Hey guys! I got right onto this one, cuz I was excited to write it! Anyhow… a few things before I start…

Danny and Sam are now 18, and are just graduated when the story starts. Amy and Tiffany are obviously, 4. Also… I know some people dislike it when things are fast-forwarded… but yea, it will be interesting, I promise ya!

Harder Times

Chapter 1: Graduation

Finally, the day of graduation, school was over, and I was ready to start my own life, one without my nagging parents, or dumb school holding me back. Although, my parents hated the fact that Sam and I were moving out of our homes, and into a new one in about a month, which I could hardly hold my energy in on that one. Although, it was Sam's parents that wanted her to move out, but of course, you couldn't split us apart, and I was no longer under my parent's rules. I had just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago, and that was probably the best birthday ever, now all I needed to wait for was 21 to get the rest of my rights!

Anyhow… Amy and Tiffany were now four, and both of them taking a lot from Sam. Although too young to be able to tell yet whether they were going to actually be Goth or not, I could see both of them turning into replicas of Sam. Amy's purple eyes were full of Sam's behavior though, even though Sam was way older… She also had long black hair, which was driving Sam nuts because she couldn't stand having someone with long hair in her house, besides her parents, although hers to was getting longer than usual, I guess it was just changing as she got older. Her hair was now down to a little below her shoulder, and she just looked a little older than before, there wasn't much a change in her.

I on the other hand, kept the same hairstyle (why not?) but I had gained a lot of muscle, not too much though, but enough where you could see it in my arms, and especially in my stomach, where I now had a six pack. But then again…. I still wasn't the toughest guy in the world, but Sam thought I was a hotty being a little on the weaker side. I also picked up a little of the Goth trend from Sam, I had an ear pierced now, and I now wore mostly all black. My jeans were black with chains on them now, and I wore a loose shirt that had a red skull in the center, surrounded by black to match the rest of my look. But, I still had the same attitude, and same suit while I was Danny Phantom, I was never going to change that.

Sam now looked a little different as well, like I said before, her hair was a little longer, but it now contained five purple streaks going around her head in evenly spaced positions. She now also wore a skirt that was all black, and had a belt on it that was big, and well… Gothy? It had red frills at the bottom, and fit loosely on her, but it was still short like her recent one. A new shirt went along with it, a tight belly shirt with the word Different imprinted in purple in the center, setting off her individuality, and it too, was black. She was as skinny as ever, and well… I have to say, a lot better looking than most girls now, she often got a lot of glances from other guys, but they were turned away by the fact that she was Goth… and when you see an 18-year-old with a boyfriend, and two kids, I don't think it would appoint to much of an interest.

Amy, was dressed as Sam wished, since she was more of Sam's favorite compared to Tiffany, and Amy was also a little more of my favorite, but we both loved them a lot. Amy of course, was a lot tougher than her sister, who was often brought down by the fact that Amy did get more attention, and was a little rough with Tiffany. Amy was definitely going to be a Sam once she got older, and I could only wait for that. Tiffany, who resembled more of my features, except for one thing, was a lot quieter, and well behaved. But, she wasn't as interesting, although, she was really adorable (yes… I know, I am saying that) compared to Amy, and I often felt bad from her lack of love from us. But she also avoided being around us too, as though she didn't want to be around us at all, and she just wanted to be by herself.

But anyway…

"I can't wait!" Sam hollered, as we returned home from our graduation party, I was driving, while I had to deal with her rambunctious behavior in the seat beside me. She was talking about moving out of course, since she like a lot of kids, wanted anything to be away from her parents, but her more than others.

"Same here, and you know what?"
"Huh?" She asked me, unable to sit still, as though we were moving that day, but unluckily… we hadn't found a house yet. Yes, I told you before we WERE moving in about a month… but I guess that was just what we were planning.

"We still need to find a house," I said, breaking her concentration, she believed we were moving, no matter what soon, and all her excitement seemed to well… fall apart when I said that.

