Author's Note: This is just a quickie one-shot I came up with while I was reviewing character profiles for my other fanfic. Nothing terribly deep, action oriented or romantic. If you haven't seen "Reign Storm" yet, you should watch it and look for the nerd poker moment so you understand the end of this story.

I love doing perspective work and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please review and let me know what you think.

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Deep Blue – A Danny Phantom One-Shot

It was his eyes which caught my attention the first time I ever saw him. They were blue; a deep, clear, shining-sea-sparkling-in-the-sunlight kind of blue. Those eyes were so expressive and care-free. He was completely unguarded. Didn't have a worry in the world. It was so easy to tell, just by looking into those eyes. Those eyes were filled with laughter and joy, sometimes embarrassment, but never worry. I knew this the instant I looked into those eyes. And before I even knew his name or really looked at the rest of his face, I had already made my decision.

I hated him.

I think I was jealous. How could anybody, even as young as we were, not worry about anything? With me, it was clothes and make-up and whether or not my peers would still like me at the end of the day if I accidentally made a fashion faux pas. Worse, my dad actually made enough money to put me on the "rich kids" list. The pressures of being popular have always been horrendous. None of high school's social pariahs – the nerds, geeks, goths and outcasts – actually understand how bad things truly are. They envy the A-List crowd, mimicking us and trying to join the team, without any true understand of the things an A-Lister truly has to worry about. In the meantime, we are expected to live up to some higher ideals; always being well-dressed, well-mannered, maintaining certain standards in the crowds we socialize with or the stores we shop at and never, ever being anything less than perfect.

Okay, maybe it wasn't so bad. I might have actually enjoy flaunting my wealth. I certain enjoyed the little luxuries it got me. And I was definitely Daddy's Little Girl. Daddy could get me anything my heart desired.

Almost anything, that is.

I remember our second meeting, just a few days later, when I had made the A-List and was officially one of the elite. It was lunchtime and we went to the cafeteria intent on claiming the best table. I made the mistake of glancing around the room and accidentally met his gaze. There were those eyes again. Those deep blue sea eyes twinkling with mirth. He was sitting at a table with a goth and a techno-geek. They were all laughing. Not at us, I don't think. Though, at the time, I actually did think so. I found myself angry and offended. My hand clenched into a fist and I wanted to run over to his table and punch him in the face. Then he turned away, continuing the conversation he was having and the three of them laughed again.

He was a freak. Everyone knew it. Everyone knew his parents were some bizarre weirdo couple who dressed in spandex hazmat suits and invented all sorts of strange gadgets that never worked. He was a freak that no one cared about except a lone goth and a techno-geek. Three of them were sitting alone and having the time of their lives, not caring a whit about their out-of-style clothing, their mussed hair, or that we A-Listers considered them less than the dirt on our shoes. He was less than perfect and he had friends, real friends, who wouldn't desert him if he did something even minutely wrong.

I don't think I could ever have hated him more.

Danny Fenton was the bane of my existence. Every day I saw him, every time I met his gaze, even in passing, those eyes of his mocked me. He didn't care about popularity. Oh, he acted like he did. Every outcast acted like they wanted to be popular. But where the others trailed after us, tried to talk to us, searched for ways to become rich, fashionable and cool, Danny and his two friends, Sam and Tucker, walked away from us. They followed their own path, paying only lip-service to the need for popularity while they looked to themselves for definition and life's meaning.

I never understood how he could act like an individual. Or even why being excluded never broke him. It certainly would have broken me. Almost did, in fact, the day Daddy lost his job at the security plant and I had to sell most of my things to help him pay the rent on some shoddy apartment in the lower-middle class side of town. Paulina, Star, Dash and Kwan dumped me so fast I thought I had been hit on the head by the state of Alaska. One minor mistake, it wasn't even my mistake, and I was alone, outcast and eating lunch out of a paper bag. All because of that darned ghost boy, Inviso-Bill, and his stupid ghost dog.

Okay. I admit it. I'm a little obsessed about those two ghosts. But they ruined my entire life! I suddenly have no friends, live in a dinky little rat-trap with my Dad, and have to wear the same outfit more than once a month. Do you understand how difficult my life has become? I even had to take a part time job, a real job, to save money for college. Of course, that's in addition to my new hobby of ghost hunting. I intend to destroy Inviso-Bill the way he destroyed me. I want him to suffer as I shred him inch by ectoplasmic inch.

Of course, in order to do that, I had to understand a little more about how ghosts work. So when Tucker told me Danny's parents were ghost hunters, I realized it was major decision time. Whom did I hate worse? Fenton, because of his eyes which always seemed to capture my attention no matter how hard I tried to ignore him, or Inviso-Bill? The decision wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Danny was no longer the bane of my existence. The ghost-boy had stolen that dubious honor.

