Our story takes place in the second quarter of Danny's sophomore year. A significant bit of ghost hunting has been done, Valerie has been somewhat accepted into the group, though she is still hunting Danny, and Danny and Sam still haven't expressed their feelings for each other. Well, on to the story.

In the world of Freudian psychology, to be as simplistic as possible, there are two parts to the human psyche, along with a relative barrier in between them. These parts consist of the ego; the conscious part of the mind. It deals with empathy, sympathy, and the principles of right and wrong. And the other, the id, which is the more primitive aspect of the brain. It deals primarily in desire and realization, and none of the pieces in between. It's primary purpose: self preservation and reproduction. In between these two parts and the real world, lies the super ego, the filter of conscious thought. In humankind, this barrier that prevents the id from surfacing is thick enough to hold against almost any trying situation one can think of, the exceptions being torture and starvation in the extreme. That is in a human. In others, the two sides, however more defined, have a rather thin barrier in between them.

The sky was overcast, as he stood at her grave. What had it been? Ten years? Some part of himself still drew him here. He never felt anything coming here, no more than he had when he had killed the others. His whole family, his last remaining best friend, and the ghost hunter as well. But, he supposed, that had been afterwards. This had been the first death. The first, and the last part of his human life. Even though some part of him was still mortal, it could in no way be considered human.

Ah, well, enough standing around. As usual, he found himself bored, he decided to abandon the hopes of finding some sad sentiment in coming to the grave of his best friend, Samantha Manson, abandon the world he had destroyed, and go perform the task he could not call his favorite pastime: it was merely the only thing left to do, since he had already caused Armageddon. He would destroy the ghost zone. He had already exceeded the borders of his known realm in the ghost zone, decimating everything in his path, and he was sure he would reach the borders of the realm soon. What then? He didn't know. As far as he could tell, destroying things was the only thing left remotely akin to pleasure, so he might as well do it, even if when he finished there would be nothing left. He'd cross that bridge when he got there. Being as powerful as he was, he had no trouble tearing open his own hole into the ghost zone. He went in, and blasted a few things. Hours passed, or maybe days, until finally, he found something, for the first time in his life as the bringer of Armageddon, Daniel phantom found something that sparked his interest.

It was a usual day at Casper high school. Dash pushed him into a locker, paulina came up to him for no other reason than to ask about the ghost boy, Valerie blasted him with an ecto-cannon, then ate lunch with him, Sam, and tucker later that day, and the box ghost consumed still more of his time. Time that he was sure should go into studying, not that he really believed he would do that even if he had all the time in the world. As he sat in English class, reading macbeth, and the play was quite possibly more boring than lancer's lectures. Today, however, they were studying the emotional regression of macbeth through his killings Freudian style.

"Thusly, macbeth has allowed his id to overtake the conscience that is the ego, and let his more primitive emotions run free, and, in doing so, has undergone an emotional regression."

Blah, blah, blah. He had a hard enough time listening to lancer when could understand what he said, and an even harder time when he didn't want to listen. Doing both at the same time was hell in a handbag. Finally, the bell rang, and lancer, looking rather disappointed that he didn't have time to finish his lecture, dismissed them. He had been lucky, this year. Almost all of his classes were with Sam and tucker. This was one of those classes. The three friends waited for the rest of the class to file out, before leaving together. It was the usual thing. He and sam, tucker in between them, talking about life as usual, which, for any other three people, would have been considered quite unusual. These three spent the largest part of their waking hours fighting ghosts.

In a quick exchange, Valerie came up, said hello, and dragged tucker off to help with some "computer lessons," likely more for the purpose of bettering her ability to interface with her ghost hunting tech, than anything else. Although Sam seemed to have a theory that she actually liked hanging out with tucker, on a 1 on 1 basis.

As they walked off, Sam asked "so, what do you think lancer will be torturing us with next?"

"I dunno, and I'm really not caring. I've got a massive headache from all of this id and ego stuff. I can only hope he doesn't decide to do any more psychology lessons in class."

