers, none of it had anything to do with him anymore. It really was like losing him. Like losing the person that had come to mean so much to me. Every time I saw him now, it was like a punch in the stomach. Almost like...

Almost like he was just a ghost of who he once was, and being around him was like... being haunted.

And he was just so danged smug about it, too. Look at me! See how normal I am! See how I don’t have to take responsibility for anything anymore? Aren’t I awesome?

I lasted about three days before I really lost it. Danny and Tucker were at my house watching some movie on cable when a news break came on. It was all about Masters’ Blasters and how Vlad had turned the whole thing into a giant protection racket and was extorting money from the people his Blasters had “saved” from the ghosts he’d probably sent after them in the first place.

And Danny’s response? He just leaned back like everything was fine and dandy. “Ah. This is the life. Just sitting around not fighting ghosts with my totally ordinary pals.” He turned to me. “Could you pass me a corn dog?”

Oh, I passed him a corn dog, all right. Shoved it right in that lazy, complacent face of his, then headed upstairs and out onto the front porch to get some air.

Unfortunately, Danny didn’t take the hint, and he followed me outside. “Sam! Wait! There’s no reason to get mad. The corn dogs are made of tofu.”

Corn dogs? Was he kidding me? “I’m not mad about corn dogs. You’re not you anymore. You’re just a normal kid. And a selfish one at that.”

“How am I selfish? Because I don’t want to endanger the people I care about the most?”

I wanted to shake him. “Danny, don’t you get it? Your powers gave you a chance to change things. A chance no one else had. And I was thrilled to be helping you. But now you’re just one of the crowd again.” Looking at him hurt, so I turned my back on him and sat down on the bottom step, hoping he’d just go away. What happened to you, Danny? Where’s the boy I... the boy I liked so much? Where’d you go?

He sat down beside me. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything! You got to fight ghosts after school, while other kids fought acne. And you don’t really seem to care about what you gave up!”

“I care! It’s just...” He faltered. “I care about you... and my family more.”

He still wasn’t getting it. Caring about just us wasn’t enough. I wanted back the person who cared about what was right. How could I make him see that? “When you had your powers, I knew that this town was protected from evil.” Across the street, a flash of red caught my eye, and I realized that Masters’ Blasters were there, extorting money from the owner of the little shoe shop across the street. Talk about a perfect visual aid. “But now? Who knows where we’re headed.”

I turned back to him, and it was like looking at a stranger. One way or another, I’m going to lose him. I felt sick, almost like... like I needed to break up with him. How’s that for irony? We’d never even gone out, never shared more than two fake-out make-outs and some meaningful glances that may or may not have all been in my head, but I felt like I was breaking up with him. What else could I say? Unless he woke up and started caring again, I’d already lost him.

“I’ll always be your friend, Danny. And I’ll always be there for you. But I can’t live life just sitting on the sidelines. I’m surprised you think you can.” And then, before I hurled in his lap, I got up and left him on my front porch and went back inside and downstairs to rejoin Tucker.

“Any luck getting through to him?”

I couldn’t answer. I just sat down beside Tucker and turned up the volume on the TV, hoping it could drown out the screaming in my heart.

---

I wasn’t sure if it was my lecture or something else, but something had changed the next time I saw him. For one thing, he seemed to be avoiding me. At first I thought it was because he just didn’t want me harshing his mellow or whatever, but after lunch the day after my tirade, I started hearing stories around school about how the Lunch Lady had shown up and Danny had made a fool of himself trying to stop her. With him avoiding me, however, I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it at school, so I was going to go over to his house and talk to him afterwards.

I never got the chance. I’d just finished my math homework and was getting ready to go over to Danny’s when the story came on the news. The world was going to end in a week.

After that, things were kind of a blur as the entire planet focused its attention on the asteroid hurtling toward us and tried to find ways to stop it. None of the ideas from the best and brightest minds from all over the world worked, though. Not even when Vlad threw money at FentonWorks and they sent Danny’s dad and Masters’ Blasters into space to try and blow the thing up.

And then things got really surreal. Vlad called a press conference, and instead of giving one of his usual self-serving political speeches, he actually revealed his ghost powers to the world, then proposed the ultimate protection racket. So long as every nation paid him a huge ransom and declared him their ruler, he would use his ghost powers to make the asteroid intangible.

It only took a day to throw everything together. Danny’s dad launched into space again, this time with Vlad. Danny’s mom had gone down to the launch site, but the rest of us were too frustrated to stand it, so we watched from the makeshift mission control Danny’s dad had set up in the basement lab at FentonWorks.

Well, I should say Jazz, Tucker, and I watched. Danny was taking everything pretty hard, blaming himself for not being able to stop Vlad. I knew it was partly my fault he was being so hard on himself. I’d never gotten the chance to really talk to him since the whole soapbox speech on my front porch. I’d resolved to make the time after the broadcast, but that got messed up, too, when it turned out Vlad wasn’t able to make the asteroid intangible after all. It was made out of something he called “ectoranium,” and ghosts weren’t able to touch it.

It was hard not to panic after that fiasco. Turning everything over to Vlad was bad, but the world leaders had done it because it was our last option. And now...?

Tucker was the one who put words to all our fears. “What are we going to do?”

“What if we didn’t make the asteroid intangible?”

Jazz, Tuck, and I turned around to see Danny coming down the basement steps. There was something different about him, something I hadn’t seen in him in weeks, since before all this mess with Masters’ Blasters started. Gone was the smug slacker attitude. Gone, too, was the remorse and depression that had replaced it. Instead, he looked...

He looked like Danny Phantom. I mean, not with the ghost powers. He still was human, with that weird white streak in his hair. But something in his eyes. Even human-blue instead of ghost-green, they still almost seemed to glow with a strength that came, not from ghost powers, but from knowing he was doing the right thing.

My heart felt like it was in my throat. He’s back. He’s back, and he knows what to do to make it all right.

Tucker sounded less convinced as he answered Danny’s question. “Then it would obliterate the Earth.”

“Not if we make the Earth intangible.”

Okay, that one took me off guard. Back was good, but back and crazy? “The whole Earth? Intangible? Are you kidding?”

Tucker agreed. “Yeah. You’d need, like, a bazillion ghosts to do that.”

But Danny never lost that look in his eyes, and his smile only widened as he pulled something out from behind his back. “Behold, the addresses of a bazillion ghosts.”

That’s when I realized what he was holding. The Infi-Map. Vlad had stolen it from Frostbite a couple of weeks ago in the escapade that had started the crisis with the asteroid in the first place. We’d gotten the map back, and Danny had said he was going to return it, but with everything that happened after that, he’d probably forgotten all about it until now.

This could work. This could actually work. And I couldn’t help but smile. The world wasn’t out of danger yet, not by a long shot, but I knew we had a chance. I wanted to kiss him. “Now that’s the Danny I know. So much for sitting on the sidelines, huh?

And just like that, the spark was back. Back in him, back between us, just back.

Tucker was being far more practical. “But how are we going to get into the Ghost Zone? Your portal’s ruined, and we’re never gonna get near Vlad’s place now that everyone knows who he really is.”

But Danny had already thought of that. “I’ve got that covered. Come on.”

---

He used the Infi-Map to find a natural portal. One of them was due to open up just a few minutes later in midtown. Sure enough, when we flew the Specter Speeder there, we found the portal right where the map said it would be, in the middle of a Nasty Burger billboard over the mouth of a guy about to take a big bite from one of their dead cow monstrosities.

Having found a way into the Ghost Zone, our next task was to find some ghosts, preferably some of the ones Danny already knew. At first, we had no luck. The place was freakishly empty. I was driving so that Danny could navigate, and he directed me in the direction of the Far Frozen with the hopes that Frostbite and his people would be there and would want to help.

Long before we got there, however, we spotted our first few ghosts. No one we knew, just a couple of those generic banshee-types we’d see around occasionally. Still, they were ghosts, and we were short on time. I was going to ask Danny if maybe we should follow them and try to recruit them to the cause, but before I even got the chance, something hit us. Hard. I was thrown from behind the controls as the Speeder tumbled into a tailspin. When it stopped and I could get myself back behind the controls, it was too late. We’d landed inside some sort of containment field and couldn’t move.

Jazz was the first to recover her voice. “What’s going on?”

“Foolish of you to come here in your human form, Ghost Child,” came a deep, familiar voice from outside the containment field. Skulker. “Seeking refuge in the Ghost Zone like all the others?”

Danny looked confused. The place had been virtually empty after all. “What others?”

“All these ghosts!” Skulker motioned behind him, and that’s when we saw the other ghosts. Mostly banshees again, but there were a lot of them. A huge amount, actually, like an army. I hadn’t seen that many ghosts in one place since the Ghost King’s skeleton army attacked Amity Park.

Skulker continued. “They’ve returned here because you humans put your world in danger. Now the Ghost Zone is bursting at the seams!”

Tucker shook his head. “But it’s the flip side of our world. If the Earth gets destroyed, the Ghost Zone goes, too.”

It should have been a no-brainer, but maybe I was giving Skulker too much credit, because he looked like this was news to him. Bad news. And he certainly wasn’t the type to be above shooting the messenger.

He pressed something in his belt buckle, and the Specter Speeder started vibrating at a high speed, like we were riding in some kind of giant sonic toothbrush. Danny managed to hit something on the dash, I’m not sure what, but the teeth-jarring vibrations stopped, and the containment field was gone. Not wanting to wait for a repeat performance, I stomped down hard on the accelerator, rocketing us away from Skulker and the banshees.

They were quick to follow, however, and as fast as the Speeder was, we couldn’t shake them. Not that many of them, anyway.

Danny had obviously come to the same conclusion. “You guys get into the escape pod.”

My heart froze in my chest even as Jazz and Tucker followed his instructions. The pendulum had swung back. Now, instead of shirking all responsibility, he was taking it all on by himself. All of it.

It was partly my fault, too, for pushing him. But this isn’t what I’d meant. I didn’t mean he had to do it alone, especially not without any ghost powers. “But Danny...”

Our eyes met and, this time, there weren’t any sparks. Just resolve in his and what I’m sure must have been sheer terror in mine. One way or another, you’re going to lose him. God, this wasn’t what I wanted! I didn’t want him to lose his soul, but I didn’t want him to lose his life, either. Why couldn’t he stop in the middle? Why was it always all or nothing with him?

But there was no arguing with him when he got like this. When he went to the lazy extreme, yes, I could argue all day. But not now, not when he looked like he was ready to take on the world. And if I even tried, I’d only waste our time and end up getting all of us killed.

So, against my better judgment, I did as he asked. I got up from behind the controls and he slid in to take my place while I ran for the escape pod after Tucker and Jazz. No sooner did the door close behind us when Danny must have ejected us, because we shot out and away from the rest of the Specter Speeder at a stomach-lurching speed.

Fortunately, Tucker and I had spent enough time in the Specter Speeder that we knew it like we knew our own laptops. Tucker reached over and slapped his hand down on a button that turned on the cloaking mechanism, which made us invisible to the ghosts. Then the three of us crowded around the pod’s small porthole to watch as the ghosts continued chasing after Danny.

For just a second, I thought maybe he was going to get away. Then, some sort of giant, hairy, red, caterpillar-looking thing (if caterpillars were roughly the size of the Empire State building, that is) got in Danny’s way and he crashed into its belly. The Speeder didn’t even scratch the creature, but Danny was dead in the water.

Emphasis on dead.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

I couldn’t stand to watch, not that we could see anything after Skulker and the swarm of ghosts that had been chasing Danny surrounded the Specter Speeder. Then, they started blasting.

“DANNY!” I threw myself against the porthole. God, please, no. They always just do the cat-and-mouse thing. They’re not really going to hurt him. Please, let him be okay, please don’t let them really hurt him...

I barely registered Jazz grabbing Tucker by the shirt behind me. “We have to do something, Tucker! There must be some weapons, something we can use—”

“I don’t know, Jazz! I—”

“You knew how to activate the cloaking! I know you guys have messed around with this thing way more than my dad even realizes—”

Outside, there was a blinding flash of light from the direction of the ghosts and the Speeder, and I screamed again. Jazz pressed in behind me. “What’s happening, Sam?”

I swallowed, trying to find my voice. “I think they just blasted apart the Specter Speeder!”

“Where’s Danny? Is he—?”

Another flash of light had me clawing at the porthole again, and then, there was nothing. No more fighting, no more ectoplasm, no more lights. Just... nothing. God, no, please no, he can’t be dead, please don’t let him be—

And then I heard a sound that made my heart stop beating. It started as a low sort of moan, then quickly rose to a fevered crescendo. I exchanged glances with Tucker, and I saw the hope in his eyes, mirroring my own. The Ghostly Wail. That’s Danny’s Ghostly Wail...

Before we could even process that, everything went completely to hell. A massive force, like a tidal wave, slammed into the side of the escape pod, hurling us back away from Danny and the ghosts. Tucker had the presence of mind to go for the control panel again and slammed his fist down on one of the buttons there. “Spectral Filter on!”

The filters in place, we could no longer hear the wailing, and our erratic backwards movement slowed, bringing us to a gradual halt. The three of us crowded around the portal again to see ghosts flying past us like they’d been blown back by a massive explosion.

Jazz was completely confused. “What’s happening?”

But I knew. And Tucker knew. I turned to him, my heart pounding hard enough to ring in my ears. “If he can do the Ghostly Wail, then...” I couldn’t bring myself to say what I hoped—what I knew —out loud. If he could do the Ghostly Wail, not only was he alive, he was a ghost again.

Danny Phantom was back.

Jazz was even more confused. “Ghostly what?”

But I didn’t want to get her hopes up. As soon as the last of the ghosts flew past us, Tucker turned off the Spectral filter and used the minimal controls the pod had to maneuver us back toward Danny.

And when I saw him, I almost cried. White hair, black jumpsuit, green eyes... Danny Phantom was back, and I’d never seen a more welcome sight in my entire life.

Behind me, Jazz sucked in her breath. “How on earth ...?”

I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. He was alive, and he was back. But Tucker started theorizing. “It must be like when Vortex blasted him and gave him weather powers. All that ectoplasmic energy must have jump-started his ghost powers. And doing the Ghostly Wail didn’t even drain all his energy and revert him back to human. Man.”

Good point, that. Usually, doing the Ghostly Wail took everything out of him. But he barely even looked winded. What the hell had happened out there? Had whatever the ghosts done to him not only brought back his powers, but somehow made him even stronger than he used to be?

Danny saw us then, and he started flying toward us. A laugh bubbled up in my throat... or maybe it was a cry. At that point, I didn’t even know which. “Danny! It’s you!” Oh, God, I was babbling like an idiot. Who else would it be? “Well, it was always you, but...”

He reached the pod and put his hand up to the porthole. “I know what you mean, Sam. Thanks.”

Even through three inches of plexiglass in the porthole, I could feel the sparks between us. I didn’t lose him. I didn’t lose him to the ghosts, and I didn’t lose him to the apathy. He was back, he was okay, and he was himself again. Not just the powers, but the person who cared. The person who wanted to save the world. The person I’d fallen...

My brain just kind of stopped after that. I was only dimly aware of the discussion going on between Jazz and Danny and Tucker about what to do next. All I knew was that everything felt right again. Well, except for the Earth-destroying asteroid headed our way. But we’d beat that. I was sure of it. It’s what we did, after all. And how could we fail, now that everything was back to normal?

Normal rocks.

Chapter 33: Ready: Danny

Ready
Danny

The closer we got to the asteroid’s impact, the more I felt like I just wasn’t ready. Not ready for the trip to Antarctica, not ready for the task of trying to drag a bazillion ghosts out of the Ghost Zone, and so not ready for the world to end.

Three days. That’s all that was left. How could I ever be ready for something like this?

The plan itself was simple enough—on paper anyway. My original idea had been to talk the ghosts into helping, and then using the Infi-Map to find portals all over the world so we could spread out and make the entire world intangible all at once.

When the ghosts refused to cooperate, however, we figured our only choice was to somehow make them help. Now that I had my powers back, I could trigger theirs with mine, forcing a sort of intangibility chain reaction. But there was a huge flaw with this plan. I’d need to have all the ghosts in one place to do that, and if we were all concentrated in one place, we’d never be able to spread the intangibility far enough to cover the whole planet.

It was Tucker who figured out the solution. Technology. If we could get the best engineers of the world to ban together and build an antenna at some central location, we could use technology to diffuse the ghosts’ power and spread it across the whole Earth.

The world was desperate, so it was willing to listen to a ghost and a couple of teenagers, and the plan was set into motion. We’d set up at McMurdo Station, a U.S. research base off the coast of Antarctica, just south of New Zealand. It was close enough to the South Pole to make it a good starting point for all the cables we’d need to lay across the surface of the planet, but far enough away to have temperatures humans could work in and at least a few hours of daylight a day, even though it was winter down there.