"True, but we get to look this weekend," She said, it was as though we were a married couple, yet we were still teens, still trying to find out what jobs we are going to take, and trying to take care of everything else all at the same time. But… we were more like adults than a lot of kids, we had a lot of responsibility.

"Yea, you think we are moving the second we find a place?"

"No… but you don't always have to be so serious, think of it on the bright side!" She said, her whole attitude changed at the moment, since we had nothing left to do for now, but unfortunately, she was going to attend collage, even though her family had more money than she could imagine, her mom wasn't going to give any of it to her, since she wanted her to live a NORMAL life, but our life was for one, anything BUT normal.

I on the other hand, being the one that had to be the super-hero, was going to have to stay home. So, I was going to have to tend to Amy, and Tiffany for the next few years on my own while Sam was away at college, but it was OK, I wasn't complaining. After all, I wasn't going to have to get a job or anything. My job was being Danny Phantom, and a parent. But I was also going to LOOK for a normal job as well, or else my parents, and her parents were going to think I was just lazy and expecting everything from Sam, since after all… they didn't know about my ghost powers… but I wouldn't be surprised if it was found out soon. Since… well… Amy seemed to have gotten the ghost genes from me. Yes, she had them, I knew that for a fact, but as far as Tiffany went, there wasn't any so far.

"Bright side, huh? Didn't think you would think on the brightside," I teased her, mocking her Goth self, since they were known to be dark, and gloomy, but hey, they were just like normal people, with a little different way of dress, and a little different outlook on some things, but they weren't grouchy, and unhappy.

"Hey, I wouldn't be talking if I were you," She said, and despite the fact that I was driving, gave me a little nudge anyway. After all… it wasn't as though I couldn't just go ghost and save us all, safety wasn't much of any issue as far as the two of us went. Of course, safety from ghost hunters, and people, was a different thing. I was most scared of people, and some ghosts, but not all ghosts were bad, the people were the problem.

"Where are we going?" I asked her, unsure of where she wanted to head out after our big day, we were going to a party later that night, but to be able to relax together for a while, I was unsure of where she wanted to go.

"I dunno… Wanna just drive around?"

"Sure, why not," I said, and just turned away to a direction heading out of town, I didn't like to live in the city, our home was surely going to be locked up in the woods somewhere, or at least in a neighborhood.

I parked out a ways from town, on a backroad, where not much houses were, the only ones that were there anyway, were a long ways apart, and people didn't usually travel down it. The perfect place for anyone to be able to get a break…

"Nice to know we have no more school, huh?" I asked Sam, and she turned her attention from the road, to me.

"You don't have any school, but I will soon have college."

"Well… It's not like you have to go," I told her, because I knew if she tried hard enough, her mom would let her slip with a life of luxury.

"I know, but hey, I don't wanna argue with my parents, I just got away from that," She laughed, and stuck one arm around my neck. We leaned together and gave each other a passionate kiss, we were finally 'old' enough in our parents eyes. They though that after we were out of their houses, we could to just about anything we wanted, except… breaking the law or anything like that, obviously. But of course… we broke that rule a while ago, and that made them a little stricter about it.

"We haven't been able to do that in a while," I said after we broke apart, although, we did kiss quit often… But hey, that was the first time we knew we were aloud!

"Yea, you know, the party starts in about 20 minutes," she told me, and I looked at my watch. Wow… we hadn't done very much, and the time went by fast. I stuck the keys in the ignition, and started the car back up again. It wasn't actually MY car, it was more of Sam's, but she knew how much I loved mustangs, and let me drive it all the time. It was a black mustang, with a red flame on both sides, it was awesome, and how much I would want one of my own, although, anything that is Sam's, is mine as well.

"You know, we don't HAVE to go Danny," Sam told me, I had been nervous about going, because Valerie was supposed to be there, she was getting taken out of jail for just the day, but of course she was going to be on close watch. After all, they thought it was only fair for her to make it to her graduation, since she was still attending school and everything, just behind bars. It wasn't something most places would have done, but when you're in Amity, it's a little different.