"He is. I read the curriculum sheet he gave us for this quarter. We're doing Romeo and Juliet next, and studying the fine lines between infatuation, and love. Danny? Hello, earth to Danny?"

"Huh?"

"You spaced out, for a second, there."

"Oh."

He had done more than just space out. The two words had struck a chord within him, and the images of two people who were represented by love and infatuation. infatuation was an obvious one; Paulina, the source of all infatuated teen males schoolwide. The other, however, was quite unexpected. The representation of love that had popped mysteriously into his brain, was none other than the girl standing to his right.

'What am I thinking!' he wondered. 'She's my best friend!'

'Although...' another voice popped up, the stronger, more confident part of himself he thought of as his phantom side, 'You've kissed- What, three times? And you can't honestly say you weren't perfectly happy doing it.'

'But those were all fakeout makeouts, and it was twice'

'Hah! if you, who can't remember what you had for lunch less than an hour ago, and can remember the exact number of times - '

"DANNY!" yelled Sam.

"I can so remember what I had for lunch today!" Sam looked at him quizzically, "I was just talking to myself again, wasn't I?"

Sam nodded.

"I didn't say anything embarrassing, did I?" she shook her head. He passed his hand over his brow, and sighed.

The day was uneventful for the most part. Tucker rejoined them for the walk back home, when Danny's ghost sense went off in the most peculiar way. He not only saw his breath, but felt the icy cold of death so strong in his lungs, he had the wind knocked out of him.

"Danny!" Sam and tucker said in unison. He collapsed to the ground, holding his chest. A few seconds later, it passed, and he regained his breath.

"I'm okay, you guys, but that definitely gave me a scare."

"I wouldn't consider yourself so lucky. Sam looked about ready to give mouth to mouth. All you'd have had to do was wait three more sec-OW!" Sam swatted tucker in the back of the head, before turning away, blushing. Though she turned to hide her emotions, the object of her desires, also blushing, did not fail to notice the color in her cheeks.
Lost in teenage hormones, the war being waged in Danny's head went something like this: 'God, she's beautiful like that.'

'What? And she's not beautiful twenty four hours a day? Where's your devotion, man!'

'Hold on just a second, here! She's my best friend - '

'You lost that argument with yourself, already. Remember?'

'Well never mind, anyway. The real point being, what if she doesn't feel the same way?'

'And what exact way would that be?'

While all of this went on in his head, he failed to take the time to recognize that Sam seemed to be doing more hiding the truth then blushing at the statement's absurdity. To be blunt, she did feel the same way, and was just as terrified to admit it as he was.

'What if he doesn't want to be more than friends? What if he really is stuck on paulina? ("that bitch" being her exact thoughts on the matter) What happens if I tell him, and it ruins our friendship?'

While the two were lost in their own thoughts for a full two minutes, tucker looked at them curiously, before interrupting just as they were about to respectively decide the issue within themselves.

"So, if you two lovebirds are done having a telepathic conversation, lets-"

"Do you mind? We're trying to have a conversation here, and WE'RE NOT LOVEBIRDS!" The two said in unison.

Tucker, thoroughly disturbed, avoided them the rest of the way to his house, and disappeared inside before Sam could invite him and Danny to her house for a movie. That left just her and Danny.

"So. I was wondering, do you want to hang out later tonight? I was planning to invite tucker, but since he bolted, it looks like it will be just the two of us," they both knew full well she could just call tucker and ask him, but this way suited them both just fine, really.

As Danny was about to respond, his ghost sense went off, followed by the sound of a voice saying "FEAR ME! I am the BOX GHOST!"

He sighed, told her he'd be right back, and went ghost. He was indeed back within a minute, when he got a rather daring idea (really, it wasn't his idea, it was really the fact that he'd caught a scene of "superman", with Christopher Reeves- now there was a dead guy he might actually like meeting- thought that kind of flying was the type of thing he'd like to do with Sam and couldn't get the idea out of his head.) Being still in ghost mode, he decided to give it a try before his confidence left him.

