The First Time…
Recollections through time with Sam and Danny
By musicalreader
The light from the window played across her back on a normal summer day in Amity Park. Sam had been cleaning out her closet while her husband was out taking care of a couple of… spirited troublemakers… around town. Even though he had asked her to come along with him as backup, she had declined. In the meantime, Sam decided that she would go through some of the older boxes in the closet that held anything worth keeping.
She looked at the coffee table in front of her, which currently was covered in random things she had managed to find among the clutter that had accrued over the last three years that Danny and she had lived in the spacious house, a gift from the city for all the service they had given the city over the years. Had she had her way, they wouldn't even still be in Amity Park but they stayed because ghosts always seemed to congregate there, and Danny felt obligated to stay and help.
A ray of sunlight hit a brass corner on an old photo album under the pile of notes about some of the residents of the Ghost-Zone. She picked it up for a closer look and realized that it was a photo album that she had almost completely forgotten about.
She opened to the first page and saw a small snapshot she had taken of Danny in his last moments of being completely human, and right next to it was a picture of his first time transforming into the hero Danny Phantom. She had almost forgotten how messy his hair always was in high school… the next page showed a small film strip from their first date after the Asteroid incident that caused him to reveal who he really was to the entire world. She stared off into space remembering the warm afternoon they had spent flying around town just the two of them.
"You know I'm not going to make this easy for you right?" she asked, looking up into her new boyfriends jade green eyes.
"Heh, I wouldn't have expected anything less…" he said jokingly, scooping her up and taking off from under the hill they had been hiding on.
"Wow…" Sam muttered when she found her voice, "So this is what you get to see hunh?"
"Pretty much…" Danny answered, holding her so close that she could feel his heartbeat. "So where do you want to go?" he asked after a few more minutes of silence.
"I don't care… just not someplace crowded." She said honestly, "I want to have you all to myself today."
"Yes Ma'am." he answered, smiling and adjusting his flight to take them into a steep dive that caused Sam's breath to catch in her throat.
They touched down gently on the beach on the outskirts of town, though it was normally crowded, everyone was still downtown for the big celebration Tucker had put together. The sound of the waves on the sand, broken only by the occasional bird overhead was calm in spite of everything that had happened just the day before when the earth was almost destroyed.
"I never get over how nice it is by the water…" He commented, looking out over the waves.
"I know. Someday, I want to live somewhere with a view like this." Sam agreed.
"Yeah…" Danny agreed, looking at her as she stared out over the sea before a rush of motion caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. "Ahhh shit… Sam, we may want to go somewhere different."
"Why?" she asked, looking over her shoulder and seeing the reason for his statement instantly. A small crowd of tourists were running towards them over the dunes. She grabbed onto Danny and before he phased them out of the visible spectrum, she yelled at the small crowd, "GET OFF THE DUNES YOU MORONS! THEY'RE PROTECTED FOR A REASON!" and with that, they kicked off the ground and soared across the sky trying to find another empty spot to relax.
The next picture in the old album was one Danny had taken of her outside the entrance to a Metallica concert he had taken her to for their first anniversary. The crowd had been screaming and she could remember the lights being visible for miles around and the bass so heavy that she could feel her teeth rattle as the opening chords to Enter Sandman washed over the crowd. The drums came in and the crowd erupted around them. For the first time since Danny had revealed his secret, they were in public without being the center of attention and it felt great. They screamed for what felt like an eternity and when they were pushed into a mosh-pit they shoved with the best of them… all too soon though, the concert ended and Danny had to get them out of there before anyone could see them, but the night had been wonderful, and Sam was glad that she had Danny to share it with.
A chime woke Sam from her revelry. Picking herself up off the floor, she walked over to the entrance hall to see who was there.
"Hey Sam!" Tucker greeted her when she opened the door.
"Well now, mister mayor, this is a surprise." She joked, opening the door to let her old friend inside.
"Is Danny here?" he asked nonchalantly, trying to hide his earlier enthusiasm.
"He's out running some errands. I was just about to get some lunch, you want to join me?"
"Well I never say no to food… but you do have meat right?" he replied smiling.
"Well, I've tried to get Danny to at least try being a vegetarian, but he likes BLT's too much." She answered, only half serious about her husband's love of bacon.
"You guys redecorated." Tuck commented as they passed through the living room, nodding at the stacks of boxes Sam had recently been entrenched in.
"Ha ha, smartass, that's just some stuff I'm cleaning out while I have the house to myself."
Hey, I remember this!" he exclaimed, reaching for the photo album, "How long has it been since we took this picture?"
Sam looked at the picture he was pointing to, "I think that's our graduation right?" she guessed, "That feels like forever ago now."
"Tell me about it… I'm still not sure how we managed to pass high school with everything that was going on." Tucker joked.
