(Sigh) Lisa's been listening to Kryptonite too much…so here comes the one-shot! And I know some of the theories have been overused a bit…but it fits with the lyrics, and I like it. Yet, I love the metaphors and similes…I love them.

SUMMARY: Five years after Sam's high school graduation, she hears that Danny is alive, but in a mental institution. Visiting him, she realizes that Danny is Superman. Slight DS

DISCLAIMER: I don't own DP. Butch Hartman does. And as much as I'd love to own the song Kryptonite, Three Doors Down does.

RATED: T because my mind works in a way that'll make something PG-13.

Kryptonite

Five years. Five years ago was the last that she'd heard from him. She figured he moved away, forgotten about her. But she never forgot him. Perhaps because he was Amity Park's protector. She liked to think of him as Amity's Superman. Kryptonite in his veins, power pulsing with every beat of his heart.

Then she found the newspaper under an old box. It was dated June 24th, 2008. Said that Danny had been accepted into Amity's asylum that day. Sam's lips curved to form the words "June Twenty-Fourth" but they didn't come out.

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Looking out the window, Sam saw a dark figure against the pearly white backdrop of the moon. It flew across the orb, a stain on the rock she had admired for so long. She knew that Danny loved flying in the middle of the night. It calmed him down.

But the figure landed on the moon. Landed. She couldn't tell what he was doing.

Danny was sitting and gazing from afar. He could somehow see Amity Park, and could see Sam staring at him out her window. He sighed and tightly shut his eyes. He couldn't look at her. Not this way.

Sam saw the figure come off the side of the moon and fly back. Before she knew it, the ghostly boy was floating right before her face.

"Hey there Superman," she said casually. Danny didn't respond. His face didn't change at all. A chiseled sculpture, never to move.

"Come on, kryptonite boy!" she joked. Danny disappeared into a smoke, a memory Sam couldn't keep. But she could hear his voice ringing, echoing in her head. A secret message never to be uttered aloud.

"I'll never be."

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Hurrying, Sam rushed across the street unnecessarily. This was the middle of the night, and in Amity, that meant it was practically a ghost town. Although that was exactly what it was. Pun intended.

The moon was the only thing that made this visit nostalgic. The milky white reflection, bathing the city in white, allowing it to bask in pale glory.

Sam fought her way into the asylum and found Danny in his room, the lights still on. He was strapped to the bed, dark circles under his half-lidded eyes. A living skeleton. He looked like he hadn't aged, still 14. Eternal life. She could see several dots in his arm. Injection.

She gasped. Was it just her, or were his eyes glowing blue? Devious and malicious, they only proved her fear. Danny had gone crazy. Sam pushed the door open quietly and walked in. She hoped that Danny could talk to her.

"Sam?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Danny."

"How'd you get in?" Sam was taken aback. Was he aware of the door?

"There's a door." Danny looked cautiously around the room.

"Why are you here?" she challenged.

"Danny shut his eyes tightly and tried to shuffle. When he opened his eyes again, they were neither green nor blue. Red, redder than the very liquid running through his body. His enhanced, ghost body.

"Because I'm not."

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At graduation, Danny Fenton was the shortest graduating student at five foot two, appearing not a day over fourteen. Even Sam had grown taller to five foot seven. He was a munchkin among the rest, the size of a mere plaything. But in maturity, he had grown older, older than any of them.

"Hey, Danny, lighten up!" joked Tucker once in their junior year.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because, one day it'll, oh, forget it!" he sighed hastily.

"What?"

"I was going to say I was going to die someday because of my foolishness, but," he said, grinning ever so slightly, "how can I die when I'm already dead?"

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"Tell me, Danny, what do you see here?" Sam motioned to the vicinity of the room.

"Prison."

Sam looked at him strangely.

"Zoo."

An even stranger look.

"How do you see a zoo, or a prison? All there is in this room is a straightjacket, a bed you're strapped into, and a few windows!" Sam refused to accept that Danny was insane. He was, after all, Superman. Insanity was for mere humans. He…he was a step above the rest, higher on the evolutionary scale.

"People come in to gape and gawk. This is my sanctuary, my prison cell. Crowds even pay to see me, the lowly prisoner."

Sam began to understand what he was talking about. This was like a cage, an animal cage. People stared and laughed. At their savior.

"Toys have feelings too."

Sam sighed.

"Danny," she prepared to say, but he drifted off gently into sleep. He may be insane, he may still have the body of a fourteen year old, he may have the wisdom of an old man, but he was still just as sweet as the day she met him.

"Good night." She rubbed his hands gently and smiled sweetly.

"Superman."

So very mushy. (Passes out)