Author's Note: Before anyone asks, no Danny won't really end up with any one, all the parings will just be implied. I'm an evil bitch that way. Muhahahaha...

Disclaimer: Don't own no Phantom.

"Dancing in your darkness

Dancing in your fear

forgetting all your hidden monsters

Shedding all your tears"

- Cruxshadows, "Monsters"

She was exhausted to the point where her limbs ached almost unbearably like the twist of tree branches caught in a storm before snapping off. But she kept on running...

"Lynn," she whispered, fighting back tears. She continued on her way...before the monster could catch her...

There was that dull, familiar hum of conversation, that familiar clink to silverware against plate as it was lunch time, the cafeteria more crowded than usual as outside it was raining as it had been the following few weeks.

"Sam?"

The Goth girl jumped at the sound of her friend's voice, breaking out of her reverie, her magic marker accidentally slashing black across the white poster she'd been working on.

Looking up, Sam Manson found light blue eyes seated from across the table set on her own heliotrope ones. "Yeah?"

"What're you working on? A project? " Danny asked and then he froze, wide-eyed in solemn anxiety as he realized that Sam shared the same classes with him and Tucker, so they were all bound to have assigned the same thing.. "We don't have any projects to due... do we?"

Sam smirked. "It's due on the fourth." Danny suddenly paled, and she let out a chuckle. "Relax. Breathe. I was only joking."

"Funny," Danny said sarcastically as he shot her a pointed glare. He sighed then, leaning back and running a hand through his jet-black hair that lately had been in a dire need of a haircut. "Honestly, with all these ghosts running around, I wouldn't be surprised if I did end up forgetting something like that. I am so swamped with school work that it's not even funny."

Sam smiled sympathetically. "You know you got Tucker and me, we're always here for you ." She said softly.

Danny smirked. " Well you do owe me, after all you're the one who did this to me."

Sam rolled her eyes. "You are never going to let that one go, are you?"

Danny grinned playfully at her. "Nope!"

"Oh, c'mon that was a year ago. I was only fourteen!"

Danny just smirked. And the Goth could only sigh. No matter how many apologies she could give, Danny would never let it go that it had been she who talked Danny into checking out one of his parents' latest ghost inventions- the Ghost portal. It was that what ed him to gain supernatural powers along with the controversial alter-ego of Danny Phantom.

"So what are you really working on?" he asked curiously, looking at the poster.

"Eh, nothing much. Just a protest I'm working on against Axion labs."

"What did they do this time to upset our dear Sammy?" Tucker asked jokingly, joining in on the conversation as he sat down with his tray of food he finally got from waiting at the ever so long lunch line. "Ruined the forest? Messing with animal rights?"

Sam wrinkled her nose at his lunch- a never-ending pile of meat. "Speaking of animal rights…"

Tucker glared at her then. He was silent, never removing his eyes from hers, as he slowly, and deliberately, scooped a forkful of his meal into his mouth.

Sam cringed. "Tucker, gross! God! You're even worse than my dad!"

"Really? Sounds to me, he has a pretty good idea of what food is supposed to be." Tucker's eyes fell over Sam's salad.

"At least he knows enough to not consume like ten barns a day!" Sam shot back,

"Guys! Please, can we not do this again?" Danny mentally kicked himself for saying that, because as soon as he said it, his friends' eyes were on him, searching. Immediately, he held his hands up. "Hey, I am taking no part in this."

Sam snorted. "Omnivore..." she muttered under her breath as she reached for her water bottle only to realized she forgot to get herself one from the drinking machine. She sighed, knowing that she had to walk to the other side of the cafeteria to get it. "I'll be right back guys." She told her friends as she got up and walked off across the cafeteria.

When she had the water bottle in her hand, Sam quickly opened it, taking a quick swig before turning around. She was about to walk back to her friends' table when suddenly her ears picked up on the word "Phantom".

She turned her head to find that it was Paulina and Valerie. They were too absorbed in what looked like a squabble as some sort to notice Sam's presence, scowling darkly at one another.

"Ghost boy isn't evil. He's here to protect us!" Paulina insisted. Ah... so that's what they were fighting about.

"Open your eyes! Phantom is a menace and should be taken down because of that." Valerie said fiercely. Sam narrowed her eyes.