Tucker would lead the construction crew that would build the antenna and the engineers that would operate it from an existing control tower about seven or eight miles from the base itself. While they were doing that, my parents would lead a team of pilots who would lay the cables.

I had only one job. Capture the ghosts. All of the ghosts. A bazillion or so ghosts who were already furious with me and wanted nothing more than to spend their last moment of existence beating the snot out of me.

I was so not ready for this.

But the alternative was unthinkable. If I didn’t do it, the world would end. Game over. No driver’s license next month. No high school graduation in two years. No future at all. For anyone.

No future with Sam.

And there it was again. Even facing the end of the world, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Sam. And the real kick in the teeth was that, even when we were looking at maybe only having three days left of life on this planet at all, I still felt like I wasn’t ready, like it was just too soon.

Too soon if the world survived, but too late if it ended.

And which one it turned out to be depended upon me and my ability to drag a bazillion ghosts out of the Ghost Zone and force them to save the world against their will. No pressure or anything.

Have I mentioned how not ready for this I was?

There seemed to be a lot of that going around, too. Not being ready, I mean. We were supposed to be leaving for McMurdo Station in the Fenton Jet within the hour, but we were having technical difficulties. My dad had volunteered the jet for me—Danny Phantom, that is; he didn’t know it was his own son who’d dreamed up this crazy plan—to snare all the ghosts. Toward that end, he’d stripped it down to nothing but the engines and seats we needed to get a small group, made up of my family, Tucker and Sam, Valerie and her dad and, oddly, Mr. Lancer, from Amity Park to Antarctica.

The only other thing left onboard was an enormous Ghost Net he’d installed. This is what I’d be using to capture all the ghosts, like a fishing boat trawling for tuna. But he was having trouble getting the net to work right, and since that was sort of essential to the whole catching-a-bazillion-ghosts plan, it was kind of crucial that we got it up and running, and fast. Jazz and I were supposed to be picking Sam and Tucker up at Sam’s house in a few minutes, but my dad had asked me to help him, so I’d called Sam to tell them we’d be late before joining my dad in the cockpit to wrestle with the net controls.

The thing about working with my dad is that he’s chatty. Normally, it wasn’t a big deal. Even though it could lead to awkward moments, like on that fishing trip we took where he started asking me uncomfortable questions about Sam, I have to admit that I kinda liked helping him in the lab or the Op-Center and listening to his... let’s just say unique perspective on the world.

Today, however, I was in no mood for small talk or quirky stories about the 80s. It was all I could do to keep from throwing up all over the Fenton Jet just thinking about my chances of actually succeeding in rounding up all the ghosts and forcing them to turn the entire planet intangible. Sure, I’d beaten most of them individually, and even some of them in groups before, but all of them at once? When they were already looking to see my hide tacked up onto Skulker’s trophy room wall?

But if ever there was a failure-is-not-an-option scenario, this was it. The world would end if I failed. Period. That meant I’d have to succeed, whether I was strong enough to or not.

The weight of it all made me as jumpy as a squirrel jacked up on caffeine. When the third test of the net release resulted in the whole thing tangling into a massive knot that would have stymied the most diligent Eagle Scout, I threw my wrench across the fuselage and let out a string of words that, had I said them front of my dad under any other circumstances, would have gotten me grounded for at least a week.

Today, however, he just lay a gloved hand on my shoulder and, in a quiet voice I didn’t even know he could manage, told me, “It’s going to be okay, son.”

I jerked away from him. “Except for the part that if we don’t get this damned thing fixed, the world is going to end.”

As if my dire prediction were just teenage melodrama not worthy of his attention, my dad just leaned out the open door to look down at the roof of FentonWorks below us. The Fenton Jet was really just the converted Op-Center, so we were still up on the roof, and my mom and Jazz were on the rooftop outside, doing all the external repairs while my dad I worked in the cockpit. Hanging onto the door handle for balance, he cupped his other gloved hand around his mouth and called out to them. “Maddie, Jazz? See if you can get the net untangled! We’ll make a few adjustments in here and give it another go!”

I heard my mother’s voice shout back. “On it!”

Backing away from the door, my dad went to the tail end of the jet to retrieve my wrench, then came back to the flight deck and held it out to me. “The world’s not going to end, Danny.”

“It will if—”

He took my arm in a firm grasp and pulled it toward him, then placed the wrench in my open palm. “The world’s not going to end. This plan? It’s a good plan. It’s going to work.”

This surprised me, and I flushed with sudden pride. “You really think it’s a good plan? Even though it was thought up by a ghost?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. That Phantom punk is still a putrid protoplasm.”

Greeaaat. Should’ve quit while I was ahead.

“But his neck’s on the line, same as everyone else’s,” he continued. “And making the world intangible is a good plan, no matter where it comes from. It’s going to work, son. You’ll see.”

Putrid protoplasm crack notwithstanding, I couldn’t help but feel another surge of pride. It was my plan, and my dad thought it was a good one. Okay, so maybe my dad was kind of a crackpot who also thought building a misshapen hunk of metal that could convert from an Op-Center to a blimp to a jet onto the roof of our midtown row house was a good plan, but the thing did actually work which, I guess, made him something of a genius crackpot. And he thought my plan was a good one. Even though he didn’t know it was me and would just as soon tear Danny Phantom apart molecule by molecule as look at him. He thought it was a good plan anyway.

I closed my hand around the wrench and took it from him with a nod of acknowledgment as we turned back to the control panel. My dad showed me which bolt to tweak and how much to tweak it and, while we worked, he went back to chat mode. “So, since the world isn’t going to end, why don’t you fill me in on life? How’s the new school year going?”

It was nuts, talking about everyday stuff like school as if the world wasn’t in danger of ending. But I needed the distraction even more than he knew, so I played along. “It was going good, I guess. We only had, like, three days of school before they shut down because of the asteroid crisis, though.”

“And it’s, what, your second year of high school, right?”

“Um, it’s my third year, Dad. I’m a junior.”

“Right, right, a junior.” He slid down under the control panel—quite a feat, given his size—and popped open a panel. “I’m gonna check the wiring to the net release. Kill the power, and then when I tell you, start her up again.”

“Okay.” I moved into the pilot seat and the hit the switches to cut the power from the atomic batteries, then leaned back and waited for further instructions.

From under the console, my dad glanced up at me. “So tell me about your love life, then. How’s your little girlfriend doing?”

My stomach took an alarming dip. Through gritted teeth, I forced myself to answer. “I don’t have a girlfriend, Dad.”

He frowned, muttering something I couldn’t quite hear, and I dared to hope that the wiring had distracted him from this line of conversation. But after a second, he looked up at me again. “You and that Sam girl—”

“Are just friends.” I had to grip the sides of the pilot seat to keep from punctuating the assertion with a fist through the console.

“But you want to be more than friends, am I right?”

It was the Lake Eerie fishing trip all over again. Only this time, I wasn’t lucky enough for a ghost attack to interrupt us. So I did what I always did when someone asked me about Sam. I hedged. “I don’t know.”

“What’s to know? You either like her, or you don’t.”

“It’s complicated, okay, Dad? She’s my best friend.”

“And you’re afraid if she doesn’t feel the same way about you, it’ll mess up the friendship.”

He was hitting a little too close to the mark, and I found myself shuffling my feet back and forth under the pilot’s chair. “There’s that.”

“Well, maybe you don’t care what your old man thinks, but I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there. I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.”

My feet froze mid-shuffle, and I had that same mix of elation and sheer terror I’d had when I’d gone inside Sam’s dream and realized for the first time that maybe there was a possibility she thought of me as more than a friend, too. I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready...

I had to force myself to keep my voice causal so it wouldn’t squeak. “What makes you say that?”

Under the console, he shrugged. “Just the way you two are together. Like one plus one equals something a lot bigger than two.”

Maybe my dad was more observant than I ever gave him credit for. “Actually,” I said so softly I didn’t even know if he’d hear me, “I think that scares me even more than if she didn’t like me.”

He heard me, all right. Looking up at me from under the console, he studied me like I was a ghost he couldn’t quite get a handle on. “Why’s that?”

That’s when my reserve completely crumbled. For months, since the Gregor thing at least, but maybe even longer, I’d been keeping everything I was feeling about Sam all bottled up, not wanting to talk about it with anyone, not even Tucker, like talking about it would somehow make it real. Well, it was real, whether I talked about it or not, and I didn’t realize until that moment how badly I needed to just get it all out.

So out it came, pouring from me in a torrent. “Because it’s like you said. Like it’s bigger than just one plus one equals two. Like it can’t possibly be just some high school crush because how can you just crush on someone that’s already so important to you?”

His eyes widened, just a little, like he’d just found the last piece to a tricky puzzle, but his voice kept its casual, almost indifferent tone. “Are you in love with her?”

Panic exploded like a grenade in my chest. “I don’t know!” What I was feeling about Sam was big enough, but attaching those words to it? I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready...

Taking a breath, I tried to dial down the anxiety. “I just know I can’t afford to screw up, because I can’t imagine my life without her.”

My dad yanked a handful of wires out from under the console and began examining them. “Let me tell you a little secret, Danny. You’re going to screw up. Probably a lot, and especially with women, so get used to it. Look at me. If screwing up meant you can’t have a relationship with someone, you and your sister would never have been born.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. He did have a point.

“The thing about screwing up is, it’s not the screw-ups themselves that matter. It’s what you learn from them. But if you let fear of screwing up keep you from taking a few risks, you’ll never learn anything at all, and that’s no way to have a good life or a good relationship with someone.” He tweaked something in the wires he was messing with, then shoved them back under the console. “Okay, start her up.”

I hit the battery start-up and, immediately, sparks shot out from the console. My dad yelped and slid away, while I quickly turned the power off again. Rubbing his gloved hands together, he maneuvered himself back under the wiring panel. “Well, that wasn’t right. Let’s see what we have here. Oh, I see, the green wire, not the blue one!” And he went back to work on the mass of wires.

I sighed. “Clock’s ticking, Dad. We’ve only got three days to get up to Antarctica and have that tower up and running.” Not to mention I had to have a working jet and Ghost Net if I was going to have any hope of rounding up the ghosts and getting them to do their part.

He waved me off like a fly. “This’ll just take a sec, Danny-boy.”

I shook my head. Typical Dad. No matter what disaster looms, he just jumps right in and keeps plugging away until everything’s how it should be. Which, come to think of it, sort of illustrated the point he was trying to make. And it wasn’t far from the kind of stuff Sam had been saying about my ghost powers and not just sitting on the sidelines, either.

Still, the thought of actually acting on my feelings for Sam was almost paralyzing. “I get what you’re saying, Dad, it’s just... Sam isn’t like any other girl I’ve ever liked. She’s been important to me for a long time, so when I think of her, I don’t just think about going to the movies or having a date to the prom. When I think about me and Sam, I think about the future, and how much I want her to be a part of it. Which is crazy, I know, because we only both just turned sixteen.”

He didn’t look up at me from his mass of wires, but I could see his expression grow more thoughtful. “You know, I wasn’t much older than you when I met your mother. Eighteen, barely out of high school. But I knew the minute I saw her that she was the girl I was gonna marry.”

“Okay, but you didn’t propose to her when you were eighteen.” Then I thought about who I was talking to and added, “You didn’t, did you?”

He snorted. “Well, not in a way that she took seriously, anyway. Why? You’re not thinking about proposing to Sam, are you?”

It was a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything, because I would’ve spit it out all over the flight deck. “No! Of course I’m not thinking about proposing to her! We’re not even out of high school yet!”

“Good. So, if you’re not planning anything rash, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is, we’re barely sixteen. I should be thinking about movies and proms, not the future!”

He frowned and, for a minute, I thought he was distracted by the wiring again, but after poking at it a bit, he looked up at me again. “But isn’t sixteen exactly when you’re supposed to be thinking about the future? Isn’t this when you start figuring out what you want your future to be and what you need to do to make that happen?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“I’m not saying lock yourself into any one plan. That would be stupid. But, say you wanted to be a professional basketball player. You should go for it, if that’s what you really want.”

“You’ve obviously never seen me play basketball.”

“It’s just an example. If you wanted to be a professional basketball player, you’d want to do everything you could to make that happen, right? But if you’re smart, you wouldn’t do it in a way that cut off your other options, because you don’t know what the future will bring. Your life is going to change—you’re going to change—more over the next several years than in almost any other period of your life.”

Except for the last two years, where I got ghost powers, split myself in half, lost them, got them back again...

Of course, my dad didn’t know all that, and he wasn’t exactly wrong, either. “You can’t plan for all of them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make any plans. Life and relationships... well, they’re kind of like science.”

“Science?” I wrinkled my nose. “How are relationships like science?”

“Because in relationships and in science, you can’t just go at it blindly and hope for the best. You have to start out with a hypothesis. It might prove wrong, but that doesn’t make the hypothesis itself bad. In this case, your hypothesis is that Sam is the girl you could see yourself spending your life with. It’s a fine hypothesis, and it’s based on good, solid things you’ve already observed. You’ve known her a long time, you know how you two get along and how you relate to each other.” He grunted. “No, wait. The net shouldn’t be patched in through the landing gear...”

He fiddled with the wires a bit more before continuing. “But now you have to test the hypothesis. You have to do the experiment. You know how you are as friends, but how are you as a couple? What kinds of visions do you have for the future, and do they fit together? All this growing and changing you both are going to do in the next few years, will you grow together or grow apart? Only time will tell, but you have to run the experiment. And that means living life. It’s the only way you’ll ever know if your hypothesis is right or wrong.”

“And if it’s wrong?”

“A lot of hypotheses are wrong. That’s part of science. And life. A good scientist has to keep an open mind that his hypothesis might be wrong.”

I decided against pointing out that he hadn’t exactly kept an open mind about the possibility that his all-ghosts-are-evil-putrid-protoplasms hypothesis might be wrong. “But that’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want to be wrong.”

“No one wants to be wrong, Dan. But you can’t let fear of finding out you were wrong keep you from running the experiment in the first place. You just have to be careful at this stage to not do anything that locks you into any one path. And I do mean anything.”

His voice took on a note of warning and, as soon as I figured out what he was getting at, I could feel my cheeks burn. “Okay, Dad, I get it.”

“So, then, if your hypothesis does prove wrong, well, you just adjust and make a new hypothesis. That’s what experiments are for. That’s what life is for. But if you don’t get in there and do the experiment, you’ll never know.”

“But what if she is the girl I’m supposed to end up with, only I blow it by hooking up with her too early?”

“And what if you blow it by waiting too long, and she goes off with some other guy instead?”

Images of her kissing Gregor made an unwelcome return engagement in my brain. “Yeah, okay. That would be bad.”

“You’re going to make a lot of miscalculations in your life, son. A lot of your hypotheses are going to be proven wrong, especially about relationships. People change in ways you never expected. Or they might not be who you thought they were in the first place. But don’t ever let that stop you from living your life the best way you know how with the best information you have at the time.”

It took me a second to realize he wasn’t talking about Sam and me anymore. He was talking about Vlad. And for the first time, I really considered what the past few days must have been like for him. He’d really believed Vlad was his friend, that their relationship was solid and would always last. It would be like finding out Tucker not only hated my guts for years, but had betrayed me in every way possible and was an evil, sociopathic monster to boot. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around such a thought, it was so completely inconceivable.

That’s what my dad had thought about Vlad, too, and it had all been a lie.

What was worse was that I was complicit in that lie. I’d known for two years exactly who and what Vlad was, and I’d said nothing because exposing Vlad meant exposing myself. What must that have been like for him, to find out that one of the people he trusted most in the world had been deceiving him all along?

What would it be like for him to find out his own son was one of those people?

It’s not the same, I told myself. And Vlad was lying to him long before I was even born. But it didn’t ease the guilt that was now gnawing at my stomach.

And yet, here my dad had just found out every hypothesis he’d had about who one of the most important people in his life was and what they’d meant to each other wasn’t just wrong, but a complete and utter lie, and what was he telling me to do? To not be afraid to live life. His best friend turns out to be not just his enemy, but an insane megalomaniac bent on destroying everything he holds dear, and his response wasn’t to circle the wagons and guard his heart, nor to recommend that I do the same. It was to keep jumping in. Keep risking. Keep living and loving.

I don’t think I’d ever admired anyone as much as I admired my dad in that moment. “Maybe you’re right, Dad. ’Cause I don’t know anyone who’s lived life better than you have.”

He didn’t stop working, but I could see his lip twitch into a smile. “So, now it’s your turn. You might not know what’s coming next, but if you share the trip with someone you care about, you can find out together.”