"No, it's fine, not like she can do anything to me, for all I know, she could be in chains and have people right behind her keeping close watch." Yes, no one has heard of allowing people to leave the prison, it was punishment, but her dad had his ways of getting things, and one way or another, he got this. Maybe because she lost all of her teenage life, but she also caused me a lot of pain Sam a lot of pain, and Amy to almost loose her life. Also, I had a permanent scar on my back… which of course, wasn't something everyone wanted, it made it look as though I was abused or something, but I usually kept my shirt on anyway.

"Yea, besides, I would love to see what she looks like now."

"Yea, but they aren't gonna let her near us, you know that, right?"

"Yea, I know… but oh well? Not like as though we couldn't see her. Besides, I think I would like for her to stay away."

The party was at the school, in the whole school, there was going to be different things in different room and a dance in the gym of course.

When we got there, everyone was already there, we always seemed to be the last people to arrive to everything, although, we probably weren't the LAST of them all, it just seemed like it by the full parking lot, and the large majority of people clogging up the door to the school. Of course, the losers even had to come, which we used to be, but now people often left us alone, especially after the incident with Valerie, people couldn't believe either one of us lived through it, and we both made headlines in the newspaper for a while.

"Well, let's get in there," I said, and shuddered at seeing the cop cars parked up close to the building, Valerie was already here, which wasn't a good thing at all. I didn't really want her to be there, but Sam seemed excited to be able to see her. And I would love to walk up and just shove it in her face that she got thrown in jail… but that would be a pretty dumb thing to do.

We got threw the doors, and I looked around the place, as though wanting to say bye, when I was going to be there for a good two hours at least in the party, but I would never return here, unless of course we stayed towards Amity and Amy and Tiffany had to go here.

"Well… now what?" I asked her, looking at all the people I had just seen earlier today, although most of them, I wouldn't see again, in fact, probably all of them but Sam. Tucker even, was planning on moving to California, because of all the girls there, but I wasn't sure if it was really going to happen. He wasn't staying here though, so I would need to get as much time in with him tonight, although we would probably still call each other a lot as well.

"We need to find Tucker… I guess," Sam said, as though searching through a list of friends we had in our head for a second, although we only had… 1. Well, not like as though we couldn't get anymore, we didn't want anymore. I dropped the wanting to get popular act a long time ago, I was just happy the way I was.

"Yea," I said, shoving through the familiar faces, holding onto Sam's hand so we wouldn't get lost in the people. Of course, Dash and Paulina had their own corner, where their whole gain stood at, but to tell ya the truth, Paulina was really getting UGLY. She had gained on at least 50 pounds onto what she would have normally weighed with her height. Now she had a gut that stood out with her tight fitting clothes, although, she never was really all that skinny anyway. Now she wore to much makeup, and you could tell she was trying to hide the ugly skin beneath it, and she looked pretty much like just a fat slut.

Dash was still the same looking, just… shorter hair, and a little bit of an older look, but as far as in his head went, he wasn't any older at all.
"Sam! Danny!" Tucker called, I could tell it was him from anywhere, normal, geeky him. He didn't change… not at all. The same clothes, haircut, everything, and people wondered why ANYONE would hang out with someone like that, but he was our friend, and had been for a long time. The only thing that changed was he had a deeper voice, which I never accomplished. Sam and I both contained pretty much the same voice, mine was just a LITTLE deeper than before, but not much, and Sam's was the same.

"Hey Tucker," I said, and we both walked up to him. He was all happy to see us, and I knew he was going to start talking about his future plans, like he had been for the past month or so, thinking he could just move without the money.

"California, here I come!" He said with a jump, and I just rolled my eyes. What was he thinking?

"Yea, you head straight for that, after a few years of living in an apartment."

"What makes you think that?" He challenged Sam, she wasn't afraid to say it like I was.