"That's not true!" She found herself saying at the girl. "Maybe if you'd open your eyes you could see that!" Inwardly she goraned as she realizzed that she was agreeing with Paulina.

Sam never liked Paulina as the A-list girl was just about everything she stood against. And then there was Valerie and her whole vendetta toward Danny's alter-ego that was just a complete misunderstanding. And it certainly didn't help, that at that same time, Valerie was into Danny's human half, earning Sam some competition-Whoa! Wait a second! Competition?! For what?! Danny was her friend, it wasn't like she felt that way about him….Her cheeks suddenly tinged pink at the thought of Danny in another one of his lopsided smiles.

Sam was suddenly heard Valerie say heatedly. "Mind your own business!"

Paulina didn't look happy herself as her eyes looked like chips of turquoise ice. "I don't know what you're trying to do, you little loser but let me tell you something, if you think for one second that Phantom needs you to back him up, you got another thing coming! He has me!" She flicked back her waving mane of long black hair and sneered, "Besides, last I checked you're going out with that Fenton loser, so I don't know why you are even bothering."

Sam dropped her jaw. "What?!" Sam and Valerie looked flabbergasted at that. "He's not my boyfriend!" Sam said defensively at the same time as Valerie said, "He's not her boyfriend!" then after a brief pause, they said in unison, "He's not a loser!"

"Oh yeah, Paulina well let me tell you something," Sam said, walking over to the two of them, never able to finish what she was going to say as she suddenly tripped.

It all happened so fast...

Paulina let out a shriek as Sam accidentally toppled over her and Valerie, taking the two of them down to the floor with her.

It had been during that process that Sam had dropped her water bottle when that happened, and it leaked as it smacked loudly against the tiled floor. They landed on top of the bottle and after it knocked the breath out of the three of them, it had exploded, soaking their faces, hair and the entire front of their shirts.

The cafeteria fell in dead silence as they watched the whole scene in wide-eyed, jaw-dropped shock. And that had been enough for Kwan as he stood up with a manic grin, "FOOD FIGHT!" he yelled at the top of his lungs and grabbing his sandwich, he flung it at one kid, and it hit his cheek with a mayo-soaked slap.

That was when all hell broke loose. Every kid grabbed onto any weapon choice of food they could get, and in in under just a few micutes the whole cafeteria began to look like a five-year-old's finger-painting at every white wall, corner and area of the floor.

"Get off of me, you freaks!" Paulina cried out, pushing Valerie and Sam off of her.

Valerie gasped, caught in surprise and stumbled suddenly into a puddle of what looked like tomato sauce and spaghetti, staining the entire front of her shirt.

That was when she was consumed by sudden anger, and grabbed the nearest weapon she could find which had turned out to be a bottle of ketchup and squeezed it at Paulina's direction.

Seeing this coming, the Latina yelped and hastily ducked. And unfortunately Sam was the one to have ended up with a face full of ketchup as she had been standing behind her.

Paulina smirked, looking smug as she stood up. Triumphantly, she let out a "Hah!", and then an, "Eeeeek!" as Sam (who grabbed her own weapon-ironically- a bottle of mustard) and Valerie squeezed their condiments on either side of her head.

Paulina widened her eyes, then narrowed them... Oh, it is on now…and she quickly bent down to grab a fistful of her own weapon that was on the floor.

"Little Women, people!" bellowed Lancer and instantly everyone stopped what they were doing. That is, except for Paulina, who had been far too absorbed in her revenge to pay attention.

"EAT SPAGHETTI, GOTH GEEK!" and she flung it at Sam's direction.

Sam widened her eyes in surprise and dodged it in the nick of time. It was just her luck however that it ended up on Lancer who had the bad luck of standing beside Sam.

Noodles and sauce hit against his white shirt, dotting his face in red, with a few noodles comically hanging over his head like hair. This time, when silence hung over the cafeteria, it was heavier in the air.

"You three," his voice came off chilly and muted, the three girls cringed, absently deciding that they all rather preferred his yelling at him. . "I'd like to have a word with you. Now!"

Author's Note: Oooooooooh, they're in trouble now!' Grins' Hopefully, you all found that amusing.

I sure did. I even had one hell of a time writing it all out.

Anyways, read, and review. Critique always encouraged and gratefully taken in.