The thought wasn’t any less terrifying. I didn’t even know if she really did have feelings for me or if it was all in my head, for one thing. But what if it wasn’t all in my head? What if she really did want me like I wanted her? Wouldn’t that be worth the risk?

“Okay, Jack!” my mom called from outside the cockpit. “The net’s untangled and reloaded.”

My dad shoved the wires back into the panel again. “All right. Let’s give it one more go. Turn on the juice.”

I cringed. “You sure? I don’t want to barbecue you.”

“Only way to know for sure is to crank her up.”

I nodded and flipped the switch to power up the batteries. This time, no spark. Dad hauled himself up from under the console and looked at the readings on the control panel. “So far, so good. Now let’s—”

“Whatever you have left, unless it’s about the plane actually flying, it’ll have to wait ’til we get to Antarctica.” My mom was standing on the ladder just outside the door now. “Damon Gray and his daughter just arrived, and Danny has to go pick up Sam and Tucker.” She nodded at me. “Jazz already went down to get her car.”

“Okay, Mom.” I got up and headed for the door but, as I reached it, I looked over my shoulder at my father. He smelled like ozone from the first attempt at starting up the batteries, and his face had some smudges of soot but, to me, it was just more evidence that he was never afraid to live life. My hand on the door handle, I smiled at him. “Thanks, Dad. For everything.”

He nodded. “You betcha. But don’t take too long picking up your friends. Wheels up in thirty minutes.”

“We’ll be back in fifteen.”

---

Jazz broke several traffic laws and probably a law of physics or two driving to Sam’s. I was out of the car before she’d even put it into park alongside the curb in front of Sam’s house. I knew Sam’s parents and grandmother weren’t home—she’d told me when I’d called earlier that her grandma had dragged both her parents to temple to pray for the world—so I didn’t bother knocking and just phased through the front door instead. When I didn’t see Sam and Tucker waiting for me in the foyer, I took the stairs two at a time up to Sam’s room.

“Hey Sam! Tuck! Anybody home?” I poked my head in her bedroom door. “What are you still doing up here? Jazz is waiting—” I stopped short. Sam’s suitcase was still open on her bed with her winter parka lying across it. “You’re not even packed yet? Sam, we’ve gotta go!”

“I’m packed. I just have to get this parka into the suitcase, and I’m good to go.” She bent over her suitcase and started trying to squeeze her too-big coat into it.

“You need some help with that?” I stepped up across the bed from her and leaned my weight down on the suitcase so she could close it. As she pulled on the zipper, her hand brushed against mine, sending another one of those sparks up my arm and down my spine. Our eyes met, just for a moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe my dad was right. Maybe she did feel the same way about me as I did about her, and maybe it was time for me to do something about it.

Then, the moment was gone, and we both turned away as Sam finished zipping up the bag. When she was done, I grabbed its handle and hoisted it off the bed, trying to pretend nothing had happened, and trying not to think about my dad’s advice. “That it? You ready?”

She tilted her head, giving me a strange look. “Yeah, actually. I think maybe I am.”

I frowned, trying to figure out what that look meant, but then I brushed it off. We’d have plenty of time later. If we got to Antarctica and made it through the whole asteroid-crashing-into-the-world thing, that is. “Okay, let’s get going then. My dad wants to take off in half an hour.”

“Don’t mind me. I can get my own bag.”

Tucker was standing behind Sam, I realized. Until he’d spoken, I hadn’t even noticed he was there. “Oh, Tucker. Yeah.”

Rolling his eyes at me, he came around the bed and picked up his duffel bag, which was sitting on the floor by the door. Sam followed after him and, on her way out the door, took a moment to put a hand on his arm. “Thanks for… helping me pack, Tuck.”

Once again, I got the feeling I’d missed something, a feeling Tucker confirmed when he grabbed my elbow as soon as Sam was out of earshot and hissed in my ear. “You so owe me, dude.”

I frowned. “For what?”

“For being grating and pig-headed.”

“Huh?” Talk about a non sequitur. I’d definitely missed something.

He laughed at me. “Never mind. Let’s just go save the world.”

I bit back a sigh. Whatever lame joke he was pulling would have to wait, too. “Just tell me you’ve got everything and we can go straight back to my house. We’ve gotta get the show on the road.”

“I’m ready if you are.”

I looked ahead, where Sam was disappearing down the stairs. “Yeah. I think I’m ready.”

 

Chapter 34: Ready: Sam

Ready
Sam

The closer we got to the asteroid’s impact, the more I felt like I just wasn’t ready. Not ready for the trip to Antarctica, not ready for everything we had to accomplish once we got there, and so not ready to watch Danny go back into the Ghost Zone to try to single-handedly round up every ghost that he ever fought and that ever hated his guts and wanted to destroy him so he could force them to help him save the world.

It’s funny how that’s what bothered me about this whole plan. Not the possibility that the world would end if it failed, no. It was the image of Danny going off into the Ghost Zone and never coming back that plagued my thoughts every waking minute since he and Tucker concocted this plan.

Actually, the plan itself was pretty good. Since the ghosts were refusing to cooperate, Danny was going to make them help. Now that he had his powers back, he had the ability to force other ghosts to go intangible. The problem was, in order to do that, he’d have to have all the ghosts in one place. That’s where the rounding them all up came in. But with all the ghosts in one place, they wouldn’t be able to spread the intangibility far enough to affect the whole world.

Then, Tucker came up with the idea of building an antenna at some central location, with cables laid out across the planet. Danny would nab the ghosts, bring them all to the antenna, trigger their combined intangibility power, which the antenna would then spread across the whole Earth and voila! The asteroid passes through us.

Simple enough, I guess, and I believed it could work. It was our last shot, so it had to work. But still, all I could see when I closed my eyes or stopped for even a minute was Danny flying off to round up the ghosts and never coming back.

It was crazy, I knew, being more afraid for Danny than I was for the world. If he didn’t come back, my personal loss would be kind of a moot point, since his failure meant the entire world was doomed. I knew that, and it’s not like I didn’t care. It was just such a huge concept, the idea of all life as we know it ending, that I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

But Danny in danger? That was all too easy for me to conceptualize.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

It didn’t help matters that I knew it was partially my fault that he was putting himself on the line. I’m the one who’d gotten mad at him when he’d stopped caring. I’m the one who’d insisted he get involved and do what was right. I knew him well enough to know that there was no middle ground with him, that if he took on any responsibility he’d take on all of it, and I’d made my choice. I’d basically told him taking all of it was better than taking none, so whose head would it be on if he failed?

In this case, however, he did have to take it all on, or at least the forced-intangibility part. There literally was no one else. No one else in the entire world who could do what he could do, so that was that.

Of course, it sure would’ve helped matters if the ghosts would just suck up and pitch in of their own accord, what with their own afterlives being as much on the line as human lives were. But ghosts were creatures of obsession, and if they were obsessed with painting Danny as the source of all their ills, they would continue to paint him that way, even if it meant their destruction as well. And so, Danny would go after them, because he had to, never mind that every single one of them would like nothing more than to spend their last moments in existence beating the snot out of him.

I was so not ready for this.

So, when Danny called to say they were running late because the Ghost Net wasn’t working right with the Fenton Jet, I was kind of glad for the extra time. It meant I could take longer to pack, and so long as I was packing, so long as I had to think about whether this skirt or that shirt should stay or go, then I didn’t have to think about every creature in the Ghost Zone surrounding Danny and venting their rage at their impending destruction...

Tucker, however, didn’t quite see the delay as a good thing. When he arrived at my place and saw that I still had my suitcase open on my bed and only half-filled, he about had kittens. “What? You’re not even done packing yet? Danny and Jazz are picking us up any minute!” He dropped his duffel bag on the floor next to my bedroom door, and it landed with a loud thud. Clearly it was heavy on the tech and light on clothes.

Ignoring him, I continued with my methodical examination of two shirts. So long as I was thinking about shirts, I couldn’t think about asteroids and ghosts and Danny going off into the Ghost Zone alone—

Shirts. I’m packing shirts. No need to rush, no hurry, no worries... “Actually, Danny just called to say they’re running a little late. His dad is having trouble getting the Ghost Net to work right after he stripped down the Fenton Jet, so Danny’s helping him. He said he and Jazz will come by and get us as soon as he’s done. He’s hoping it won’t be more than another fifteen minutes or so.”

“Oh, yeah, no rush. It’s not like the world’s gonna end in three days or anything. Oh wait. It totally is.” Tucker flopped himself into my desk chair, annoyed.

“Oh, keep your shirt on. We’re talking fifteen minutes here. And since we weren’t able to talk the ghosts into helping, the Ghost Net is kinda crucial.” Because if it doesn’t work... No. Shirts. We’re just doing shirts. I held up the two I was considering for Tucker to see. “Which one should I bring?”

“They’re exactly the same! And Mr. Fenton shouldn’t have wasted time stripping down the Fenton Jet in the first place.”

“And lug their entire Op-Center all the way to Antarctica? They needed to make it as light as possible, since Danny will be dragging back a few tons of ghost.” Shirts, we’re packing shirts...

Tucker, however, wasn’t interested in shirts. “How is it that ghosts weigh anything, anyway?”

Okay, this I could do. This was science, right? Cold, objective science. “When they’re not intangible, they must have mass. Danny does, right? And Skulker’s suit alone is probably three hundred pounds.” Having stalled on the shirts as long as I could, I chose one at random and tossed it into my suitcase. Now what? “How about skirts?”

“It’s the South Pole, Sam. You might wanna think long pants and thermal underwear.”

“I’ll be wearing them over my thermal ski leggings, lamebrain. And it’s not the South Pole. It’s McMurdo Station on the coast.”

“Same diff.”

“Were you even paying attention when we planned this? It’d be kinda hard to run everything out of the actual South Pole, since it’s, like, ninety-seven degrees below zero and the sun won’t come up for another month. The sun’s already up at McMurdo for, like, four or five hours a day, and it’s a lot warmer there. I just checked the weather online, and the highs have only been a few degrees below zero all week. Thank you, global warming.” Logistics, weather, the environment. I can do this.

“Oh yeah, three below—that’s almost tropical.”

“Compared to ninety-seven below it is.” I threw both skirts on top of the shirt.

Tucker leaned back in my desk chair. “So what about your folks? Are they really okay with you going all the way to the South Pole?”

“McMurdo Station. And are you kidding? Antarctica with the Fentons? Please. They had a cow. Danny was just gonna overshadow them and be done with it, but then my grandma got involved, and she was awesome. She actually started chewing them out. Told them they should be proud of me for helping to save the world. Then she made them go with her to temple for a special prayer service.” I couldn’t help but smile at the very idea. “My parents in temple on a non High Holy Day, praying for Danny Phantom. Can you imagine?”

“Your grandma rocks.”

“She totally does. If it weren’t for her, I’d be absolutely positive I was abducted as a baby.” That topic exhausted, and my clothes pretty much packed, I needed to find the next distraction. My parka, where did I put that? In the closet....

As slowly as I could, like the nuns in The Sound of Music making their way to the gate to let in the Nazis, I headed to my closet and dug deep in back, where my winter clothes were, looking for my parka. “How about your parents?” I called back to Tucker. That was a safe topic. “I guess they couldn’t make too big a fuss, seeing as you’re a pretty key player in the whole save-the-world plan.”

Even without looking, I could tell by his voice that his chest was puffed out a mile at me calling him a key player. “Yeah. My mom did the whole ‘my baby’ crying thing and all that, but they didn’t tell me I couldn’t go or try and talk me out of it or anything.”

“Actually, I’m surprised they aren’t coming with. I mean, my family can’t, because there’s no way my grandma could handle the environment, but most families want to be together with everything that’s… well, you know.”

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

Parka, you’re looking for your parka...

“Just in case, you mean.”

Okay, Tucker was so not getting the rules of the game. I found my parka and pulled it off the hanger, then emerged from my closet to face him. “It’ll work, Tuck,” I told him in my best don’t-even-try-to-argue-with-me voice.

“Yeah, it will.” He jerked his head in a nod. “Anyway, my parents have decided to go to Mount Rushmore. A lot of ground support is needed where the cables are gonna be laid, so they both volunteered for that.”

That was something I’d never considered, Tucker’s parents pitching in somewhere else. “That’s really cool! I knew I liked your parents.”

“But you know who is going with us?”

Okay, now he was onto a topic I wanted to discuss possibly even less than I wanted to discuss Danny going after all the ghosts. “I know. Valerie and her dad. Imagine my joy.”

“Well, yeah, of course they’re coming. Axion’s supplying a huge amount of the equipment, and Mr. Gray is one of their top tech guys. And Val’s not so bad with the tech herself. That suit of hers is pretty high end. But that’s not who I’m talking about—and if you think you’re unhappy about Val coming…”

I could feel my stomach lurch as a noxious thought occurred to me. “If you say Paulina, I’m gonna hurl.”

“I wish! No, it’s Lancer.”

That was unexpected. “Lancer? Why’s he coming? So if this doesn’t work, he can bore us to death with nineteenth century poetry and save the asteroid the trouble?”

“Would you believe it was our presentation? Said it inspired him. He’s gonna just go and do whatever grunt work needs to be done. And I guess he used to be a short order cook or something.”

“Another reason why it pays to be an Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian. I’m packing my own food.”

“Is it too late to convert?”

“You’d have to eat vegetables, Tuck.”

And thus ended Tucker’s flirtation with vegetarianism. “On second thought, I’ll take my chances with Lancer’s cooking. If we survive the hours crammed into the Fenton Jet with him first.”

“If the world doesn’t end, we’ll be wishing it had.” So long as I can joke about it, the world won’t end and Danny will be fine. Just concentrate on packing, and everything will be fine.

I tossed the parka toward my bed, but it was heavier than I thought, and my aim was way off. Instead of landing anywhere near the bed, it swept across my dresser, knocking over my jewelry box, spilling rings and studs and chains of varying degrees of goth-ness all over the floor. “Oh, crap!” I picked up the parka, got it onto the bed this time, then knelt down to start picking up the jewelry. Jewelry is good. Focus on the jewelry...

Tucker, however, continued his stubborn refusal to cooperate with my stalling plan. Getting up from my desk chair, he came around the bed and knelt down beside me. “I’ll get this. You finish packing.”

Without a reasonable excuse to object, I nodded and went back to the bed to try to stuff my parka into my suitcase. It was a little thick for my small-ish bag and, after a few seconds of wrestling with it, I stood back to consider whether I needed to just get a bigger suitcase.

Before I made up my mind, however, Tucker interrupted. “So, Sam. Isn’t this Danny’s dad’s class ring?”

Oh, great. I’d forgotten about that ring, the one Danny had asked me to hold for him after Valerie dumped him. And now Tucker was bound to turn it into a thing. Just what I needed, Tucker hassling me about Danny.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

As casually as I could manage, I looked over my shoulder, as if I needed to see the ring to know what he was talking about. “Yep.”

“The one he was gonna give Valerie? To ask her to be his girlfriend?”

“That’s the one.” Take a hint, Tuck.

“And you have it because…?”

As if Tucker had ever in his life taken a hint. Abandoning the nonchalant approach, I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “He asked me to hang onto it after Valerie dumped him.”

He arched an eyebrow at me. “He asked you to ‘hang onto it?’”

Oh, Lord, he really was going to make this difficult. “Yes, Tucker. He asked me to hang onto it for him. That’s it. So don’t go there, okay?” I punctuated that by turning my back on him to make another stab at getting the parka into the suitcase. End of discussion.

For a brief, blissful moment, I thought maybe he would drop it, but I should have known better. He gave it maybe thirty seconds, forty-five, tops, before he started in again. “So, Sam. With the world maybe ending and all that, don’t you think it might be a really good time to have a little talk with Danny?”

“Shut it, Tucker.”

“I mean it, Sam. How many times have we been through this? How many times have we watched him almost get himself killed, and you won’t say anything? Are you really gonna let the world end without telling him?”

I attacked the parka with renewed vigor. “The world’s not gonna end, Tucker. That’s the whole point of this little excursion, right?”

“Okay, so the world’s not gonna end. All the more reason to tell him.”

I closed my eyes, my hands gripping the slick fabric of the parka. It was useless, like trying to stuff such a large jacket into such a small bag. Useless to pretend I didn’t feel what I felt, and useless to pretend Tucker didn’t know. The way Danny and I had been dancing around... something ever since Nocturn had made us share the same dream about each other...

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

No. It was crazy to get my hopes up. It was probably all just raging hormones. What would talking about it accomplish? So, turning around to face Tucker, I put the question back on him. “For what? So he can talk himself into going out with me just because he can? No thanks.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s a sixteen-year-old boy, and not exactly in touch with his feelings.”

