Doorway
Sam, garbed in her usual outfit, struggled to take that next step. To step those stairs and approach that door. That blue, metallic door that seemed to clash with the red brickwork. The lights and the hunk of metal that stood on top of the building ruined the skyline, not that there was much of one in her opinion. The buildings were just obscuring the natural beauty that was once filled by the environment.
She didn't want to do this. She didn't like this. She wanted to turn away- to run away. Her grip on her flowers tightened. No roses, no fancy paper or cool arrangement, she wasn't good at that yet. Not good enough to try, she could, at best, wrap them up nicely, and prep them so that they'd be given a favorable death. One that would give them a sense of dignity as they would most likely die due to the sheer ineptitude of the Fenton family.
She needed to see them. She knew that. She really did, but she really didn't want to. They all knew about Danny now, and honestly, everyone knew about Danny at this point- that was why she needed to do this. She didn't have to before the big reveal, but ever since then everyone was asking the question and she could see that it was weighing on the Fenton family. It wasn't a happy question. And there were still only three people who knew what the answer was. Well, four if you counted Clockwork. And four if Desiree actually remembered the whole change time scenario.
The issue was starting to get out of hand and there were new reasons for the question to be brought up. Legal ones. The Fenton family's relationship was growing more and more strained and it, ironically had very little to do with prejudice or how they reacted to the reveal, but rather, how hard it was getting to deal with the question as it gradually began burrowing itself into the mind of each member, except for Danny of course. He knew the answer the best, better than she did. Maybe it was because of how she was the best answer to the question.
"How did Danny Fenton become a ghost?"
Speculation and theories filled every media platform still, many were hairbrained ideas with no basis and others were closer to the truth, though far more implicating. Some said it was spiritual enlightenment, others said it was due to experimentation done by his parents. Some said that he was dead and that his parents should be locked up for killing their own son.
They were wrong. And the sad thing? Sam would've probably been right there with them if she hadn't been there from the beginning. No, even at the beginning she would've been at the Fentons' throats for everything, but after seeing how everything had panned out. How much they had sat through in order to build bridges that had, surprisingly, never been burned down. How much they cared for their son through it all. Even when they couldn't understand what Danny was going through. They stood by him whenever they could. Even as Phantom at times. Actions that she had never been blessed with.
She knew Danny wasn't dead. They'd checked it time and time again, her Tuck and Danny himself. They checked for his heartbeat. They watched his health, they had been the ones to fix Danny up again and again. Tuck was keeping track of all the health stuff. The injuries, body temperature, blood pressure and all that stuff that Sam couldn't understand. She was more field oriented, but that didn't stop her from making sure Danny's heart was still beating. She would watch his chest rise and fall just to make sure that he was still breathing.
His blood was the only thing that could be considered abnormal. When he was Phantom his blood was green. Jazz said that it was something else too, but Sam was just happy that the cells still maintained the same cellular structure as they did in any human body. That coloring though… It was the exact same green as the portal had been. She recognized it the first time blood had pooled around Danny's hip after a fight with Undergrowth. The swirling, ever constant portal that she had convinced him to enter.
True, she hadn't been too guilt-ridden ever since the whole wish issue with Desiree, but now that everyone was bringing it up… The guilt was getting to her. And now having to tell his parents was an entirely different thing to do. Though- not really. It shouldn't have been, but it was. How could she tell them that she's the reason that their son can never accomplish his dreams? That she was the reason that they'd targeted him, despite their undying love for him. She gripped the bouquet tighter, the paper crinkling as she did such.
The guilt that she had once swallowed, was now a fish hook, tearing at her insides, seeming to rip away her flesh if she did not heed its pull. And where did that pull lead her? To the front door of Fenton Works. Just before the door, were the stairs she should be taking now. But the pull had stopped. Maybe she just needed to satisfy the fishing line by returning to the scene of the crime or perhaps it was the sheer anxiety that had cut her loose.
She didn't want to be here.
She wanted to run away.
She didn't want to be here for this reason. Never for this reason. She should've been at the movies with Danny and Tuck. Instead, she'd made the excuse that the movie was far too cliché, too stereotypical for her to watch. She had put that aside to make this errand. No, 'errand' was to light a term. It was her duty to, whether she wanted to or not. She had come to apologize. For everything. She climbed the stairs and knocked. She had taken that next step.