He asked, "Hey, you wanna go flying? It'll probably make the trip home faster, and it's starting to get darker and colder earlier, so we should probably get you there before we catch cold walking."

He noticed that he slurred up the last part of the statement in mumbling, not to mention that this was a totally bogus train of thought. They had an Indian summer this particular November, it being close to 70 degrees, and it was three thirty in the afternoon, but Sam nodded anyway. He swept her up, and they were off.

Meanwhile, from the shadowy window into the past, the darker manifestation that was Danny's future watched them go with what might have been nostalgia, if it were an emotion he was capable of. As he watched, he compiled his thoughts: His only remaining need was that of self preservation. Reliving that day vicariously through his younger self made him remember lancer's lecture on the psyche, and he supposed that though he was now entirely id, he was id without purpose, and had therefore become numb to the world. Now, as he saw his prior self, and, more than anything else, Sam, he was reborn. He felt things once more. The most prevalent feeling - hatred. Sam was the cause of his pain, and, for that, she would die again. He would preserve his existence, for that was all he had left. As for the Danny of his past, he had totally separated his existence from that Dannys in all but the smallest of ways - if Danny died, so would he - and he decided that the Danny of his past should pay double, partly for being so happy, partly for allowing himself to become the dark future Danny. Yes, he would make them both suffer, and then, Sam would die, and Danny would become darkness incarnate. He thought of jumping into the portal now, but decided to wait, "Now is not the time. Soon, though."

Having flown many times before with Danny, the fear in it was pretty much gone, but she held on tight simply for the sake of the closeness it allowed them. As time went on, her grip loosened, and then, to her surprise, Danny let go of her altogether. She screamed, and plummeted. He came in beside her, and caught her hand, his momentum propelling them both forward, she opened her eyes slowly when she was sure the oddly warm cold of Danny's ghost hand wasn't just the delusion of someone who had just plummeted to their death, and was immediately caught up in the exhilaration of it all. They were hundreds of feet up, the whole "getting home" thing completely forgotten, soaring over the clouds, with a beautiful view of amity park at sunset.

"Danny, it's beautiful!" she turned to look at him, expecting to see him focused on the direction they were going. Instead, she found herself lost in his beautiful ice blue eyes.

'Ice blue - wait a sec!'

"Danny!" as they began to plummet out of the clouds again, he quickly remembered himself, and changed back to ghost mode. He was so embarrassed and apologetic that as he was apologizing and promising to take her home now, he almost crashed into a billboard. He came to a short stop, and pulled Sam up next to him. The billboard had a badly drawn picture of Danny in ghost mode, with a red chaos symbol around it. Under the picture, in bold letters, it said "Danny phantom OR Invisobill - menace either way! Brought to you by the amity park committee against falsely heroic ghost entities (APCAFHGE)"

Sam shook her head "oh, Danny." she hesitated a moment, and put a hand on his shoulder.

He simply stood there. For a moment, he saw within himself, that darkness that lies within all people. He was good, right? Even his ghost half sought only to do justice and promote peace.

"How is it that, when I'm the good guy, and when 64 Percent of this town think I'm the good guy, that the other 36 percent have that much power? What if..." he looked over at her, a profound sadness in his eyes, "What if, some how, maybe they're right?" tears welled up in his eyes.

"What if they're right?"