Rolling his eyes, Tucker flashed a snarky grin at me. “This is true. He really is clueless. That’s why you have to make the first move.”

“I don’t think so. He needs to figure out what he wants on his own. I can’t decide for him, and I don’t wanna be the girl he’s marking time with until something better comes along, like a Paulina, or a Valerie—”

“Whoa!” Tucker threw up his hands as if I were a horse that had just been spooked. “Where’s this coming from? Since when do you think Paulina is better than you?”

“I don’t think she’s better than me, but Danny does.”

He blinked, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Are you kidding me with this?”

“Come on, Tuck. I’ve been friends with him long enough to know his type, and I’m not it.”

“Have you completely not been paying attention the last few months? Seriously, Sam, when was the last time he even mentioned Paulina?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but realized I didn’t really have an answer for that. When was the last time Danny had mentioned Paulina? When he was judging that stupid beauty pageant? No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d relished hanging his judgeship over her head, but not any more than any other girl at school. In fact, the last time he’d really mooned over any specific girl had been Valerie.

“I guess he hasn’t really talked about her much since he started liking Valerie,” I admitted. She was slightly better than Paulina, granted, except for the whole wanting-to-kill-him thing.

“Okay. And when was the last time he mentioned Valerie?”

This was getting ridiculous. “I don’t know, Tuck—”

“Well, I do. I remember the exact moment. It was the beginning of last school year. We were at the Nasty Burger, and he was all making goo-goo eyes at her while she worked behind the counter.”

“Thank you for that joyous journey down memory lane. Your point?”

He stroked his chin in mock concentration. “Let’s think a minute. What could have happened, like, say, twenty seconds later that just might have made him forget Valerie ever existed? Something like, oh, I don’t know, some fake foreign exchange student putting the moves on his best girl friend?” He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow like he’d just scored the final point in a tennis match.

As if talking about my feelings for Danny wasn’t bad enough, Tucker just had to go and bring up that humiliating debacle. “Ugh! Do not even mention that loser to me. And I don’t see what that whole mess has to do with anything.”

“Hello! Danny going completely mental? Using his ghost powers to spy on you? That ringing any bells?”

“So he went all protective big brother. He did the same thing with Jazz when Johnny 13 was hitting on her.”

“Big brother? I don’t think so. He was jealous, Sam. It made him absolutely nuts that someone else went out with you. That someone else kissed you. And he hasn’t given Valerie or Paulina or anyone else a second thought since then. He likes you. You like him. So one of you has to make a move already!”

My heart started pounding. Could Tucker be right? Could that whole snit fit about Gregor have been jealousy? That was before the Nocturn dream, too. What if that dream had been his dream after all? Was it even possible that there was something more than hormones going on between us?

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

I so couldn’t do this. Not now, not when he was facing some serious danger. Turning my back on Tucker, I went after my parka again, determined to get it inside and shut the lid once and for all. “Tucker, can we just drop it already?”

Behind me, he huffed out a breath in frustration, and I thought he was finally going to give up, but after a minute or so, he asked me, “Hey Sam. Did you know there’s engraving on this ring?”

“Huh?” Now what was he up to? Then I remembered, and it was a safe enough topic. “Oh, yeah. ‘Wes.’ I figure Danny’s dad must’ve bought it used or something.”

“‘Wes?’ What are you talking about?” Tucker joined me next to my bed, holding out the ring for me to see. “It doesn’t say ‘Wes.’”

“Yes it does.” I took it from him. “Look.”

He squinted at it, then rolled his eyes at me. “Uh, you’re holding it upside down.” Taking the ring from me, he flipped it over, then placed it back in my palm. “Look again.”

To humor him, I looked at the ring again.

And almost dropped it when I saw what it said.

Not Wes. The ring said Sam. My name. Danny’s ring, the one he wanted to give to the girl he liked, had my name engraved into it. I looked back up at Tucker, trying to make sense out of my name being engraved into that ring. “I-it must be a coincidence. I mean, Sam’s not exactly an unusual name.”

He looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet. “It’s Danny’s ring, and it has your name engraved in it. That doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me.”

But it didn’t make any sense. He’d been about to give that ring to Valerie. “So you’re telling me he was gonna give Valerie a ring with my name engraved in it?”

Tucker smiled. “But he didn’t give it to Valerie, did he? He gave it to you.”

This was crazy. It couldn’t possibly mean what Tucker thought it meant. “He asked me to hang onto it for him because she dumped him. That’s not the same thing.”

“You have it, and it has your name in it, Sam. If you were waiting for an engraved invitation, this is it. Literally.”

I stared at the ring. The shared dream. Those strange, electric moments between us. Was it even possible? What if Danny really did have feelings for me? What would happen then? I could barely breathe, and suddenly it was impossible to speak above a whisper. “It’d change everything.”

“Yeah, but in a good way, right?”

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

I looked at Tucker. “But everything works the way it is now. You and me and Danny. We’ve got the whole thing down to a science, and it always works. If we change everything—”

He frowned. “You’re not worried about me being the third wheel, are you?”

“I’m worried about everything! If everything stays the same, then… everything stays the same. As soon as it changes, as soon as it becomes real and I let myself think about how much it…” No. I had to stop dancing around the truth. “How much he matters, then that’s when Fate’s gonna lay the smackdown and…” I swallowed, putting my worst fears into words. “Tucker, what if he doesn’t come back?”

“Well, in this case, we won’t have long to miss him.”

“I’m serious!”

“You’re delusional! Do you really think you’re some kind of star-crossed lovers doomed to a tragic end? Bleak, much?”

“Hello! Goth!”

He made a derisive sound at the back of his throat. “Goth or not, you’re the one who keeps saying this is gonna work, that the world’s not gonna end. That kind of implies he makes it back, right? And you’re also the one who got all over his case when he gave up his powers.”

That hit too close to home. “You think that means I don’t get the risks he takes? Or that I don’t care? You know as well as I do that it’s all or nothing with him. He’s either out risking his neck for somebody else or he’s a completely self-focused jerk. How many times have we seen it happen?” I ticked off the examples on my fingers. “When he split himself with the Ghost Catcher, when he got all that money from his parents selling out FentonWorks, and now when he gave up his powers. I can’t stand by and watch him lose his soul just because I’m afraid of him losing his life.” One way or another, you’re going to lose him. “But if I tell him… if everything changed… what if that’s when he doesn’t come back?”

Tucker sighed, and this time it was more sad that mocking. “Do you honestly think it would hurt any less if you just stayed friends?”

I could feel every wall inside me crumble. That’s really what all my fears boiled down to, wasn’t it? Not some crazy, magical belief that I could keep him safe if I’d give up any chance of a relationship with him. Not some sort of self-flagellation that this was my punishment because I’d been the one who’d talked him into getting his ghost powers—three times, now. No. It was all about protecting myself. As if, somehow, staying just friends would dull the pain if one day he went off to fight some ghost and didn’t come back.

But that was an even bigger lie than all the other excuses I’d concocted to put a wall between us combined. If I ever lost him—really lost him, not just to another girl or to his occasional bouts of jerkiness, but if the ghosts just got the best of him one day, there wasn’t a thing on this planet that could dull that pain, no matter how platonic I told myself our relationship was. “No. It wouldn’t.”

He leaned toward me, a conspiratory grin on his face. “Then give him something he’ll really want to come back for.”

“Argh, Tucker! You are so—”

“Right? Persistent? Devilishly handsome?”

I rolled my eyes. “I was thinking more along the lines of grating and pig-headed.” He was right, though. And probably the only person on Earth who could really understand. On impulse, I reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace. “What would I do without you?”

“Schlep after Danny with a Fenton Thermos all by yourself.”

I pulled back, horrified by the thought. “No thanks. We’re in this together.”

“That mean you’re gonna tell him?”

He really wasn’t going to give up, was he? “I—”

“Hey Sam! Tuck! Anybody home?”

It was Danny out in the hallway. I’d almost forgotten he was coming to pick us up. Closing my fist around the ring, I stuck my hand behind my back just before he poked his head in the door. “What are you still doing up here? Jazz is waiting—” He stopped short when he saw the still-unpacked suitcase on my bed. “You’re not even packed yet? Sam, we’ve gotta go!”

“I’m packed. I just have to get this parka into the suitcase, and I’m good to go.” I went back to the bed and, while I was wrestling with the coat, I slipped the ring into one of its pockets. Tucker had said I should give him a reason to come back. Well, if me lying about my feelings for him couldn’t be a talisman to keep him safe, maybe the ring could. Maybe that would be reason enough for him to come back.

“You need some help with that?” And then, Danny was across the bed from me, leaning on the top of the suitcase so I could zip it closed. As I tugged on it, my hand brushed against his, and the air crackled between us. Our eyes met, just for a moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Tucker was right. Maybe he did feel the same way about me as I did about him, and maybe it was time for me to do something about it.

Then, the moment was gone, and we both turned away. I finished zipping up the bag, and Danny pulled it off the bed for me. “That it? You ready?”

I considered the question, Was I ready? Was I really ready? My eyes flicked to Tucker for a moment before focusing back on Danny. “Yeah, actually. I think maybe I am.”

Notes:

You can find Tucker's perspective on his conversation with Sam in my fic Tales from the Phantom Planet, "The Third Wheel's Tale."

Chapter 35: Kiss: Danny

Notes:

Once again, I’m to a moment in Danny’s and Sam’s relationship that is fairly crucial, but it’s also one I’ve pretty thoroughly covered in Tales from the Phantom Planet, particularly Danny’s point of view on their first kiss, and Sam’s point of view on their second. I tried not to repeat old ground as much as possible, so if anything feels a bit glossed over, check out Tales, particularly chapters 5-10, which cover pretty much all the events touched on in the next two chapters here.

Kiss
Danny

Not even two fake-out make-outs could have prepared me for what it would be like to kiss Sam for real.

I hadn’t planned to kiss her, at least not at that exact moment, just before leaving to go after all the ghosts. The last thing I wanted was for it to seem like some sort rash impulse because the world was going to end and I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences. For me, kissing her was anything but rash and impulsive.

But she’d surprised me, first by producing my dad’s class ring, which I’d forgotten she had, and then by telling me she knew about her name engraved into it—another little detail I’d forgotten. What really threw me, though was when she gave the ring back to me as sort of a good luck charm to take into the Ghost Zone.

Take it with you, but promise to bring it back, she’d said. If you promise, then I know I’ll see you again.

The fact that she wanted it back gave me just enough courage to tell her we needed to talk when this whole asteroid crisis was over. I would have left it at that, but she launched into this speech about this “whole ride we’ve been on together” and how she wouldn’t change a thing, and when I tried to tell her I felt the same way, she surprised me yet again by kissing me on the cheek.

It wasn’t a romantic kiss. I could have been her brother, it was such a chaste good-bye-and-good-luck kiss. But it was still a kiss. From Sam. Which meant, cheek kiss or not, my heart was doing about three-sixty and threatening to bust right through my rib cage.

When she pulled away, she looked so embarrassed, like she’d gone too far or admitted too much, I had to let her know she hadn’t gone too far at all, that I wouldn’t change anything either. Cupping her chin in my hand, I tilted her face up so that her eyes would meet mine, and when they did... It was like every electric moment that had ever sparked between us, from that first freshman dance to the last look she’d given me a few hours ago before going off to grab a nap because she hadn’t slept in the three days since we’d arrived in Antarctica, all rolled into one massive lightning bolt blast that took my breath away.

The next thing I knew, I was kissing her. And it was amazing. I’m talking spine-melting, synapse-frying, not-sure-I’ll-get-my-brain-functioning-ever-again-but-who-the-hell-cares awesome. And I’d been putting this off why?

The only bad thing was that it was over much too soon, and I had to leave to go round up the ghosts and save the world. But as soon as I got back, we were so going to have a long talk.

Or maybe a short talk. Because right then, I could think of a lot better things we could be doing with our lips.

---

It didn’t exactly work out that way I’d planned. First of all, rounding up all the ghosts was kind of a bust. The net worked fine and all—until Skulker blasted the Fenton Jet with his wrist-mounted ecto-gun, freeing the net and triggering the auto-eject, which sent me flying out of the plane just as I was about to pilot it back through the portal and to the base in Antarctica.

Then there was the whole every-ghost-who-ever-hated-my-guts-free-now-and-all-in-one-place-ready-to-pulverize-me thing. I thought I was dead, and maybe I would have been, if reason hadn’t finally prevailed. The ghosts didn’t want to be destroyed any more than the humans did so, after kicking me around a bit for fun, they agreed to come back and help.

On the upside, the intangibility plan itself worked brilliantly. Tucker’s antenna transferred all our combined powers to the cables, which spread them across the whole planet just as the asteroid entered our atmosphere. It phased right through us and, once it was passed and we let the world become solid again, it was as if we had never been in danger at all. The world was safe, and all that was left was to find Sam and do a little celebrating.

Except that’s when everybody who was there at that antenna, some eighty people including the Grays, Mr. Lancer, and my parents, found out my identity. It was Jazz’s fault—she’d told Mom and Dad the truth when the Fenton Jet returned without me and they thought we were all doomed. I couldn’t blame her, really. It was something they should know if they only had thirty seconds left to live. Only, now that they probably had a good thirty to fifty years left, it made things a little complicated for me.

This, of course, meant that I did have a very long talk after returning and saving the world after all. It just wasn’t with Sam.

---

It was dark and silent in our McMurdo Station dorm room when I woke up. Which didn’t tell me much, since it was dark here about twenty hours a day this time a year, and I had ear plugs in my ears as refuge against my dad’s snoring. And, judging by the vibrations I could feel in the bunk below me, he was still going at it.

A check of my watch confirmed that it was very early. A little before three in the morning, to be exact. That meant my parents had known I was a ghost for about twelve hours now, and all my molecules where still where they belonged.

Truth be told, it was a relief, them knowing. And they were really cool about it for the most part. We’d talked for several hours before exhaustion and a massive post-adrenaline crash knocked us all out, so I’d been asleep for maybe four or five hours tops and could probably use a few hours more. My brain had other ideas, however. The moment I opened my eyes, it was already going on overdrive.

In the past twenty-four hours, I’d saved the world, my parents had found out I was a ghost, and I’d kissed Sam.

Kissing Sam. There was a thought that wasn’t likely to make me feel drowsy anytime soon. But that was fine by me. Replaying every last detail in my head was way better than sleep anyway.

At least until the doubts started creeping in. The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if I hadn’t misread the situation completely. Sure, she’d given me the ring as a sort of token and made me promise to bring it back, but it was my ring, after all, and she never said to bring it back to her. Just back. And that speech about not wanting to change anything could have been her idea of a gentle letdown. Yeah, okay, I get what you want to talk about when you get back, but let’s not change anything, okay? We’re fine just the way we are.

And what about that kiss on the cheek? I’d seen her kiss her grandmother like that. It might not have meant anything close to what I wanted it to mean. Not that she’d exactly complained when I upped the ante, but since I was going off to single-handedly face about a bazillion of my arch-nemeses in order to save the whole world, it’s not like she would have picked that moment to give me the it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech. Maybe she’d just been throwing me a bone until I came back safe.

The more I went over it in my mind, the more it began to gnaw at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I definitely wasn’t going to get any more sleep no matter how long I stayed in this bunk staring at the ceiling, so I pulled the earplugs out of my ears, then phased through the bunk because it was easier and quieter than climbing down the ladder, and it wasn’t like there was anyone here to keep the secret from anymore anyway.

I started to go toward the door, intending to phase through that, too, but I stopped when I saw my suitcase lying on the floor next to the bunk my dad and I were sharing. My dirty t-shirt and jeans were lying inside-out on top of the other clothes that I’d never gotten around to wearing because I’d spent the bulk of my time in ghost form since arriving here. But when I saw the jeans, I remembered something. Retrieving them off the suitcase, I pulled the legs through until they were right side-out again, then reached into the right front pocket. I better not have lost it...

And there it was. My dad’s class ring. Once it was clear of the pocket, I dropped the jeans back on the floor, then phased through the door and out into the hallway.

The place was so quiet it was almost eerie. Considering the hour and the fact that no one in this dorm had slept much over the past three days, it wasn’t surprising. After a quick trip to the bathroom down the hall, I stepped back into the corridor to figure out what to do next. Going back to bed didn’t seem like an option, not with the way my brain was going a hundred miles an hour. So I just leaned against the wall and, opening my palm, I looked at the ring.

Take it with you, but promise to bring it back. If you promise, then I know I’ll see you again.

What did that mean, though? Was it just a good luck token because she cared about me as a friend? Or did it mean something more? Was I supposed to give it back to her, or just show her I had it as proof of promise fulfilled?

Picking it up in my fingers, I squinted, examining the name engraved inside. Sam.