"Umm, hello? You need to have money to be able to even drive down to California, let alone move there, smart one."

"Well… not my fault I don't have the money, like… u do," he said, saying the you do in a tone which was asking for the money.

"Sorry Tucker, no can do," she said, she wasn't the kind of person to hand out money to people, not even her friends, although she was always offering it to me before hand, when we were just friends.

"Aww, please?" He asked her, but this time it was more of a joke. He knew how much Sam hated people begging her, if she wanted to give it to him, she would have done it without him even asking.

"Nope, I need it for once, my mom and dad are giving me enough to go to college, and to be able to buy a house. That is pretty much it, I won't be the rich one anymore, they will be."

"Well… when they die?"
"That won't happen for a while," she said, as though she actually wanted it to happen. Not all for the money, but for the fact that she hated them so much, and couldn't stand either one of them, enough to the point where, I could see her never going back to them again for anything.

"What do you guys wanna do?" I asked, breaking up the conversation, and Sam gave me a look that said "Thanks!"

"I dunno, go into the dance room… but that is where Valerie is at right now," Tucker said, he knew I still had a fear for her. Yes, I was scared of her, and I was afraid that when the day came that she was able to make it out of there, she was going to come back for me. That wasn't going to happen for another 15 years though, so who knows what would happen between now and then.

"Danny Fenton… you showed up here?" I heard behind me, and turned around, Valerie. She was allowed to get near me? I wanted to shout, GET HER AWAY! Right then, but… I couldn't, and that would be stupid.

"Yea… why wouldn't I?" I asked her, and looked her over. She looked like she had so much muscle on her, like as though she really was a prisoner, doing her daily workouts. She had short cut hair, that was barely even hung over, it was almost so short it needed to stand straight up. She was as tall as I was, and wearing normal clothes right now, not what you would expect from someone who had cops following her around, but there was none there as of now, why weren't they there?

"Thought you might not show up since I was here. How's Amy doing?" She asked, as though she cared about our lives.

"Good… you?"

"Miserable, all because of you two," she said, the anger burning up inside her, and I almost took a step back to escape, but then that would make her know I was scared of her, and I didn't want that. She clenched her fists, as though trying to hold the anger back in.

"If I knew I wasn't going to get caught, I would seriously trying and kill you right now," she threatened me, in a whisper, just in case someone was watching, or listening to what we were saying.

"Come on," Sam told me, and grabbed ahold of my hand, leading us away from this scene, but I felt a tug on my back, and I turned around, Valerie wasn't going to let me leave.

"One last thing Fenton, as soon as I get out of here, I promise you… you will pay. My dad, is planning on me getting out in a year or two."

I stared at her for a second, but Sam tugged me away.

"Don't listen to her," Sam told me, once we were away, and Valerie was talking to someone else, although I really had to wonder why someone would want to talk to her.

"I won't…" I said, but I knew those words were going to bug me for a long time.

"Maybe we should get out of here," I told Sam, I didn't want to be here anymore.

"Danny, you can't leave, she is watching you for one, and would love to see you leave, just ignore it."

"All right," I agreed sourly, and followed Sam into the dance room, Tucker went off somewhere else, he just seemed to have disappeared. Probably the food, what's new? A song flipped on, one familiar to Sam and I, If Everyone Cared, by Nickelback. One of my favorites.

"Wanna dance?" Sam asked me, and I nodded. It wasn't exactly a slow song, but it was.

And as we lie beneath the stars

We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died

"That explains us," Sam smiled, holding onto me in a tight hug. I smiled back, and held onto her tightly as well.

"Of course it does," I said, my life seemed so perfect right now…

"See you later!" I called out to Tucker as we started to head in separate directions. It was 10:30 before we finally decided to leave the place. I thought we wouldn't be there so long, but it was all right, we had a good time.

Sam and I both headed to our own homes, we weren't staying together, we hadn't stayed at each other's houses in a long time actually, my mom didn't like it much, and neither did hers, so we just obeyed, and hung out all day instead.