"Well it helps when your best friends with the youngest Mayor and Danny Phantom."
"Not to mention the ever awesome Sam Manson." He added, "Why did you keep your last name when you guys got married anyway?"
"I liked the sound of it, and besides, when have I ever done things that are popular?" she replied, looking over some of the other pictures on the page.
After a few moments of silence, they stood up and headed to the kitchen for a quick bite to eat.
"So what's going on with you?" Sam asked, as she made a pot of green tea, "anything new in the works for the city?"
"Not really…" he replied, "I got a few bills pushed through to get the latest computer systems installed in the schools, and I now have the park auto swept for trash by some bots I designed, but other than that, running the city gets old after awhile."
"Oh come on Tuck, you're the most popular mayor in the history of this town, and to top it off, you're still able to design your own tech… how does that get old?"
"It doesn't. I guess I'm just a little stressed out is all." He answered, staring into the cup of green tea Sam had poured him.
"What's going on? Come on, I haven't seen you in about a month and you come over here out of the blue and say you're stressed. Now spill…"
"Nothing, I swear… just a lot on my plate and I guess I'm missing the days when we were all vigilantes. Speaking of which, why aren't you with Danny right now?"
"I uh… have some stuff I want to sort out…" she lied.
"Yeah right, now it's your turn to spill Sam, what's really going on?" he asked, leaning over the table and grinning like a lunatic.
"Just what I said, I need some time alone to sort some things out."
"Well, whatever floats your boat." Tucker replied, sitting back in his seat and sipping from the cup Sam placed on the table in front of him.
After several minutes of stifling silence, Sam finally leaned in towards Tucker and whispered.
"Actually, if you really want to know, I have a surprise for Danny when he gets home."
"Ha! I knew there was something! So what's the surprise? Did you make a new ghost fighting weapon?"
"No no, nothing like that. This is somewhat…different…"
"Well whatever it is, you have to tell me what his reaction was."
"Why not stay and see for yourself?" Sam asked, standing up when Tucker rose from his chair.
"Because I have to get back to city hall… this was a short visit and I was hoping that I could catch you guys at the same time and we could all go out and do something. But without an excuse, I'll catch some serious heat for ditching work." He answered sadly.
"Well… if you really can't stay, I'll make sure I get a video of his reaction." She promised.
"Thanks Sam. I'll see you sometime soon okay?"
"Sure Tuck. You take care now alright?" she said, showing him to the door.
"I'll try." He replied, shutting the door behind him.
Sam watched her friend walk to his car and drive off. She asked herself how they had ever gotten so distant over the years. Then she remembered that his life took off after high school. Instead of going to college like Danny and her, he had continued work as the city's mayor. She sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have both Danny and Tucker with her in school, but then she remembered that he always seemed happy with himself.
She walked back into the living room and continued to thumb through the old picture album. There was a huge gap of time in between their graduation and the next entry, but it was a brilliantly colorful photo of the three of them at the Burning Man Festival when Danny and Sam had finished their time at college and dragged Tucker along.
They looked like some old school hippies from the 60's with the boys on either side of her and holding her up on their shoulders. Their bare chests covered in neon body paint, and Sam in almost nothing save a thin sheet decorated in glass beads and colored duck tape. Their hair was all over the place and they were all laughing and smiling so much that it looked like a piece of an unearthly realm that landed in their lives.
As much as it made her happy to see that picture, the next one made her ecstatic. It was a wedding shot of her and Danny in front of the ocean. Her parents had tried to convince her to go with a church, but she wanted things to be simple and natural. They stood in front of the waves, hands held tightly between them, and the wind rippled through their hair in just such a way that was more beautiful than anything that could have been done on purpose.
The sun had played across the water and it looked like there was a sea of smooth green glass. And Danny, he looked so handsome… his body had grown since they first started dating, and the tux he wore clung tightly to his well built arms and strong chest. He had grown his hair out by this point and she loved how it flowed down to his shoulders and his eyes were gazing into hers. There could never have been a more perfect moment.
She looked up from the album and stared off into space reflecting on the days that followed their wedding. The honeymoon had been incredible, with the Fenton jet taking them around the world, and Danny flying the two of them over all the great cities in the world. They had seen the Parthenon in Greece, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and some of the old castles in Germany. But the real magic had been in the time they spent together at night. The few times she would allow him out of bed, he took her up into the sky and they floated, looking at the stars and the moon.
She closed the book and looked out the window, she could see the dot that was her husband in the distance flying back home. She grabbed the camera to record his reaction to her news and opened the door. As he got closer, she turned the camera on and set it on the railing of the porch. She walked down the steps, put a hand over her stomach and whispered, "Now let's go tell daddy…" The only thing that the camera would ever show, was Sam running up to her husband, whispering in his ear, and Danny falling over backwards as he fainted…