It's the ring you were gonna give Valerie. You asked me to hold it, remember? Something tells me it was really meant for me.

She thought it was meant for her. That was important, right? She wouldn’t have said that if she didn’t want it be for her, would she? Or was it just a lead-in for a gentle letdown? Whatever you meant this to be, let’s just keep things like they are, okay? I wouldn’t change it for the world, not one little bit.

But it couldn’t really stay the same, not now, because I’d gone and kissed her. Everything would be all weird and awkward now.

Grunting in frustration, I banged my head back against the wall a couple of times before deciding I’d be better off checking out the TV in the dorm’s common area. Some Nick at Night might be just the ticket to take my mind off Sam and whether or not I’d completely screwed up everything by assuming too much.

When I got to the lounge, however, I found it already occupied. Tucker was lying with his feet propped up on one of the several mismatched couches placed haphazardly around the large lounge, looking at his PDA.

Closing my fist around the ring, I jamming it into the pocket of my pajama bottoms. “Tucker! Dude, it’s, like, three-thirty a.m. What are you doing up?”

He looked up. “Me? What about you? I figured you’d need weeks to recover from everything that went down yesterday!” Putting the PDA on the end table behind him, he sat up straight and swung his legs around to make room for me, all while giving me a sort of inspection over the rims of his glasses. “You don’t look like you’ve been taken apart molecule by molecule. Can I assume that things went okay with your folks?”

I flopped down beside him. “Yeah, actually. Things went pretty well. I think it was a little hard for my dad to wrap his head around the fact that maybe not all ghosts are evil, and my mom... Well, I could just see the gears turning in her brain with all these scientific questions and tests she’d love to run. But I think overall, they’re okay with it. We talked for hours, mostly about how it happened, what kinds of powers I had, what kinds of things I’d been doing with them the last two years, that sort of stuff. They had a lot of questions.”

“No doubt. So, they know everything now?”

“Well, I glossed over a few things, like alternate realities and evil future versions of myself.” And clones. That was one thing I hadn’t even shared with Tucker and Sam, so no way was I about to get into it with my parents. “But seriously, Tuck. Why are you up? You haven’t slept for days.”

“Are you kidding? We crashed the second we got back to the dorms at, like, three in the afternoon yesterday. I woke up about an hour ago and couldn’t get back to sleep.” Then, he rolled his eyes. “Besides, it was a little too chilly in that dorm room for my taste.”

“It’s the South Pole. What do you expect?”

“I’m not talking about the South Pole. Sam and I are rooming with the Grays. Your parents asked Mr. Gray to play chaperone last night since they were kind of busy. And let me just tell you how thrilled Valerie was to be rooming with your two BFFs. Not.”

My heart felt like a brick in my chest. “Oh, my God, Valerie. With everything going on with my parents finding out, I forgot Valerie did, too.” I winced, already knowing the answer to my next question. “She wasn’t too happy about it, I take it?”

Tucker pursed his lips. “Let’s just say Sam and I were seriously considering sleeping outside where it would be warmer.”

My winced turned into a cringe. “Right. I need to talk to her, don’t I?” Add that to the list of people I needed to talk to.

“Probably. But seriously, dude, I’d wait until she cools down.”

“I thought you said she was already pretty cold.”

“To me and Sam, yeah. It didn’t take a genius to work out that we were in on your big secret. But you... I’m thinking there might be a little fireworks involved the next time she sees you, and not the good kind. Especially considering her array of big, scary weapons all designed to destroy ghosts. So you might wanna give her wide berth until she has a chance to chill a bit.”

I buried my face in my palm. “This is so messed up. I should never have hid it from her in the first place.”

“She would’ve blasted you where you stood if you’d told her.”

“Still. She deserves an explanation. I owe her that much.”

“You don’t owe her nothing, man. She dumped you, remember?”

“Partly because she didn’t have all the facts. She has every right to be mad at me. I made this mess, and I need to clean it up.”

“Fine. Do whatever you need to do. I’m just saying, you might wanna wait until she’s ready to listen with her ears and not talk with her guns.”

I cringed again. “Yeah, okay.”

We lapsed into silence a moment, then Tucker gave me the sort of sly smile that I knew meant trouble. “So... besides saving the world and everyone from your parents to your ex finding out you’re a ghost, anything new happening with you? Do anything interesting? Make any new friends? Kiss anyone?”

Now my heart was making a desperate attempt to flee my chest via my throat. “What? I... uh... well....” I kept stammering while Tucker waited, arms crossed and eyebrow arched. He wasn’t just fishing, I realized. He knew.

Slinking down in my seat, I finally managed to cobble together something resembling an intelligible sentence. “You know about that?” It came out like a squeak.

He kept giving me that look. “You’re not my only best friend, you know. Just the only one doesn’t talk to me.”

I should have felt bad about that last part, but I was too busy feeling absolutely horrified by the first part. “She told you? She actually—” Sitting bolt upright, I grabbed him by the shoulders. “What did she say?”

“Whoa, dude, chill!” Prying himself loose from my grip, he scooted back against the arm of the couch. “I’m not gonna be anybody’s messenger boy. You can just talk to her yourself. It’s long overdue.”

I sat back again, throwing my head against the back of the couch. In my mind, I could see a freaked-out Sam telling Tucker how I’d just kissed her out of the blue and, what with me going off to save the world and everything, she didn’t want to say anything at the time, but what was she doing to do now?

Scrubbing my face with my hands, I tried to erase the mental picture. “Oh, man, I am such an idiot! What was I thinking? She’s one of my best friends, and now everything’s gonna be all weird and wrong—”

“Wait. You’re freaking out?”

“Of course I’m freaking out! This is Sam we’re talking about.” I rolled my head to the side to look at him, expecting to see a little sympathy.

Instead, he looked like he wanted to pound my face in.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he lit into me, wagging his finger. “You do not get to freak out. Not now, not after kissing her. You wanna take half a century just to figure out how you feel? Whatever. You wanna explore your options with stupid crushes on girls like Paulina or Valerie before going after what you really want? That’s your prerogative. But you do not get to kiss Sam and then freak out. Because I don’t care how long we’ve been best friends or how many ghost powers you have, you mess with her head like that, and I will flatten you. And that’s a promise.”

I blinked, sitting up straight again. “Wait. What? What are you talking about? How am I messing with her head? Because I read too much into an innocent kiss on the cheek for good luck and made a colossal ass out of myself? I think that qualifies more for messing with my own head than hers. God, she must think I’m a total loser, turning a nice, little friendship gesture into a whole thing like that.”

Now it was Tucker’s turn to look confused. “Hold up. That’s why you’re freaking out? ’Cause you think she doesn’t like you?”

“Well, yeah. Why else would I be freaking out? You won’t tell me what she said, and—what?”

No longer either mad or confused, my so-called best friend was now laughing at me. And not just an amused chuckle. I thought he was going to need an oxygen mask, he was laughing so hard. “Oh... dude.”

I scowled at him. “Thank you so much for your sympathy while I’m having a crisis here.”

“Dude,” he managed to get out again. Taking off his glasses, he swiped at his eyes. When he got his breath, he put his glasses back on and shook his head at me. “You are seriously the most clueless guy on the planet, you know that? ’Cause if your only problem is how she feels about you, you are golden.”

That got my heart pounding again. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re good, dude. It’s in the bag. So stop freaking out and start making out.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Only, let’s not get too crazy, okay? Just ’cause I approve—and expect to hear the highlights—doesn’t mean I want to be around you guys playing tonsil hockey twenty-four-seven. The googly eyes are bad enough.”

I decided I’d smack him for that later. Right now, I was more concerned about he was saying about Sam’s feelings for me. “What makes you so sure? Did she actually say that she—?”

He cut me off with a tired look. “She never actually comes right out and says anything, except for telling me you kissed her before you left to get the ghosts. But she doesn’t have to. When she came back in after seeing you off, she was glowing. Like...” He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Oh! Remember that time she scored fifth row tickets to the Morbid Anti-Social Youth concert on the exact same day that her parents said they were going out of town for a week and the Amity Park Mall announced that the Sweet Li’l Princess store was going out of business and would be replaced by that organic, earth-friendly, all-vegan bath and body shop that sells all that funky incense she likes? She looked like she did on that day.”

It took a minute to process what he was saying. “Then... she was okay with everything?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Yes, Danny. She’s ‘okay’ with you kissing her. Like I’d be ‘okay’ with SmartTech making me their beta-tester for life and the entire cheerleading squad fighting over me. Okay like that.”

I blinked a few times, trying to let it sink in. “Really?”

“Really.”

Sitting back again, I felt that familiar mix of relief and terror. It was one thing to have my dad say it. But Tucker knew Sam. And he also would be the first to tell me if he thought I didn’t have a chance. Then there was the whole protective thing. The last time I’d seen him that mad was when we’d found out the truth about “Gregor.” Why would he be protective of her like that with me, unless I had the power to hurt her?

With this new information, I thought about the kiss again, and about what led up to it. The way she’d folded her hands over mine when she’d placed the ring in my palm. The way she’d smiled when I’d told her there were a few things I needed to talk to her about. The way she’d seemed so embarrassed after kissing my cheek, and the look in her eyes in those last breathless seconds before I’d leaned in to kiss her for real.

And what a kiss it had been. So full of promise. Not a good-bye or an ending, but a beginning. And afterward, when my head had still been spinning, how had she looked? Awkward or weird?

No. She’d looked happy. Not like I’d crossed any sort of line she didn’t want crossed, or even afraid for me or the world or any of what had been going on before. In that one, small moment, she’d just looked really, really happy. Because of me.

And for the first time since that first freshman dance when I’d gotten that very first spark of something between us, I felt at peace about me and Sam. Excited, yes. Scared, even. But a good scared, like the kind of scared I’d feel when I was fighting a really powerful ghost, but everything was clicking because I knew it was exactly what I had to do. The doubts were gone. Everything just felt right.

“Wow,” I said so softly, it almost came out like a breath of air. An echo of the first thing I’d said after the kiss itself. Wow.

It was then that I realized Tucker was watching me, this time with an expression hovering somewhere between amusement and the sort of patience a parent might have while he waited for his preschooler to work out some simple fact about the world. “You’ve really got it bad.”

I flinched, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. But not uncertainty, not anymore. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only to pretty much everybody. Friends. Neighbors. Strangers on the street. The ghosts. Dash’s pet Chihuahua....”

“Okay, Tuck, I get it. I’m Joe Obvious.”

“Seriously, dude. Anyone with eyes can see you have a thing for her. Except for Sam. She never could see it.” He leaned toward me. “Although I think maybe you kissing her might have clued her in. So don’t screw up, okay? Make sure she knows you meant it. Because I will have to hurt you if you mess with her.”

Feeling a little more sure of myself now, I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, you and what—? Scratch that. You probably could recruit an army of ghosts that would love an excuse to wail on me. But I don’t plan on giving you any reason to go all big brother on me, okay? I was gonna talk to her right after the asteroid, but then there was the little matter of my parents finding out I’m half ghost...”

“Yeah, I could see where that could have been a bit of a distraction.”

“But they’re good now, so first thing when Sam gets up, we’ll talk.”

“What are you gonna say?”

Good question. I didn’t have the first clue what I wanted to say, but I did know what I wanted to do. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my dad’s class ring and toyed with it in my fingers. “Actually, I’m thinking about giving her this.” I held my hand out, with the ring in my palm. “Something... I don’t know. Something solid, so she really knows how much I... how much she means.... You know.” Wincing at how the words sounded coming out of my mouth, I looked at Tucker. “It’s lame, isn’t it?”

He snorted. “You got that right.”

Shaking my head, I closed my hand over the ring and started to put it back in my pocket. “Never mind. I—”

Tucker put his hand on mine, stopping me. “Dude. You’re not giving it to me. Who the hell cares what I think? It’s what Sam thinks that matters. And she’ll love it.”

I could feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders loosen a little. “You think so?”

“She wore those stupid Fenton Phones like earrings for three days just because you gave them to her. So I’m gonna go with yeah, I think she’ll love it.”

My cheeks burned again, and I looked at the ring in my hand. “I hope so.” After a moment, I turned to Tucker once more. “So... are we good? You’re not mad?”

His forehead creased into a frown. “Mad? Why would I be mad? I’ve only been expecting this since the seventh grade. Besides, the way I figure, you two couldn’t possibly spend as much time making out with each other as you do pretending you don’t want to.”

It was weird, hearing Tucker talk like this about me and Sam. “Okaaaaay, you’ve really gotta stop saying stuff like that. It just sounds wrong. And I wasn’t talking about that anyway. I meant, you’re not mad that I never talked to you about this, are you? You’re my best friend, and I know we’re supposed to share everything. It’s just—”

He waved a hand, doing the whole Gregor pfft! thing. “I get it. It’s not the same as talking to me about Paulina or one of the random beauty contestant hotties or whatever. It’s Sam. She’s one of us. That makes it kinda weird.”

“Well, yeah, but... it’s more than that. I don’t know if I can explain it, but... it’s like, if I talked to you about it, then it would be real. You know? And I wasn’t really ready for it to be real yet.” That sounded even lamer than the stuff about the ring, and I cringed again. If I kept this up, my face was going to be stuck that way. “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it kinda does.” He tilted his head. “The question is, are you ready for it to be real now?”

I looked down at the ring again, turning it over in my hand so I could see the engraving inside. I think it was really meant for me. Slowly, I nodded. “Yeah. I really want this to work out.”

“Okay, but I couldn’t help but notice you keep dancing around actually saying the words.”

I pressed my lips together a moment before bowing my head in concession. “I know. It’s hard to—” I stopped, then looked directly at him. “I really like her, Tuck. A lot. I’ve never felt like this before.”

A slow smile spread on his face. “Well. It’s about dang time.” He patted me on the back, as if congratulating me on some great victory. “How’s it feel to just admit it?”

I took in a breath and let it out slowly. “Terrifying. But good. I feel... good. And...” I frowned. “Tired, actually.”

And why not? In the past fifteen hours, I’d saved the world, told my parents all about my life as a half-ghost, and kissed the girl I’d been obsessing about for months, possibly years. My first real, non-fake-out make-out kiss with a girl ever, too. The four or five hours of sleep I’d gotten since then wasn’t going to cut it, and airing it all out with Tuck had settled my mind enough that I could recognize just how tired I really was.

“And on that note...” Still holding the ring in my fist, I got up and stretched. “I think I’m gonna head back to bed. I don’t want to zone out on Sam when we do get to talk.” I looked down at Tucker. “How ’bout you? Aren’t you tired?”

He shook his head. “I told you, I already slept, like, twelve hours.” He picked up his PDA from where he’d left it on the end table. “I wanna surf the web, see what everyone’s saying about the asteroid and stuff. You go on, though. Get a little more sleep, then talk to Sam. First thing.” It was more an order than a suggestion.

“First thing. Definitely.”

---

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any better luck with my plans this time around. It was after seven when my family was finally up and out of our dorm room, but when I started to go looking for Sam, we instead found the lounge crammed full of people. Almost eighty people, to be exact. Every one of the same eighty or so people who’d just found out my identity, packed into a room together for some sort of meeting, and the only people who hadn’t been invited were me and my family. The words lynch mob crossed my mind, and the grim looks on Sam’s and Tucker’s faces didn’t exactly put me at ease.

As it turned out, though, they weren’t there to hand me over to the Guys in White. Just the opposite, in fact. They were there to give me a paper signed by each and every one of them saying that they were all going to keep my secret.

It had been Mr. Lancer’s and Mr. Gray’s idea. They’d seen a news report that showed some people—government people, in particular—still getting all ugly about ghosts, even though the ghosts were the only reason they weren’t all random molecules floating in space. So Lancer and Mr. Gray got everyone together, and they all agreed the world didn’t need to know Danny Phantom had a human half.

A part of me was frustrated, I’ll admit. It had been so nice the day before to just let go. To let go of secrets and the need to hide, and to just let it all out and tell my parents everything. But those news reports made it clear, it wasn’t quite safe yet.

I wouldn’t hide forever. But for now, it was best if I still kept Fenton and Phantom separate, so I could do what I needed to do as the one, then retreat into the anonymity of the other when I needed to. And it was Mr. Lancer—Mr. Lancer—who made it possible.

I don’t think I’d ever wanted to hug a teacher before, but I almost did that morning.

The next roadblock in my grand plan to talk to Sam was Valerie. I’d intended to stay away from her until she had a chance to process a bit, like Tucker had recommended, but she cornered me in the lounge after the meeting broke up, and there was nothing for it but to face her. As hard talks go, it went pretty well. Better than I could have hoped for, given everything that had happened between us and everything she thought Danny Phantom had done to her, and we left that talk with what I thought might possibly be the start of a real friendship.