I forced myself to be nice to him. Deliberately making an effort not to look into his eyes, I tried to cozy up to Danny. I'll admit it. I fully intended to use him and toss him aside. All I needed was information on ghosts and hunting techniques. Once I had it, I would, hopefully, go back to my old life with my old friends and … Well, I don't know. Whatever I would have done, it would have been better than my current circumstances.

It didn't work out that way, of course. Somehow, Danny knew what I was up to. He, Sam and, later on, Tucker, did their best to avoid me. They wouldn't answer my questions and, to add insult to injury, they were mean to me. How could they be mean to me? I was in the same situation they were in! All of us were outcasts from the A-Listers now. We were exactly the same; poor, unwanted and friendless. There was no excuse for the way they treated me!

And every time they walked away from me, all I could think of was my first look into Fenton's deep blue, care-free eyes and the first time I had seen him, Sam and Tucker laughing in the cafeteria. They were nice to each other, then as well as now. Why couldn't they be nice to me?

Jealous much, Val? Yeah. Maybe just a little.

I want to have friends too.

Not friends like Nathan, though. That dork is just plain creepy. He's been chasing me all over school for a week asking me to a senior prom that's three years away. What is this guy's issue? So I run through the school, looking for a place to hide, ANY place to hide, when it occurs to me there are nerds in the cafeteria who I could use for cover. All of my strength and speed training for ghost hunting does pay off in my normal life. I have just enough of a head start on the dork to duck into the cafeteria, scoot around the tuba and slip under the table in question. I sit, huddled, knees close to my chest and waiting for Nathan to go away when a familiar voice interrupts my thoughts.

"Find your own hiding spot! I have dibs on under the nerds playing nerd poker."

It's him. A shiver goes through me as I realize I've trapped myself with him. Shame heats my cheeks, though I don't know why. Fenton is a freak, an outcast, a nobody. He can't tell me what to do or dictate where I go! So I turn to give him a verbal slap. "Ease up, Fenton. You're not the only one who needs to hide, you know."

Only, when I turn to talk to him, I find myself doing it again. I tilt my face away so I don't actually have to look at him, but my eyes keep trying to find his in the shadows of the table despite my best efforts. And finally, just as Nathan arrives in the cafeteria and yells for me, I catch Danny's eyes and this time I don't turn away.

He's staring at me while Nathan's shouting something about the senior prom only being three years away, his shoulders hunched over defensively as his face freezes into a tight, emotionless mask. His black bangs hang messily over his forehead, almost covering one eye, but not enough to prevent me from seeing. I look into those deep blue eyes, my heart pounding as I remember my first look and the hatred that look engendered. Only now…

…only now…

When did it happen? I've known him for so many years and been haunted during all of those years by the crystal clear, care-free joy in Danny's eyes. Those eyes are the first thing I think of every time I see him, so how did I not notice this before? What was once a sparkling sea of laughter has become a dark, clouded sky of pain. Stress lines radiate out from eyes narrowed with grief, anger, depression and fear. The joy is gone, replaced by a heavy weight of cobalt blue so shallow I can see my own reflection in it.

My heart contracts painfully. I want to cry. When did this happen to him? When did the deep blue "no worries" eyes I have always been so jealous of become overshadowed by an agony so much deeper than anything I've ever experienced?

What happened to you, Danny? When did you become just like me?

I don't say that aloud, of course. The guilt at my inexcusable behavior towards him crushes the words in my throat. I could have been friends with him if I had ignored my initial "first meeting" reaction and if I hadn't tried to use him to learn about ghosts. If, if, if. If wishes were horses, I'd be a very rich rancher right now.

There is no excuse for the things I've done to him. My heart broke when the A-List dumped me. Now I find my soul breaking. I am a horrible, awful person. It never occurred to me that even someone like him could have problems. The need to apologize for my previous bad behavior overwhelms me. Before I can say anything, Danny beats me to the punch.

"Three years?" he asks quietly in response to Nathan's loud plea for a date. "We could be here a while." Then, he smiles. It's not the deep, free smile I've seen him use around Tucker and Sam, but it is a smile and today it's actually directed at me. It even almost reaches around the pain in his eyes.

My heart contracts again. He didn't do this because I'm rich or popular or because he expects anything in return. He smiled at me for no other reason than he wanted to smile at me. Suddenly I begin to truly understand what I missed the day I turned my back on him and those incredible, beautiful, deep blue eyes. And I smile back at him and make the only conciliatory gesture I can think to make.

"Wanna check over our book reports?"

It's a homework thing. A stupid, simple assignment Lancer made us do. It isn't an quite an apology. Still, the gesture seems to work. He smiles again, this time a little less stiffly. For a brief moment, I see the smile hit his eyes and just as quickly, the fear, anger and pain are gone. The stress lines are still present, however. So are the clouds. Even with his smile, I just can't see clearly into the deep blue of his eyes the way I used to be able to.

Oh, Danny. Can you ever forgive me?