She held him, but said nothing. Over the past year, Danny had saved many people, but, during the summer, he had prevented an accident with a drunk driver. In the instant he saved the other cars, by making the drunks car intangible, he had a flash of what seemed to be memory. It was through the eyes of a small animal, that he saw the oncoming car. He knew where to go, and flew off as soon as everyone involved with the drunk was safe. He was too late though. As he made it to the scene, he saw with sadness the small dog, still alive, but beyond all aid. Sam, who had been with him at the time, (tucker was visiting relatives) recalled the sadness in him, and then, the pain, as yet more visions washed over him. As he explained it later, the power, which he called "the touch", enabled him to get a prescient vision of living creatures, jut prior to traumatic death. The visions came in groups, and were uncontrollable. For a full week, he was tortured. Near the end, he nearly went mad. Sam stuck by him the whole time, but she could do nothing. The power made him feel helpless. After the first week, Danny disappeared for a full two days. When he returned, he had no excuse, yet he only nodded when his parents scolded and grounded him. He snuck out in ghost mode that night, and gave her an explanation:

'Tink' Sam rolled over in her sleep, covering her ears with her pillow. It had taken her until just before midnight to fall asleep, though she had had no sleep up until that night; at least not since Danny disappeared.

'tink.tink, tink, tink' she finally woke and went to her balcony. When she saw Danny standing there, she ran to him, and crushed him in an embrace.

"Danny!" he went out of ghost mode, and he immediately grew weak.

His parents had had no idea where he went, but he still looked healthy, so why should they guess that he had been in ghost mode for two days, and hadn't eaten or slept. She brought him to her bed, and went to get some water.

He took her hand, and said "No. stay, please."

Though he was far from as mad and pained as he had been before he left, the sadness of that week was still there, as well as fear, and an immense weariness. She stayed, and he told her about where he had been.

"There is a forest east of here. I was afraid I would hurt someone, so I took solace there, and tried to hone the touch, so I could control it. I stayed in ghost mode the entire time. The touch sharpened my senses, and expanded my strength, and my willpower, but it took a heavy toll. I saw... I saw within myself. I saw the darkness there. Neither my ghost half, nor my human half is truly evil, but there is something. Deeper, in me, that is," the tears were there. It was the first time she'd seen him cry, since he was ten, and his last remaining grandfather died of lung cancer. she took him into her arms, and held him as he cried.

As she did now, at the billboard. He had since refined the power further, so that it for the most part only acted on human life, and only within the area of Amity Park.

"I'm afraid, Sam. What if I hurt someone? What if that someone... what if its you? I don't think I could live after that."

Astonished by the sentiment in this statement, she held her silence, unable to say anything.

'Does that mean he cares for me?'

They reached Sam's house in silence. When Danny landed on her balcony, he carefully placed Sam down, and stepped away. When their eyes met, there was no more sadness there. Only a nervous tension that passed equally between both of them.

"Sam."

In a single instant before what occurred next, several things happened. The blue rings surrounded him, and he became human, then, deep in his (endless, drown-in-em beautiful blue eyes would be Sam's thoughts at the time) ice blue eyes, there sparked a warmth and beauty that Sam could not place. She had never seen it there within him before. She normally lost herself in those eyes, and, although she certainly found his ghost eyes strikingly attractive, it was these crystalline blue orbs that she first fell in - what? Was she about to say "fell in love with?" Well, it didn't matter much now. He was now walking towards her, that spark in his eyes, (somewhere, deep down, she thought she knew what that spark was, and somewhere even deeper, she did know what it was) and brought her into an embrace.

"Sam. thank you. you've always been there for me. More than anyone - even Tucker. When I'm down and out, its you who helps me bounce back. That's why I came to you. That night, after I got the touch. You mean the world to me. So thank you."

She stood there in his embrace, basking in the warm feeling he gave off. She simply closed her eyes and stood there, holding him. He let her. This was bliss for him. Although he too was unsure of his feelings, he wanted so much for her to stay there, in his arms, forever. When finally, she opened her eyes, and saw him holding his breath, she knew he was hiding the fact that he felt a ghost nearby.

She let go of him, stood back, and said "Go do your job."

He nodded, thankful that she understood him, and flew off. Less than a second later, he was back, "By the way, before I go, I'd love to hang out tomorrow, if the offer's still open?"

"Sure!" she said, perhaps too enthusiastically, but, if he realized this, he showed no sign. He flew off. As he did battle with the large coyote type ghost ("what, no roadrunner?" he had asked) his heart soared.