Whee, second story! Thanks to all of you who reviewed my first, my appreciation comes in the form of this story. This one...not sure yet of how the coupling is going to work out. At the least, one sided DxS. For the entire story: I don't own Danny Phantom nor the characters in said show, Mr. Hartman does. So, without further ado...

Chapter 1: Cruel Summer

The first day of sophomore year. An invigorating feeling for the average high school student. Summer vacation, which has long since become boring, is finally over. One gets to see their friends again and one gets to get away from their parents once more. Most importantly, though, one is no longer the bottom of the class caste system: a freshman.

Samantha Manson thought about all of this as she prepared herself for the first day of her sophomore year. She put her hair up in the same way it had been last year and endowed herself with the garments that she had worn since she was in the first grade. She walked out the door of her abode the same way she always did. Nothing, it seemed, had changed, so why did she want to just stay in bed and sleep?

Sam contemplated this as she walked alone to school. She knew perfectly well why she wasn't looking forward to today. It was caused by the same thing that was slowly shattering her soul.

" 'Thing' is inaccurate," she thought in retrospect. "More like 'person.' "

Sam sighed, and cast her depressed gaze downward to the concrete. It had already been two months since what she called the "Danny Famine." Sam groaned immediately after she thought this.

"This is so affecting me way more than it should. Now I'm coming up with incredibly cheesy names. But, it isn't like I'm not justified or anything..."

Sam shut her notebook, having just finished writing her first journal entry of summer break. She lounged on her bed until a tapping noise alerted her to a presence at the window. Smiling, she went over and let Tucker inside.

"Just you today, Tuck?" she asked while shutting the window behind him to prevent warm air from coming into the cool house.

Tucker was about to make a reply when Sam suddenly found her vision obscured by a pair of hands. A jovial male voice resounded from behind her. "Guess who?"

Sam wore a wide grin. "Danny?"

"Danny who?"

"Fenton."

"Guess again."

Sam couldn't repress a chuckle. "Danny Phantom." She was rewarded with her vision back as the halfa transformed back into his human form.

Tucker rolled his eyes. "And you guys wonder why everyone calls you two lovebirds," quipped. He was met with two glares, and he gulped. "...Sorry."

Sam walked to her bedroom door to hide the blush that she felt sizzling on her face. She wouldn't have minded being Danny's lovebird; she had known that for a while now. The second fake-out make-out made her realize her true feelings towards him. However, for all of her outspokenness on other issues, she was too chicken to make a move. So, she just confessed in other ways. Such as writing it in her journal. Many times over. But enough of this; she had two friends to entertain.

"I'm going to go get some food. You two want anything?" she asked. "And if you ask me for meat I will kill you," she warned before Tucker could get the words out of his mouth.

"...Chips."

"Some soda's fine for me."

She nodded and walked towards the stairs. As she descended, she heard Danny shout, "Sam! I need a sheet of paper and a pen!"

"There's some paper in a drawer by the computer, and a jug of pens on the computer desk!" she shouted back. She then went to her grossly overstocked kitchen to pick out the latest and greatest chips and soda and hummus for herself and her friends.

A few minutes later, Sam was heading back up the stairs, a various assortment of goods on a tray she was carrying. Humming a tune in her head (and if anyone found out she'd kill them too), she went back into her room. It took all of a second for the change in the room to be noticed by her.

"Where's Danny?" she asked, setting the tray on her bed. She noticed Tucker looked anxious, like there was something that he was trying to say, but couldn't.

"Danny... had to go fight a ghost! He said he'd be back when he was finished!" Tucker replied, to which Sam frowned.

"Then... I suppose we'll just sit here and wait," she said simply, sitting down on her bed.

An hour later, Sam waved goodbye to Tucker as he left for a family function. It was an hour after they had started waiting for a halfa that didn't show up again. Sam bit her lip; hour long battles were not a good sign. Taking action, she left her house and jogged down to Fenton Works. Once there, she knocked on the door, which Jazz answered.

"Hey, Jazz? Is Danny there?" Sam asked calmly.

Jazz shook her head. "He was here about fifteen minutes ago, but then he left and didn't say where he was going." Jazz frowned at the goth girl's momentary expression of shock, which she quickly hid.

"Oh... well, if you see him, could you ask him to call me?" Sam asked. Jazz nodded, and Sam turned and left. Jazz sighed, and turned to her brother, who had just become visible. Her expression was pained.

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny said softly, before walking upstairs.

Sam called the house the next day to see if Danny was home. She didn't get an answer. She tried again two days later. Still no answer. She tried again three days later. No answer.

Two sightings of Danny since that last call (in both cases, she tried to catch his eye, but he stubbornly wouldn't look at her), she tried again. Of course, she got no answer.

Sam screamed into her pillow with frustration, and laid face up on her bed. She blinked rapidly to try and clear the tears threatening to spill out of her eyes.

"Why is he ignoring me?" she asked herself. "We've known each other for years, and he's never done this to me before."

Sitting up, she thought back to the day Danny had ditched Tucker and her. The last thing he had said to her was something about where the paper was. She looked around her room, trying to remember how it looked. Something in there had to have done something to him, as he was practically flirting with her before she went to get the food.

"Let's see. The lamp. The pictures. My dresser. Closet. Bathroom door. Computer. Journal. Jug of pens. Pill--"

Sam stopped. Her journal. Her journal. He had asked for some paper, and the notebook was sitting on her desk. She hadn't decorated it with anything (why bother, it was just a journal), so he could have very well tried to get paper from out of there. That had to be it! Danny had mistook her journal for a regular notebook, tried to get a piece of paper out from it, found one of her entries in it, and...

Sam sat straight up as the full truth of the matter set in. Those weren't just normal entries. Those had her feelings for Danny in them.

Her insides went just as cold as her skin.

The goth bird of happiness looked up from the concrete while wiping the tears from her eyes. She was almost at school.

Sam had talked to Tucker the next day, and pried the truth from him. Danny did read the journal. He didn't feel the same way, and thusly became extremely uncomfortable. Rather than breaking her heart, Danny decided to just push her away so he wouldn't hurt her. Of course, when Sam tried to get more from Tucker, the boy hung up. His excuse was something to the effect of "I'm a guy, and therefore not made for talking about feelings". Which left Sam with virtually no options.

Some part of Ms. Manson thought that not wanting to hurt her was noble of Danny, but that didn't stop her soul from eroding away little by little as she felt their friendship drifting apart day by day.

She didn't understand it. They had been friends for years! They had been through the good times and bad, the joys and pains of adolescence, the--

--Sam stopped, as she felt herself getting into cliché territory, and that wasn't individualistic at all. But even without the clichés, the point still stood. How could such a long-lasting friendship crumble because of a crush that she didn't even mean to tell him about!

Without her halfa friend and the ghost battles to keep her busy, Sam became bored over the summer. And she certainly couldn't begin to face the problem she had with Danny. So she threw herself into her causes. She did good work; fought for what she believed in.

And now school was in session. She had nowhere to hide from Danny, and he had nowhere to hide from her.

Sam stared at the doors as high-school clones walked past her, already sharing the latest gossip. That wasn't what was on her mind, though.

She was going to be in close proximity with Danny. That was inevitable; at the very least, they'd both see each other via Tucker (as Sam was not going to stop hanging out with her other friend because she was on the outs with Danny). She had been at a loss of what to do to get Danny's friendship back during the summer.

Sam walked into the school, hoping that she was prepared to fight for the biggest cause of her fifteen years: Danny's friendship.