When I got home, Jazz was there, she had traveled back here from her new home for my graduation party that my parents were throwing for me the next day.

"Hey little bro," she said, and gave me a quick hug when I walked through the door.

"Hey," I said, and fell down onto the couch.

"You doing all right?" She asked me, and I shook my head, but I wasn't. Valerie had said she would get revenge, and I believed it, that was for sure. How she got revenge, was beyond my knowledge though.

"You seem bothered. You afraid to leave home?" She said seriously, as though she actually thought I wanted to stay here.

"No, Valerie was at the party at school, that's all."

"What happened?" She asked now, interested in it, and worried about it. She was concerned for my safety more than anything, as though I was still 14, although… I was still only 18, but my point being.

"She was just there, and said she was going to be out in two years or so."

"Oh… I thought it was…"

"15, yea, I know, but it turns out her Dad is getting his way once again," I said, cutting her off, I just wanted to be left along for a while.

"Well, you let me know if you need anything," she offered, and I smiled at her, and closed my eyes, lying there on the couch.

"Danny, your home sweetie," My mom said, appearing around the corner, and my concentration of falling asleep was shattered.
Yea, I'm home, and I had fun," I said, answering her question before she asked it.

"You tired?"
"Yea, a little. But it's nothing, why?"

"Just wondering. Because you need to get rest for tomorrow's party as well!"
"Yea, thanks for it by the way," I said, I really did appreciate her going through the trouble, but it wasn't as though it was going to be anything special. Not much people would be there, and it wasn't as though we really had a yard to throw a party in.

"No problem. I am just so proud of you," she smiled, and walked off into another room. I sighed, and closed my eyes again, almost falling asleep, until I felt someone jump up onto me, and I opened my eyes again to see Amy sitting there.

"Hey," I said to her, and smiled at her, she looked happy to see me, I hadn't been around much in the past few days.

"Hi daddy," she said in her cute little voice, and she gave me a quick hug.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" I asked her, wanting to be in bed myself right now, and I was… 14 years older than she was.

"No." She told me, and I sat up, shifting her onto the piece of couch next to me.

"I think you should be," I told her, and got up.

"But I slept in lots today!" She told me, as though she was trying to scam a way to stay up later, she was like that.

"Well, that's good, you'll have lots of energy then tomorrow," I told her, and picked her up off the ground. Jazz watched us with a smile on her face, as we exited the room, and went upstairs.

"Please?" She asked me, and I almost felt bad, which was why she was spoiled as it was.

"No, I'm going to bed too," I told her, hoping maybe that would change things a little. For being four, she was sure a sneaky kid, and tried to get things her way all the time. She was pretty smart.

"I wanna stay up later than you!"
"Not until your 14," I told her, remembering all the times I had with Sam staying up late at night, all the 2-person parties we had together.

"But that's… a long ways away!"

"Yea, well, you can wait, I did."

She gave up and said nothing else, as I laid her down onto her bed, or… Jazz's bed, she got her room after she had left. Although, Jazz was here tonight, but she was probably going to just use my bed, since I was fine with the couch.

"Night," I told her, and turned the lights off.

"Daddy, I have a question," she said, before I made it out the door, and I turned around a flipped the lights back on.

"Huh?"

"Why was it today, that my arm went through the table? When I was eating my cereal. It caused a BIG mess!"

Great…

"Umm… maybe you were seeing things?" I said, trying to think fast, why did that have to pass onto her?
"No, I wasn't, I promise!"

"Umm… I dunno, I'll have to ask your mom tomorrow," I said, and flipped the light off in a hurry.

"Night," I told her again, and shut the door. I walked back down to the couch, and plopped down, now I had to have something else to worry about…

All right, that was a little, long, I know. But hey, I was luvin' it! I couldn't stop! Heehee, but I did… finally. Anyhow… PLEASE review! 5 reviews to continue, everyone that read Hard Times, would know! 0.0

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