By the time I’d gotten things squared away with Valerie, my stomach was rumbling loud enough to be heard back in Amity Park. Sam and Tucker had already gone to get breakfast in the main building, so Valerie and I went to join them, but before I’d even finished eating, we got word that the military was shipping everybody home within the next couple of hours. Since the Fenton Jet had crashed into a mountain after the ghosts ejected me out of it, we had no other ride home, so we were stuck with their schedule.

With barely enough time to pack before our flight to New Zealand, I didn’t see Sam again until we were on the plane. The very crowded plane. Then it was another crowded flight to Hawaii, where my dad found out just how much attention our little Antarctica operation was getting in the media. From Honolulu, he whisked my whole family off to New York and Washington, D.C. for a media blitz, while Sam and Tuck returned to Amity Park without me.

So, instead of talking to Sam first thing in the morning, like I’d promised, it was two weeks before I got any chance at all to be alone with her. We did e-mail constantly while I was gone, me telling her all about the various interviews we did, like The Today Show and Larry King, and her keeping me updated on Tucker’s sudden bizarre quest to exploit a loophole in the Amity Park charter to become the country’s first mayor who was two years short of even being able to vote. But our conversations didn’t get much deeper than that, since what I had to say to her really needed to be said face-to-face.

I did drop a few hints, though, trying to let her know without coming out and saying how I felt that I still wanted to talk, that I wasn’t going to let it go and pretend that kiss had never happened. Between the delay and the unscheduled detour I’d had to take with Valerie back in Antarctica, I didn’t want her getting the idea that my kissing her had just been some kind of end-of-the-world impulse that didn’t really mean anything now that the world hadn’t ended. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do until I got back to Amity Park.

We were supposed to come home the day before Labor Day, but some anonymous donor had commissioned a whole bunch of statues of Danny Phantom to put in the capital city of every country in the world, and one in Amity Park as well. As the new mayor—and I don’t even wanna know how he pulled that trick off—Tucker was presiding over the dedication ceremony in Amity Park, which was also going to broadcast around the world via satellite, so my parents decided to come home two days early to attend the Amity Park event.

I had other plans, however.

With Jazz promising to cover for me at the ceremony, I went straight to Sam’s. I’d just raised my hand to knock on her front door when it opened and she barreled through, barely stopping in time to keep from plowing into me. Blinking in surprise, she took a step back. “Danny!”

For a second, I just drank her in, unable to believe we were finally in the same place at the same time again. She was a little flushed, probably from rushing to get to the ceremony, but a little from me surprising her, too, and the color in her cheeks made her look even better than she had in my daydreams. And I’d been daydreaming about her a lot the past two weeks.

Now my cheeks felt a little hot, and I offered her a sheepish smile. “Hey, Sam.”

“I…” Flustered, she took a moment to catch breath. “I thought you weren’t gonna be home until Sunday!”

“Well, my parents decided they wanted to see the dedication in Amity Park, so… here we are.”

She looked over my shoulder toward the street. “So your family’s here, too?”

“No, they’re down at City Hall. But I…” I looked down at my sneakers, the heat creeping up my neck and past my ears. “I thought maybe we could take a walk.”

It seemed like forever before she answered. “Yeah, okay.”

She’d been heading out to City Hall for the statute ceremony, but after two weeks of interviews about Danny Phantom, I was sick of all the hype, so I talked her into bagging the ceremony. Instead, we headed for a really nice, grassy hill that overlooked City Hall. It was close enough that we could sit under a tree and watch what was going on, but far enough away from the crowds that we could be completely alone.

Alone. With Sam. It was making my head spin.

And it was a little awkward at first, too. We made small talk—I told her about getting to go to Washington to meet the president, and she told me that she found out her grandma had been the anonymous donor who’d commissioned all those statues.

But as we rambled about everything and nothing, I kept thinking, What in the world am I going to say to her? Here I’d been waiting for two weeks to finally get the chance to tell her exactly how I felt about her, and now that I was here, close enough to touch her, I didn’t even know how to broach the subject.

She was nervous, too, I could tell. She kept chewing on her lip in a way that wasn’t like her. She usually had so much conviction for everything she did.

Below us, the dedication at City Hall was just beginning to break up, and she nodded her head in that direction, keeping up the small talk. “I can’t believe you didn’t want to attend your own ceremony.”

“Well, you know me.” I gave her a sort of half smile, remembering her lecture before I got my powers back. “I kinda like sitting on the sidelines sometimes.”

If she still had any concerns about that, she didn’t show it. That, or she just had other things weighing on her. “And your folks are cool with knowing your secret identity?”

There was more to that question than face value. Ever since so many people found out my identity in Antarctica and we’d heard all those news reports about how there was still plenty of anti-ecto sentiment around the world and in our own government, she’d been on this new kick to fight for ghosts’ rights. It was a totally Sam thing to do, but it was more than just her sense of justice and righteous indignation that had her staying up nights the whole time I was gone, reading about various civil rights movements and how they were formed.

She was afraid for me. Afraid that, whatever they’d promised, one of those seventy-some people would let word slip, and the Guys and White would know who I am and come after me.

I tried my best to reassure her. “Yeah. The time for secrets is over. The world is safe. Time for new beginnings.” Something my dad said while we were on the road came to me, and I grinned, hoping a little humor would ease her mind. “My dad even says he wants me to team up with him now. Says I can be his sidekick.”

She looked like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes. “You’re a big star now. Probably the biggest in the world.”

“Yeah. It’s weird, huh?” Thank God I’d still have the anonymity of Danny Fenton to keep me out of the constant limelight, at least for as long as everyone in Antarctica kept their promise. I’d take whatever time I could get.

She toyed with the hem of her skirt. “You’ll probably get pretty busy.”

“What else is new?”

Something changed in her face, then. A look of uncertainty shaded her eyes, and her voice took on a more somber tone. “And I probably won’t see much of you anymore.”

And there it was, all the doubts and insecurities about what had happened between us and where we were going next plain in her face. It was almost surreal, seeing her like that. Not just the uncertainty itself, but that it was about me. I’d spent so much time and energy wrapped up in my own fears about us, I hadn’t ever really noticed that she had fears of her own. Or, if I did catch a brief glimpse, like when I saw her dreaming about me and admitted that I’d dreamed about her, too, I’d just convince myself it was nothing more than the usual stuff about risking our friendship. That even if she did consider the possibility of something more between us, it was in an I-guess-we-could-give-it-a-try kind of way.

Even when my dad said he thought she liked me. Even when Tucker convinced me she wanted something more. Even then, it never really quite sunk in that her feelings for me might be serious.

But I could see it all in her eyes now. She wanted this. She wanted me. That kiss had meant something to her, something really big, and she was scared. Scared to find out that maybe it didn’t mean as much to me.

So she was giving me an out. A way to gracefully extract myself from what I’d started with that kiss without actually saying the words she was afraid to hear. Instead of having to come out and tell her I didn’t like her that way, I could jump on the celebrity thing. Yeah, I’m gonna be really busy now. Busy, busy, busy. So you probably won’t see much of me anymore. But hey, we’ll do lunch sometime. It was what she was expecting from me, to take the easy way out.

Instead, I smiled at her. “Oh, I wouldn’t count on that.” Because I didn’t want an out.

I wanted her.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the ring I’d been carrying with me since Antarctica. With my other hand, I took hold of her left wrist, gently pulling it toward me until I could slip the ring onto her third finger.

And suddenly, the words came easily. “Sam, I could never have done any of this without you. And I don't care what’s coming next.” Just like my dad had said, we couldn’t know what was coming, especially now, with so many people knowing my secret. But it didn’t matter. “I just hope whatever it is, you’re there to share it with me.”

In all the years I’d known Sam, I don’t think I’d ever seen her cry. But as she looked at me, almost like she couldn’t quite believe what I was saying, her eyes filled with tears. It would have alarmed me if she hadn’t also been smiling. “I will be.”

It took a few seconds for me to absorb what had just happened. She said yes. I’d given her the class ring and told her I wanted her to be there with me, whatever comes next, and she said yes.

Before I could even react to that, she shook off the uncharacteristic emotion, slipping with well-practiced ease back into something with a little more bite. “I just have to warn you—I’m no pushover. You know I still have my own way of doing things.”

I wanted to laugh. That was my Sam, all fire and spirit.

My Sam. God, I loved the sound of that. It had me smiling so wide, I must’ve looked like an idiot, but I didn’t care. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

And when I kissed her this time—well, if two fake-out make-outs hadn’t been enough to prepare me for our first real kiss, nothing could have prepared me for our second one. Everything else went completely away until there was only me and Sam and how it felt to be really with her, with no walls between us.

Her arms snaked around my neck, pulling me closer, and I let my hands curl into her hair, grateful that I wasn’t wearing gloves this time, so I could feel the soft strands slide between my fingers. There was no rush, no impending disaster, no fear that this was just some end-of-the-world impulse that didn’t mean anything. It was just the two of us, finishing what we’d started two weeks earlier in Antarctica. Or maybe two years earlier in the Casper High gymnasium.

But that wasn’t quite right, either. Our story didn’t end with a kiss. It was beginning with one.

Chapter 36: Kiss: Sam

Kiss
Sam

Not even two fake-out make-outs could have prepared me for what it would be like for Danny to kiss me for real.

I never expected it, for him to actually kiss me. Not even after spending the entire flight to Antarctica and most of our time there rehearsing in my head how I was going to tell him what he meant to me. Not even after imagining the gamut of his reactions, from laughing in my face (kill me now) to some sort of grand, sweeping, romantic, enthusiastic confession of his feelings (gag me now). Not even after a few more charged moments between us that made me think, maybe...

No matter how many times I went over it in my head, it still seemed like too much to hope for, that he could feel for me anything close to what I felt for him.

It wasn’t until he was about to leave for the Ghost Zone to round up all the ghosts that I finally got up my courage to tell him, and even then, it was in a small, roundabout way. His sister and I were seeing him off and, while she was hugging him good-bye, I slipped off my gloves and pulled Danny’s dad’s class ring out of my pocket. It was too cold out for bare hands, really, but I was so afraid I’d drop the ring in the snow if I tried to handle it with my thick and clumsy gloves that it was worth the discomfort.

When Jazz was finished, she must have sensed that I needed to be alone with Danny, because she disappeared so fast after that she almost seemed to have ghost powers herself. Steeling myself with a deep breath before I could lose my courage, I stepped up to him, took his hand in mine, and placed the ring in his palm.

He blinked at me, obviously confused. Taking another fortifying breath, I explained. “It's the ring you were gonna give Valerie. You asked me to hold it, remember? Something tells me it was really meant for me.” Then, I flipped the ring over in his hand so that the word engraved inside was right-side up. Sam.

He looked from the ring to me, and I swallowed, forcing myself to continue the words I’d been practicing for three days. “Take it with you, but promise to bring it back.” I took his hand in both of mine, folding his fingers over the ring. “If you promise, then… then I know I’ll see you again.”

And that was it. My big, dramatic, half-confession. Embarrassed at the lameness of it, I dropped his hand.

He looked down at the ring a moment and, when he looked back up at me, he had a sort of determined expression on his face, like he’d come to a decision. “If we make it through this—”

“When we make it through this,” I interrupted. No way I was going to let him even think about not succeeding. Too much was at stake.

He smiled as he pocked the ring. “Right. When we make it through this… I… I have a few things I… need to talk to you about.”

Something about the way he was stuttering through this, like he was every bit as nervous as I was, filled me with hope. Maybe... And I couldn’t help but smile. “I think I’d be willing to listen.”

I could have left it at that, satisfied that I’d said what I’d promised myself I would but, buoyed by his response, I decided there was more I wanted him to know before he left. “And no matter how this thing ends… This whole ride we’ve been on together? I wouldn’t change it for the world.” I took his hands again, both of them this time. “Not one little bit.”

When I finished, he started to say something in response. It was probably important, judging by the intent look in his eyes and the way he was grasping my shoulders. But I never heard a word. Because in that instant, everything I felt crystallized into sharp relief.

I’m in love with him.

Not like. Not even like, like. Not a crush or infatuation. I loved him, in every sense of the word.

It was such a small thing, and such a big thing all at once, to really own my feelings for him, that I had an overwhelming urge to do something about it, to mark this epiphany in some way. Not by saying the words. That I couldn’t do. It was too easy to throw around words and not really mean them, and I never wanted that to happen with Danny. Not ever. Instead, I did the only other thing I could think to do.

I kissed him.

It wasn’t a romantic kiss. He could have been my brother, it was such a chaste good-bye-and-good-luck kiss. But it was still a kiss, and it must have completely freaked him out, because he stopped short in the middle of whatever he’d been saying to me, letting go of my shoulders like I’d scalded him.

I was mortified. Obviously, I’d gone too far, assumed too much. Unable to look him in the eye anymore, I stared down at my boots, but his gloved hand cupped my chin, gently tilting my face up so that I was forced to meet his gaze. And when I did... It was like every electric moment that had ever sparked between us, from that first freshman dance to the last look he’d given me a few hours ago before I went to sleep for the first time since we’d arrived in Antarctica, all rolled into one massive lightning bolt blast that took my breath away.

The next thing I knew, he was kissing me. Not some platonic kiss on the cheek, and definitely not a fake-out make-out, but a real, feel-it-down-to-my-toes, make-time-stop, absolutely mind-bending kiss.

I wanted to put my arms around him, to pull him closer to me and never let go, but I was paralyzed, afraid that it was all an illusion that would dissipate like smoke if I so much as moved. But it was real. The feel of his slick gloves against my cheeks, the taste of cherry cola and something almost like ice on his lips, it flooded me with a warmth not even the Antarctic wind could penetrate.

And then, much too soon, it was over, and he was resting his forehead against mine. “Wow,” he said, in a voice so breathless I thought I might melt on the spot. “Remind me to save the world more often.”

The absurdity of that statement, like I wouldn’t have killed to have him kiss me like that for any reason at any point over the past two years, was almost enough to make me laugh. Or kiss him again. And again. And a few more times after that. Before I could succumb to the urge, however, I told him, “Go.” And he did.

I watched as he phased into the Fenton Jet, giving him one last wave as he lifted off. I stayed until long after the jet had disappeared into the glowing, green swirl of the ghost portal that had opened up in the sky above us, my still-bare fingers tracing a line across my lips and the ghost of the kiss I could still feel there. Only when my fingers began to burn from the cold did it penetrate enough through the warm fog in my head that I finally went back into the communications tower to await his return.

At the top of the tower, the control room was packed. The construction work was finished, and most of those workers had packed up and headed back to McMurdo Station, along with the TV camera crews from all over the world that had been broadcasting Danny’s earlier address to the United Nations. But there were still a good eighty or so people left working the tower itself, making sure the antenna was operating and ready to transmit the ghosts’ intangibility across the planet when Danny got back.

I didn’t really have a job. Most of what I’d been doing since we arrived was helping a couple of mechanics from McMurdo get the Fenton Jet ready for Danny, and now that that task was finished, there wasn’t anything for me to do. So I stood at one of the windows overlooking the portal Danny had disappeared through and waited for his return while, over and over, my mind replayed our last few moments together on a continuous loop. Danny cupping my chin in his hand and tilting my face toward his. Danny’s eyes locking on mine one last time. Danny pulling me toward him and kissing me...

“That must’ve been some talk.”

I jumped, crying out at the sudden voice in my ear. “Tucker! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Who’s sneaking? I could’ve driven a tank up behind you and you wouldn’t have heard me. Just what happened out there that’s got you in such a daze?”

“Nothing!”

He snorted. “Don’t give me ‘nothing,’ ’cause you’ve got ‘something’ written all over your face. I mean, look at you! You’re floating! And last I checked, you don’t have ghost powers. Although I’m pretty sure a certain ghost had something to do with it. So spill.”

I should have scowled and told him it was none of his business. It’s what I usually would do. But my head was so full of that kiss that I couldn’t even manage a slight frown. “He kissed me,” I said, my voice full of more wonder than I would have liked.

Tucker’s eyes widened and his jaw slackened a little. “He kissed you? Like, a real kiss?”

I could only nod.

“Ha!” Tucker pointed at me, jubilant. “I told you! I told you he liked you!”

“Tucker, shut up! The whole tower doesn’t need to hear about it!”

“Why the hell not? It’s about dang time!”

I hissed at him. “For the ‘Ghost Boy’ to kiss me?” I punctuated Ghost Boy with air quotes.

That quieted him. “Good point.”

Taking me by the wrist, he dragged me toward the elevator. The car was still there, since I’d just come up about thirty second ago, so it opened as soon as he pressed the button, and he pulled me inside with him, taking us one level down to the room that housed the computer mainframe and all the wiring for the equipment above. It was also strewn with cots, which the technical crew had been using to grab catnaps between work shifts but, with only an hour left until the asteroid would enter Earth’s atmosphere, everyone was awake and up in the control room, leaving the mainframe empty.

