I apologize, most of this chapter is mostly information. the story will progress next chapter, I promise. sorry if it drags a little this chapter, suggestions welcome! my first Danny Phantom fic.
When you are fourteen years old, everything has such...promise. No matter what you may say, how greatly you may exaggerate how dissatisfied you are with your current situation. Every girl secretly hopes that they will marry their high-school crush, every boy wants to date the head cheerleader. Everything seems attainable and the world looks like its covered in sunshine smiles and gumdrop rainbows. Samantha Manson, thankfully, never believed any of that.
She sometimes wondered the results if she were to poll the graduating class of 2008 six years later and see what they had to see about their own ridiculous aspirations. The cynicalness in her nature could not help but imagine the ridiculous revelations that Paulina would face when she finally saw that good looks and money could not take her everywhere. She was not Paris Hilton. Dash would be utterly useless without an endless supply of geeks to torture on a daily basis, and Kwan would be nowhere without his army of brainless drones to support every hair-brained scheme and idea that he concocted.
The one weakness that we mere mortals must face and that not even Sam could avoid was the natural assumption that your nearest and dearest friends would remain so for the rest of your life. After graduation both she and Tucker attempted to retain contact, fighting alongside with Danny. There was no significant falling out, nothing that she could regret or wish to amend. Tucker received a full academic scholarship to Ohio State and from their the partnership slowly dissipated into friendly silence.
Danny Fenton faded slowly but surely into his alter ego, super hero or menace to society, depending on your outlook. Weeks without contact became months, and months quickly advanced to years. It could easily be said that she was led into a depression or some sort of lethargic behavior, but it was an assumption based on no fact whatsoever. Life was, unfortunately, far less interesting at the age of twenty-four than it was at fourteen. No ghosts to take attention off of her studies, no supernatural beings to throw her quips at. her existence was, dare she say it? Normal, by every definition.
The pain of unrequited love faded with the emotional maturity of her soul, the realization that maybe, just maybe it was not real, that it was a silly girlhood crush that she should have given up on long ago. It was the maybe that continued to torture her. With every passing day her thoughts on Danny and high-school diminished into nothing more than memories, and by the age of twenty-four she had accepted the fact that their friendship was, in fact, over.
The phone rang in the distance, nearly three rooms away from Sam's current position. "Tim!" She called out demandingly, attaching the long and chandelier-like earrings to herself, admiring her own reflection before dabbing on a bit more eyeliner. He made no answer and she was forced to tear herself away from the vanity table and dive for the telephone on its last ring.
"What is it?" She snapped, so reminiscent of her angry gothic fourteen-year-old persona that she was forced to recall her actual age. She had a very important meeting to attend, one in which she needed to appear positively perfect...and that was never her forte.
The caller relinquished no more than a stifled and tense sigh, instantly causing Sam to suppose this to be a woman. It was an unfair assumption, something based on nothing more than her past experience with her own sex, in uncomfortable moments women were known to sigh, as though to keep silences to a minimum without actually speaking.
"Hello? Who is this?" When pressured Sam was just about as charming as a nail in someone's rear end, and she was very successful in the practice of frightening someone out of silence. She wondered whether or not she should have this patented.
"Sam?" Her original guess was incorrect, though it was close enough.
Shocked, Sam sputtered for a moment before retaining her cool. "Tuck? God, is that really you? It's a bit early to be calling for the ten year reunion." The person on the other line was none other than Tucker Foley.
The silence was an uncomfortable one, quite similar to the one's she and Danny often shared after a comment was made to insinuate that the two were anything more than friends. "Sam, I need your help. We need your help." The other part of the equation was undoubtedly Danny, she felt no need to verify this.
"What's up?" Her meeting was, for the moment, completely forgotten.
She could imagine him shifting and glancing down at his second rate shoes with embarrassment, whether or not the situation required any sort of shame. "It's Danny...there's something wrong, have you been watching the news?" She didn't see how the disastrous plastic surgery folly of one of Hollywood's elite pertained to Danny Fenton/Phantom.
He took the resounding silence as a negative, despite her usual learnedness on the issues of the day. "He's...there's something seriously wrong with him and I-" This was where she lost him, her attention diverted to the entrance of her live-in boyfriend, Tim Otis.
"Hey, Sammy, have you seen my tie?" She silenced him with a spastic hand motion before gesturing to the telephone. He was not what one would suppose of Sam's significant other, he was a tall, broad man with pale green eyes and light brown hair who, though attractive, was by no means an Abercrombie model.
"I'm sorry, Tuck, can you call back in a few hours, I have to get to a meeting." The entry of Tim had some bearings on this urgency, that and the fact that he seemed resolved to remain.
"But-alright." He surrendered, knowing that there was no way he could possibly convince her otherwise. His distress was heard and not forgotten, and even as the day continued to progress, she could not forget what he had said...have you been watching the news? How bad was it?
the beginning definitely dragged, an I apologize for that. i hope that this will not stop people from continuing with the story.