Still holding me by the arm, Tucker pulled me out of the elevator. “Okay, spill. I want all the details. What did you say? What did he say? Who started it? How did he kiss you? Just a small good-bye peck, or were there tongues involved?”

I shoved him away from me by the shoulders. “You’re a pig, you know that? I’m not telling you anything!”

“Oh, come on, Sam! He actually kissed you! This is huge! You know you wanna talk about it. What gave him the courage to do it? Did you tell him?”

I sighed. “It wasn’t that big a deal, okay? I just... I gave him back his ring.”

He blinked. “You gave it back? Why?”

“Like you said, I wanted to give him something to come back for.”

“I meant you, not some dumb ring!”

I glared at him. “It’s not dumb. I gave it to him and told him to take it with him and promise to bring it back. Like a good luck charm, or a talisman. To keep him safe.”

“Wait. You asked for it back? Like, you wanted it back back?”

“Not exactly. Although, I guess I did kind of tell him I knew about the engraving and that I had a feeling the ring was meant for me.”

A wide grin broke out on Tucker’s face. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about. What did he say?”

“Just that he wanted to talk to me about something when he got back.”

“Like, maybe, telling you he likes you as more than a friend?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. He didn’t really say.” That had certainly been my impression at the time, but now, with my brain starting to get over its fuzziness, I wasn’t so sure. “He could have meant he wanted to tell me that the name in the ring was a coincidence or something, and that he doesn’t like me that way.”

Tucker rolled his eyes. “Right. And I don’t like meat. But you said he kissed you, right? How did that happen? He said he wanted to tell you something after he got back, but then just lays one on you then and there anyway?”

“Well, I sorta kissed him first.” Tucker’s eyes widened, so I quickly clarified. “Just a kiss on the cheek. You know, for good luck. That’s when he kissed me back.”

“But not on the cheek.”

“No.”

Tucker grinned again. “So, you clued him in, and that gave him the courage to finally make a move. Awesome!”

But the doubts were starting to take root. “I don’t know, Tuck. It might not have been like that at all. I mean, everything’s riding on him getting all those ghosts and bringing them back here. It might have been just one of those, you know, impulsive things people do in a crisis situation. You know, like that famous picture of the sailor kissing the nurse at the end of World War II. It might not have meant anything more than Danny wanting to kiss someone just in case the world ended, and since the only other person besides me who happened to be around was his sister...”

Tucker snorted, laughing at some private joke I wasn’t quite getting, but then he sobered and put his hands on my shoulders. “That’s not how it was, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know it, Tucker. It was just a kiss. It could have meant something, or it could mean nothing at all. I won’t know until he gets back and we can talk about it.”

Tucker arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you gonna talk about it, or are you gonna do what you always do and avoid the subject?”

“No. We’ll talk. He said he had something to talk about when he got back, right? I just don’t know what he’s going to say.”

“Well, I do.”

“Why? Did he say something to you? Did he tell you he likes me?”

“I’m not gonna tell you what my best friend tells me in confidence.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Because there’s nothing to tell, is there, Tuck? He’s never told you he likes me, has he? And don’t you think he would have if he did? You’re his best friend.”

He sighed. “No, he hasn’t said anything, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you. He’s worse than you with the avoidance and denial. It’s obvious, though. We’ve been best friends forever, and I know when he’s into someone, whether he admits it or not. So trust me when I tell you, he is totally into you. Would he kiss you if he wasn’t?”

“You did,” I pointed out.

He made an exasperated sound at the back of his throat. “So not the same thing. And don’t give me no line about fake-out make-outs, either, ’cause there was no one around who needed to be faked out. It was a for-real kiss because he likes you for real. It’s all gonna work out, Sam. You’ll see.”

I nodded, but the doubts wouldn’t be allayed by Tucker’s reassurance. What if I really had made too much out of the whole thing? What if what he’d wanted to tell me really was that the name in the ring was a coincidence and he just wanted to be friends? What if that kiss really was no more than some end-of-the-world impulse that wouldn’t mean anything if the world didn’t end?

---

It didn’t occur to me that none of it would matter if the world did end after all. Not until the moment the Fenton Jet returned from the Ghost Zone, and the cheers of the control tower technicians around me turned to gasps of horror when the jet flew straight at us, barely making it over the roof of the tower, only to blow past us and right into the side of Mount Erebus some twenty miles away, exploding in a massive blast that shook us all the way back at the tower, did the possibility that the world might end ever even cross my mind.

If you get what you want, you’ll lose everything.

Time stopped, and I found myself pushing though the crowds around me to get to the window, but it was like clawing my way through quicksand. The world was caving in on me, and I couldn’t breathe as I elbowed past people who just wouldn’t move. I thought I heard someone—Jazz, maybe—say Danny’s name, but I couldn’t be sure over the roaring in my ears. Finally, I made it to the window and pressed my hands against the glass. No, no, no, no, “NO! He can’t be...”

I might have said the last part out loud, but I wasn’t sure, because everything was swimming out of focus. The control room, the window, the snow, Mount Erebus, the smoke and fire billowing out from the remains of the jet Danny had been flying...

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God...

If you get what you want, you’ll lose everything.

Tucker was shouting something. “It’s coming!” What was coming? Then, I remembered. The asteroid. The world was going to end. Danny had failed, and the world was going to end. A hysterical bubble of laughter wanted to work its way up from my throat. The world was ending, but it only came to me as an afterthought.

My world had already ended.

My fault, all my fault. I knew the rules, the price I had to pay for being part of Danny becoming who he was. Not once, not twice, but three times.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I wanted more. Too much more. It wasn’t enough that he was alive and that he was who he was meant to be. I wanted him to be mine. And now he was gone, and the world would be gone and oh, God, how could Danny be gone?

Sounds started filtering in around me. People crying. Jazz crying. “I… oh, Mom…. There’s something you need to know.”

I wanted to scream. NO! It’s HIS secret! You can’t tell them his secret! But nothing came out, and it was Danny’s mom who started screaming. “Where’s Danny? Jasmine, where’s your brother?”

She didn’t know. Her son had given his... he’d given everything trying to save all of us, and she didn’t even know. She was looking to spend her last moments alive with her son, not even knowing that he was already gone.

Gone, gone, gone, oh, God, no, he can’t be gone...

I couldn’t stand it anymore. Danny’s parents, the asteroid, the smoldering remains of the Fenton Jet in the side of Mount Erebus. It was too much. Turning my back on all of it, I found myself facing the windows on the other side of the control room. Through them, I could see the portal. The portal through which Danny had flown the last time I saw him...

The last time you saw him alive.

If we make it through this—

When we make it through this.

Right. When we make it through this… I… I have a few things I… need to talk to you about.

I think I’d be willing to listen. And no matter how this thing ends… This whole ride we’ve been on together? I wouldn’t change it for the world. Not one little bit.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him.

I’m in love with him.

If you get what you want, you’ll lose everything.

He kissed me, and now he’s gone. I stared at the portal, willing it to be a lie. He can’t be gone. The ring. He promised...

Take it with you, but promise to bring it back. If you promise, then I know I’ll see you again.

The portal wavered in my eyesight, and I blinked, trying to shut out the monologue in my head. He took the ring, he promised...

Danny’s mom was still screaming behind me, trying to understand what had happened to her son. “Jack! Where’s Danny?”

The portal wavered again, and I realized it wasn’t my vision. Something was happening something... no. Someone. Someone was flying through the portal...

It was wishful thinking. It had to be, but I couldn’t stop myself from pointing out the window and screaming, “Look! The portal!”

The crowd moved as one, a sea of humanity pressing against the window, hoping against hope that the desperate wishful thinking of a stupid, lovesick girl was more than that. That it was real. And as we watched, more figures poured out of the portal. First a handful, then dozens, then hundreds... Ghosts. Hundreds and thousands of ghosts were streaming out of the portal. No Fenton Jet, no net, just thousands upon thousands of ghosts, flying toward the antenna the humans had built in the snow.

And leading them was one ghost. He was just a speck in the sky, but I knew. He wasn’t on the plane. He wasn’t on it when it crashed. He was still in the Ghost Zone, and now he’s here, with the ghosts. He promised he’d come back, that if he took the ring, he’d bring it back. He brought it back, and the world isn’t going to end...

My world hadn’t ended.

All around me, a cheer rose up as the rest of the control tower occupants realized what was happening. I didn’t cheer with them, however. I scarcely dared to breathe. I didn’t lose him, I didn’t lose him, he’s alive, he came back like he promised, and I didn’t lose him...

I’m not sure how long I stood there. At some point, a scurry of activity burst around me as people went to work to get the antenna up and running.

And then, the loudspeaker crackled. “Tucker! How… much…longer?”

It was unmistakably Danny’s voice. Danny, alive. Danny saving the world. It wasn’t wishful thinking, it wasn’t my imagination. Danny was alive, and he’d come back, just like he’d promised.

And when Tucker shouted into his headset, “NOW!” the world disappeared.

---

I was the first one out the door when the world was solid again. I’d somehow ended up standing next to Jazz and stayed just long enough to hug her when it was over and we were safe, and then I was gone. Not even bothering with the elevator, I took the emergency stairs at a dead run. How I made it down without tripping and breaking my neck, I’ll never know, but I was down and out the door into the cold, bright sunlight reflecting off the snow.

Ahead of me, a figure was just touching down from whatever perch he’d had up on the antenna. And it was him. Really him. Not even caring what he would think or what that kiss had meant or that there was a horde of people behind me, or any of it, I threw myself at him, not just wrapping my arms around him, but my legs as well, clinging to him like a life preserver.

Which is exactly what he was.

A second later, someone slammed into me from behind as arms encircled my neck and Danny’s both. Jazz. A third thud and set of arms, and Tucker was smothering me from the other side. Then, our combined weight and momentum, too much even for Danny’s ghost strength, sent the four of us toppling over to land in the snow in a tangle of limbs. I kept my own arms wrapped tightly around Danny, not letting go until Tucker and Jazz dislodged themselves and rolled off me. Only then, when I caught my breath and could see him, solid and fine and alive and real did I let go.

“Awesome,” I told him, unable to trust myself to say anything more.

Jazz, now sitting behind him, patted him on the shoulder. “Nice job, little brother. Or should I say, hero.”

A shadow fell over us, then, and we looked up to see the ghosts gathered around us.

A lot of ghosts.

I’d never seen so many ghosts in one place before. Not even when Walker invaded Amity Park, or when they all got together to help fight the Ghost King, or even just a few days ago—was that really only a few days ago?—when a bunch of them had attacked Danny when we’d gone into the Ghost Zone to try to talk them into helping us. Hundreds of ghosts were surrounding us and, in front of them all, arms crossed over cyber-armored chest, stood Skulker.

Defensive mode kicked my brain into gear, but before I could move, Danny had climbed to his feet. “I don’t know what to say, other than ‘thanks,’ Skulker. To all of you.”

Skulker grabbed a fistful of Danny’s shirt. “Don’t get too mushy on us, Ghost Child. Remember, I’ll never stop hunting you. And now that you’ve saved your world, you’re a much more valuable prize.”

It was the biggest crock of bull I’d ever heard. Danny wasn’t buying it either, judging by his smile. Whatever had happened in the Ghost Zone, whatever Danny had done or said to convince the ghosts to help of their own free will, Skulker and Danny had obviously come to some sort of accord. Mutual respect, even. I had a feeling, no matter what he said, that Skulker would never hunt Danny again.

The ghosts left en masse after that, just before the rest of the humans from the tower arrived, Danny’s parents first among them.

“Nice job, Danny.” His dad look pissed at first, but then a wide grin spread across his face. “Or should we say... Danny.”

My heart dropped like a stone. I’d forgotten Jazz had told them the truth, when she thought the world was ending. But now the world hadn’t ended, and they knew. His parents, and every single person in that tower who had heard...

Oh, God. Everyone knows.

Danny was making a show of ignorance, but his mother was having none of it. Taking his hand in hers, she looked him straight in the eye. “Isn’t there something you wanna tell us?”

I swallowed, but a little bit of that knot of fear loosened when I saw the look in her eyes. She wasn’t looking at him like a lab rat she wanted to dissect. She didn’t even look like she was mad about the two years of lies he’d been telling her.

She was proud of him.

Jazz tried to reassure him. “It’s okay, Danny. They know.” Still, he looked like a cornered animal trying to find an escape as he took in all those people—some eighty of them—surrounding him. His eyes flicked from them to Tucker, then Jazz and, when they finally came to rest on me, I smiled at him, wanting to reassure him. I hated this, hated every second of it, all these people knowing, but it was too late, and what mattered now was Danny and his parents.

After what seemed like hours, Danny let out a breath, and triggered his transformation. It looked almost like he was letting go of something he’d been holding onto too tightly and couldn’t maintain anymore, like a burden he was so tired of carrying and just wanted to put down.

It’s not the helping people that’s the burden, I realized. It’s the secret. It was hiding who he was from the world, from his parents. And I found, terrifying as it was, I couldn’t deny him this moment of letting it all go.

Even better was the response he got. No lynch mobs, no angry crowds with metaphorical torches and pitchforks. They cheered. Every last one of the eighty-some people surrounding us cheered for Danny, the sixteen-year-old boy who saved the world.

---

Danny and I didn’t get a chance to talk after we got back to the base, for obvious reasons. The closest thing I got to an acknowledgment from him that we still needed to talk was an apologetic glance he threw over his shoulder at me as his mom and dad ushered him and his sister off to the dorm room they’d been assigned as soon as we got back to the base. I smiled and shrugged in return to let him know I understood. As big a deal as that kiss had been, at least to me, even I had to admit it kind of paled in comparison to his parents finding out he was half ghost.

While I didn’t mind putting off our own talk so he could explain everything to his parents instead, I really wasn’t happy about the alternative being offered to Tucker and me. And by “offered,” I mean “insisted on.” Apparently, the Fentons, who had been responsible for us up until that point, had asked Mr. Gray if he could take over chaperone duties for the night so that they could be alone with just the family. That arrangement made sense, what with Mr. Gray being the only other Amity Park parent present, except for the small, little detail that rooming with Mr. Gray also meant rooming with Valerie Gray.

Valerie, Danny’s ex. The girl who’d dumped him to devote time to her all-consuming hatred of Danny Phantom. The girl with the nasty grudge and even nastier ghost-hunting weapons.

The girl who, along with almost eighty other people, had just found out that the guy she used to like and the ghost she hates is one and the same. That Valerie Gray.

When her dad told her we’d be rooming with them, I steeled myself for—well, I wasn’t sure what. Some kind of defense of Danny. But she just looked at me and Tucker, ice in her eyes, then turned her back and walked away.

Inside the room was no better. Mr. Gray made a valiant effort to engage us all in small talk as we brought in our luggage, mentioning everything from the asteroid to the aborted start to our junior year of high school in an attempt to get Valerie to say something, anything. But she wouldn’t even acknowledge our presence.

Eventually, her dad gave up and turned to the task of assigning us bunks, putting himself and Valerie on the bottom bunks with Tucker and me, respectively, above them. Presumably, he thought this arrangement was the best way to keep Tucker from getting any ideas, since both Valerie and I would be in plain view from Mr. Gray’s bunk, but he needn’t have worried. Not counting wishverse memory losses or overzealous role-playing, Tucker was only slightly more likely to hit on me than Danny was to hit on Jazz. As for Valerie... given her current mood, it would’ve been safer for him to go outside and play with a leopard seal, and he knew it.

The beds assigned, we all went to grab quick showers, a luxury none of us had had time for since leaving Amity Park. Valerie kept up the silent routine, choosing the shower stall furthest away from mine, so I cleaned up as quickly as possible, then headed back for the room.

Tucker had just come back himself, leaving us alone for at least a few minutes for the first time since our chat in the mainframe. “Well, this’ll be fun,” I said, putting my toiletries bag back into my suitcase. “And people think I’m an ice queen. Maybe we should just sleep outside. Might be warmer.”

“No doubt. We’d better warn Danny when we see him. She’s gonna be out for blood. If his parents don’t take him apart molecule by molecule first, that is.”

I bristled. “That’s not funny, Tuck.”

“Hey, I’m just joking. You saw them out there. They’ll be cool with everything. Now, Valerie, on the other hand—”

“Is not the only person in the world who’s ever hated Danny Phantom. It’s great that his parents seem to be taking it well, but once word gets out—”

The door opened, and Valerie and her dad came in together. I snapped my mouth shut, while Tucker made a vain attempt at engaging Valerie with a small wave. She just glared at us, then crawled into her bunk, where she lay curled on her side facing the wall, her back to us.

“Well... it’s been a long few days,” Mr. Gray said, forcing cheer into his voice. “I know it’s barely three in the afternoon, but maybe we should all catch a little shut-eye. If you want, we can get up later and check out the celebration they’re setting up over in Building One-fifty-five.”

Tucker yawned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m too tired to party. Just show me to my bunk and wake me when it’s time to go back to Amity Park.”

I nodded my agreement. Suddenly, I wasn’t in much of a mood to celebrate.

---

I didn’t sleep well. Unlike Tucker, I’d slept a few hours earlier in the day and, despite the sun setting less than an hour later, it still felt too early. Besides, there was too much on my mind for sleep to come easily.

When it finally did come, it was fitful and uneasy. A parade of nightmares plagued me, most of them involving people finding out Danny’s secret and wanting to finish the job and make him all ghost, but the Fenton Jet crashing into Mount Erebus made some extra special appearances, and there were a few Danny-laughing-in-my-face-for-thinking-that-kiss-meant-anything ones thrown in for good measure, too.

At seven or eight o’clock in the evening, I gave up altogether and headed for the dorm’s common room. Around me, the dorm was dark and quiet, with the rest of the control tower tech crew either catching up on much needed sleep, or off at Building 155, which served as a sort of central hub for the base, celebrating the world not ending.

Settling in on one of the lounge’s many couches, I found a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon on cable, but when they got to season four and the whole plot about the covert government group that was a little too zealous in its pursuit of demons, unable to differentiate between the real threats and the ones who were benign or even part human, like werewolves, it got a little too close for comfort.

With TV no longer a useful distraction, I went back to bed to give sleep another shot, only to dream about Tucker in fatigues and me in a lab coat breaking into a sterile, white-walled government facility to bust Danny out while Valerie, dressed in a pristine white suit with her head shaved bald, shot at us with high-tech weapons and called us traitors to the human race for harboring “mongrels.”

---

“Wake up, Sam. It’s time to get up.”

I opened my eyes, still bleary with sleep, to find Mr. Gray shaking me awake. Given the fact that I’d been in the middle of yet another nightmare, this one involving Danny, a full ghost now, rising up from the remains of the Fenton Jet to tell me the reason he’d crashed was because he’d been distracted by what he called “the worst kiss ever,” it was almost a relief to be shaken out of my sleep, even though I was exhausted.

Rubbing my eyes, I tried to get my bearings. It was still dark out, but that didn’t mean anything in a place where the sun was up only four hours a day. “What time is it?”

“About six A.M. We’re having a meeting in the lounge. The entire control tower tech crew, right now. Tucker and Valerie are already up.”

When I got to the lounge, it was packed. Every single one of the eighty-three people who had been present yesterday when Danny transformed to human was crammed into the room, summoned there by Mr. Gray and Mr. Lancer. Notably, the only ones who were absent were Danny, Jazz, and his parents. By design, as it turned out.

So not good.

Mr. Lancer began the meeting with a summary of a newscast he and Mr. Gray had seen over breakfast in the main building. Tucker had found the video online and, after hooking his PDA into the lounge’s TV, played it back for us.

It was hard not to throw up. Not twenty-four hours after ghosts had saved the world, and there were all these quotes about “not trusting human lives in ghostly hands,” or ghosts having “free reign to use their unnatural abilities.” Especially chilling was the speech from the president, where he talked about the Anti-Ecto Control Act and how any ghost found to be “impersonating a human” would be “detained and prosecuted.”

They were talking about Vlad, mostly. Most of the world seemed to believe he’d merely been posing as a human rather than still actually being half human. But given that Danny’s powers and origins were almost identical to Vlad’s, even if what he used those powers for were not, it wasn’t likely anyone in the federal government, from the Guys in White on up to the president, would make that distinction.

The good news, if there was any good news, was that I was far from the only person in the room sickened by what I saw and heard. Every single one of us, even Valerie, agreed that Danny was a hero and a human being who deserved to live as normal a life as possible. So Mr. Lancer passed around a statement he’d handwritten in his neat, teacher’s scrawl. It was long and a little pretentious, like most of Mr. Lancer’s lectures, but the gist of it was that we all would agree not to divulge Danny’s identity or the existence of half-ghosts to anyone outside this room.

Everyone present, seventy-nine people in all, including Tucker and me, signed it and, when Danny and his family found us an hour later, we presented it to him.

“To show our gratitude to you and what you have sacrificed for all of us,” Mr. Lancer told him. “You chose to reveal your secret to us, and we are honored by that. Whether and to whom you choose to reveal yourself in the future is your business, not ours.”

I watched Danny’s reaction carefully as the room burst into applause. He was stunned and grateful, but I could see something else there, too. There was a sort of a stiffening of his shoulders as he prepared to once more take up the burden that he had only been able to put down for such a fleeting moment, the burden of hiding himself from the world. And my heart broke for him.

It wasn’t right. However encouraging it was to see so many people—seventy-seven, if you didn’t count the Fentons or me and Tucker—rally around him and promise to keep his secret, it wasn’t enough. He shouldn’t have to hide himself from the world just to live his life.

I knew at that moment exactly what I had to do. I would start a movement. Protesting stuff was what I did, after all, and this time, it wouldn’t just be for some abstract concept of justice. This time, I’d be fighting for Danny, and God help anyone who stood in my way.

But that would come later. For now, it was enough that the people who already knew weren’t going to tell. And I had more immediate concerns, when Danny sent his parents and sister off to get breakfast with him, then turned to me and Tucker, his cheeks looking a little red. “Uh, Tuck...”

I blushed, too, as Tucker looked between us, his face breaking into a grin so wide I had to resist the urge to smack it off him. “I should go on ahead, too, shouldn’t I?”

My heart was racing, and I could feel my cheeks get even hotter. Danny, his own blush deepening, shuffled his feet. “Um, if you wouldn’t mind. I kinda need to talk to Sam.”

This is it. Either that kiss meant something or it didn’t. Either way, I’ll know.

Or not. Because Valerie chose that exact moment to interrupt. “Danny? Can I talk to you for a minute?” She looked at me and Tucker. “Alone?”

I don’t know who moved faster, me or Tuck, but we both were standing in front of Danny before anyone could even blink. After the barely restrained hostility last night, neither one of us were likely to let Danny just go off with her to “talk.”

But Danny was either hopelessly naive or the stupidest person the planet. “It’s okay, guys.”

So not. “Danny….” I tried, memories of my nightmares flitting before my eyes. Stupid and naive, I decided. Or... what if he never really got over his crush on her? What if, when he’d kissed me, he’d really been thinking of her? What if, now that she knew the truth, he was hoping there might be a chance...?

Putting his hands on my shoulders, Danny met my gaze. “It’s okay, Sam,” he repeated, but with an emphasis that was different than the reassurance he’d given both Tucker and me a moment before. He knows what I’m afraid of, and it’s not just Valerie’s history with Danny Phantom.

Surprisingly, this gave me a little bit of peace. Not much, but enough. He could handle Valerie, after all. As for the other thing... He was telling me that was okay, too. Valerie wasn’t a threat. Not to him, and not to me.

After a moment, I nodded. “Yeah, I know. I guess we can talk later.”

“Count on it.”

We didn’t talk later, though. At least not that day. Or the next. Or the next after that. After Danny’s chat with Valerie—which, on the upside, ended up with her not wanting to kill him but, on the downside, ended up with them deciding to be friends—there was a mad scramble to pack and catch flights back home. Then, there was a crowded flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, followed by an equally crowded flight to Hawaii. When we reached Honolulu and Mr. Fenton got a look at all the media attention anyone involved with our little project in Antarctica was getting, he made an impromptu decision to take his whole family on a media blitz tour of New York and Washington, while Tucker and I returned home to Amity Park.

So we didn’t get our talk. In fact, it was another two weeks before Danny and I even got a chance to be alone together again.

We did e-mail constantly while he was gone, though, him telling me all about stuff like being on The Today Show and Larry King, while I kept him updated on Tucker’s out-of-the-blue decision to convince the Amity Park City Council to appoint him mayor to fill Vlad’s vacated seat, never mind that he couldn’t even vote yet. Danny’s and my conversations didn’t get much deeper than that, however, and it didn’t take long for whatever confidence I’d gained from that moment in Antarctica when he’d told me everything was going to be okay to start to ebb away.

Not that he didn’t drop a few hints. He mentioned a few times that he couldn’t wait to get back so that we could talk, but the longer it was before actually seeing him, the more unreal everything began to feel, like the kiss was something I had just imagined rather than anything real that had passed between us.

In Danny’s absence, I found myself really wanting to talk to Tucker, to get some kind of reassurance that I hadn’t made something out of nothing. The great irony of this was that after nearly two years of ducking his annoying questions, now that I wanted to talk, he was too busy with his new mayor job to listen. So I kept myself busy, too, researching various civil rights movements. Unfortunately, thinking about the danger Danny could be in didn’t exactly make me feel better about everything.

One way or another, you’re going to lose him. It was a refrain I couldn’t get out of my mind. I’d think either the kiss was just one huge mistake, and I was going to lose him that way, or worse, it did mean something after all, but we’d never get the chance to find out exactly what because he would be taken from me. It wasn’t just the fear of people finding out his secret that weighed on me. The image of the Fenton Jet crashing into Mount Erebus was burned into my brain as well, and the fact that it had happened less than an hour after he’d kissed me was not lost on me.

As the day Danny was due back drew closer, I found myself getting more and more anxious. I was on the verge of deciding to just forget the whole thing and tell Danny that the kiss had been a mistake on my part, that I didn’t like him that way and we couldn’t be together no matter what he wanted. I probably would have done exactly that, had it not been for something my grandmother said to me.

It was the day before Tucker was to host a ceremony at Amity Park City Hall unveiling a statue of Danny Phantom that some anonymous donor had commissioned, not only for our town, but for every capital city in every country in the world. I was reading up on the civil rights movement of the Sixties and all the people who were martyred along the way, when I heard my father shouting downstairs.

“You did what with that money, Mother?”

“It’s none of your business what I do with my money, Jeremy Manson!” my grandma shouted back.

“It is when it’s our family’s money!”

“A portion of which I have control over!”

“And this is how you choose to spend it? To commission nearly two hundred statues of a ghost to be put up in every capital in the world? Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?”

My head shot up from my book. My grandmother commissioned those statues?

The argument went on for a while, and when it stopped, my grandmother came looking for me in my room.

“You heard.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, bubbeleh, but since you know, I want you to know why I did it.”

“I know why, Grandma. Because he’s a hero.”

“Yes, but I didn’t do it for him. I did it for you.”

My eyes widened and my heart started pounding. Did she know more than I thought she did? Had someone slipped, not even two weeks after leaving Antarctica? I tried my best to be nonchalant. “Me? What do statutes of Danny Phantom have to do with me?”

“Because you were there. You went all the way to Antarctica to help a ghost save the world, never mind the danger or the cold or just the weirdness of being with a ghost. You did it because it was the right thing to do, and you didn’t let anyone stop you. So that statue is for you. So that you’ll always remember, and you’ll never let anyone stop you from doing what’s in your heart.”

---

Danny surprised me by showing up on my doorstep the next day, two days ahead of schedule. My first thought when I saw him, live and in person for the first time in two weeks, was my grandmother’s words. Never let anyone stop you from doing what’s in your heart.

Well, okay, my first thought was more along the lines of ohmygod he’s here what’s he doing here he wasn’t supposed to be home for two more days yet and what am I going to say and what’s he going to say ohmygod....

My second thought was something like you might want to breathe now, Sam.

My third thought, after he convinced me to bag the statue dedication at City Hall and watch it with him from a hilltop a little ways away where we could be alone, was a variation on the first. Ohmygod, he wants to be alone, what’s he going to say, what am I going to say ohmygod...

But after all that, when my brain was actually functioning again, my first thought was my grandmother’s words. Never let anyone stop you from doing what’s in your heart. And what was in my heart was as clear now as it had been in Antarctica the last time we were alone together. I was in love with him, and I wanted to be with him, Monkey’s Paw goth fatalism be damned. I’d kissed him, and I hadn’t lost him—I wouldn’t lose him—because he’d promised to come back, and he’d kept his promise.

But what was in my heart was only half the picture. I still wasn’t sure what was in his heart. The whole time we talked, small talk about meeting the president in Washington and his parents’ reaction to knowing the truth, my mind went back and forth between he likes me and he likes me not so many times I might as well have been pulling petals off a daisy.

In the end, I was so afraid of hearing he likes me not, that I gave him an out. “You’ll probably get pretty busy,” I said, referring to Danny Phantom’s new status as an international super celebrity. “And I probably won’t see much of you anymore.” Just tell me you’re too busy to see me, that it’s Danny Phantom and his celebrity. Anything but that that kiss didn’t mean anything to you...

But he didn’t take the out. Instead, he smiled at me, and gave the ring back to me. Put it on my finger, in fact. Not just something to hold for him, but mine to keep. The fulfillment of one promise, and the offer of a new one.

“Sam, I could never have done any of this without you,” he said, as I started crying like an idiot. “And I don't care what’s coming next. I just hope whatever it is, you’re there to share it with me.”

And now I knew. It wasn’t in my head, it wasn’t some mistake he regretted. When he’d kissed me, he’d meant it. He wanted this. He wanted me. And all that was left was for me to follow my fears, or follow my heart.

So I took my grandmother's advice. I followed my heart.

And when he kissed me this time—well, if two fake-out make-outs hadn’t been enough to prepare me for our first real kiss, nothing could have prepared me for our second one. Everything else went completely away until there was only me and Danny and how it felt to be really with him, without my fears putting walls up where they didn’t need to be.

And this time, I knew it was real, that it wouldn’t all disappear like so much smoke if I so much as moved. This time, I was going to claim it. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him closer, thrilling at the feel of his hands as they let go of mine to brush along my face and then into my hair. There was no rush, no impending disaster, no fear that this was just some end-of-the-world impulse that didn’t mean anything, or that I would lose him if I admitted how much I wanted him. It was just the two of us, finishing what we’d started two weeks earlier in Antarctica. Or maybe two years earlier in the Casper High gymnasium.

But that wasn’t quite right, either. Our story didn’t end with a kiss. It was beginning with one.

Notes:

And one more time, Tucker's perspective is really needed. The Tucker companion to these chapters is About Dang Time.

Chapter 37: Ours: Danny & Sam

Ours
Danny and Sam

We’d like to say our story ends with “And they lived happily ever after.”

Actually, we wouldn’t. And more to the point, we can’t.

Not that we haven’t been happy. My life with Sam has had more happy moments than I could have ever imagined back on that ordinary day, in an ordinary middle school classroom, when the boy who just wanted to be normal was serving lunch detention, and the scary-looking girl with the shaved head walked into his life and taught him to reach beyond himself.

Or when he reached back to her when no one else would.

But our lives together have also had more scary moments than I could have imagined. More tense moments, more moments when I could have cheerfully strangled her...

Or I could have cheerfully strangled him...

And moments when we were both so stricken by grief, the only thing we could do was cling to each other.

That’s the thing with life. There is no “ever after.” No ride off into the sunset, where happiness is eternal, the skies are always blue, and the seas are always calm. Life is infinitely more complex than that, an intricate dance of dark and light, and that’s what makes it beautiful. A life without that would be hopelessly bland.

And life with Sam could never be bland.

We could have missed it all, though. Our fears nearly kept us from even starting the journey. Danny’s fears of screwing up and destroying what mattered most to him.

Sam’s fears of opening up and losing what mattered most to her. Fears we thought we’d conquered with a ring and a kiss on a hilltop. But we were wrong. Those fears couldn’t be conquered.

Just temporarily subdued. The ghosts that would always haunt us.

We had no idea, then, on that hilltop, what lay ahead.

Everything I could lose.

Everything I could destroy. And it would take more than a ring or a kiss to make it right.

But that’s part of the dance, too. A dance we could only do together.

So, our story doesn’t end with a “happily ever after,” because our story hasn’t ended. There are chapters that close, and new ones that begin, but the story continues. What began with a defining moment, like an explosion in a basement portal...

Or the first spark of something new at high school dance.

Or a kiss in the snow.

Or a ring offered as a promise to always come home.

What began in moments like these doesn’t end so much as evolve.

While new defining moments become new beginnings, changing our direction yet again, and setting us on paths we’d never expected or never even knew existed.

Some of them better than we’d ever dared dream.

You can keep your “happily ever after.” For us, there are still dances left to dance and stories left to tell. Some of them are his stories.

Some of them are hers.

But together, they become more than just his or hers. They become ours. And this whole ride we’ve been on together? I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Not one little bit.

 

-THE END-

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of the His and Hers series »