Meeting "Tommy"

(Dan's POV)

"So let me get this straight. We're here to pick up some bratty little princess because a bunch of ghosts, who are even older then you, told you that you were going to take care of her when you were in high school," I clarified, "also, you were in high school?"

Clock sighed, "not quite how I put it, but yes, and I went to a supernatural high school in the underworld," he confirmed.

Clockwork in high school, who would've thought.

I've been out of that stupid Thermos for three years. I've also been wearing this dumb collar too. Now I only have enough powers to defend myself. I'm so bored.

Today was the day Clockwork had to pick up the little brat and take her to the Clocktower to live with us.

We were walking through the halls of some castle. It was pretty fancy and stuff, to be perfectly honest I was pretty sure that this kid would be a complete brat. Something I did not want to deal with.

"Also," Clockwork continued, "she isn't just some bratty little princess."

"I, know, I know, she the Princess of Life and Death and super important, blah, blah, blah."

"True, but not quite what I was going for," he replied cryptically.

I raised an eyebrow at this. He was acting like he knows everything again. But I've long since discovered that that's not the case. If something doesn't have a timeline, i.e me, then he can't see it unless he looks at one of those viewing mirrors. And that's only for things that have either already passed, or are currently happening, nothing in the future.

Soon we came up to a pair of big fancy doors.

"Brace yourself," was all he said before opening one of the doors.

"Wahoo!" shrieked a voice. Looking up I saw a little girl flying about in the air. Looking around I noticed we were in a throne room, and in it were the Observants.

"Your Highness, get down from up there at once!" one of them shouted. Turning my attention back to the girl I saw her stop and pout.

She had long teal hair tied back in a messy pony tail, her skin was green. She wore what appeared to be a purple, black lined ball gown, only she'd cut it short and she wore purple and black striped tights and darker purple combat boots with black laces. Her style of dress sort of reminded me of Sam, 'no, my Sam, my friends and family are all gone. Goody-goody got to keep his, but I couldn't save mine.'

I shook away my thoughts as Clockwork spoke, "Zoe, aren't you going to say hello?"

'Zoe' gasped. "Clocky!" she yelled, zooming down to us at breakneck speed. Clockwork's eyes widened, as if he had just remembered something.

"Uh oh," he muttered, just as she crashed into him.

"Oof! Zoe you keep getting heavier every time I visit," he gasped. The brat pouted again.

"Clockwork, I would have thought by now that you would know not to say that to a girl."

I just stared at this. I actually saw Clockwork flinch slightly. Then, sickeningly, they smiled and hugged each other. For a moment I wondered how Clockwork hadn't seen it coming. Then I remembered him mentioning that she didn't have a timeline. Something about her being too powerful, like the Observants.

Once she'd helped Clockwork up she turned her attention to me. "Hey, your that guy Clocky mentioned," she said. I shrugged, "Yeah whatever," then I realised something, "wait, 'Clocky'?" I raised an eyebrow. Since when did Clockwork have a nickname. "Yeah, your Dan Phantom, right?" again I shrugged, I honestly didn't care about any of this, I planned on ignoring her as much as possible. "Is it okay if I call you Danny?" I winced at this, "no," I growled, trying to scare her. She didn't even flinch, "okay then. Hmm, I'll call you Tommy."

I'm pretty sure I looked kinda confused by this, "Tommy?" she nodded, "yeah, short for Phantom."

I was about to give her a piece of my mind when Clock interrupted. "Excuse us a moment, Zoe."

He dragged me to another part of the room, "Dan," he glared at me, "I'm only going to say this once, if you lay a finger on her, I will send you into limbo." Now, usually that wouldn't bother me much, but this time he actually looked mad. No, more than mad, he looked downright furious. I decided to take advantage of this. "Protective much?" I smirked. Suddenly he stopped time around everyone except us.

He took out a remote. The collar I'm wearing doesn't just dampen my powers, it's also a shock collar, he usually just gives me a small shock to keep me in line, but this time he put the setting up to eight. Geez I was in a lot of pain.

He did that for about ten seconds. "Yes!" he growled, putting the remote away, "if you try any thing, your toast, understood."

I nodded, that shock had really hurt, and I couldn't exactly fight back.

Clockwork un-paused time and we went back over to Zoe. "Sorry about that," he said, smiling like nothing had happened. "No problem Clocky, it wasn't that long anyway."

A few hours later we where back at the Clocktower. I was sitting up in the rafters, the brat had gone to her room to unpack and Clockwork was working. Or, so it seemed.

About a year ago Goody-goody got all of his allies to meet, long story short Clock got a crush on Jazz. She isn't my sister any more so it doesn't bother me much, but it does bring back memories of that punk Johnny 13.

I smirked when I saw what was on the screen, it was Jazz walking outside of her collage. I silently flew down and snuck up behind him.

"Stalker much."

Clockwork whipped round to face me. After discovering his little crush I take every chance I can get to make him blush. It's hilarious to see him lose his composure so easily.

"I need to keep an eye on her timeline. She needs to stay alive so the Daniel never becomes you," he said, he would have looked calm if it weren't for the blush.

"You keep telling yourself that," I smirked.

"Clocky has a crush?"

we both looked up. Flying above our heads was Zoe.

"When did you get here?" Clockwork asked nervously.

"When Tommy called you a stalker," she replied cheerfully. "Clocky and Jazzy, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G." I cracked up at Clockwork's expression. He looked like he wished the ground would swallow him up.

"That's enough," he grumbled.

"But it's true, I can sense it."

"She can sense emotions?" I asked.

"No, me and Clockwork can sense each other's emotions," she explained.

I blinked and looked at Clockwork, and burst out laughing again.

"Ha, ya can't deny it any more," I said after I could speak again.

He groaned and glared at us. "Neither of you tell her, got it?"

Zoe nodded, but I smirked. "What's it worth?"

He scowled at me.

"How about doing it out of the kindness of your heart?"

"What heart?" I quipped, enjoying myself.

"Tommy," the brat said sternly, "if you tell her, I'll use his staff to time-out you and make you play dress up. Then, I'll leave you in the middle of the Zone."

I blanched. I did not want to be made a laughing stock. It's bad enough that no-one takes me seriously, and I couldn't fathom the horror of my wimpy good self finding out.

"Fine," I grumbled.

Zoe nodded and turned back to Clockwork. "Clocky, I'm bored. I please go for a fly around the Zone, just for a little while. Please," she whined at him.

Clockwork looked apprehensive, I couldn't blame him. The Zone is kinda dangerous.

"I could take Tommy," she suggested. I growled at her.

"Don't bother. I could sense Clocky's anger earlier, if you try to do anything to me, or let me get hurt, he'll probably think of something worse than limbo for you."

Clockwork sighed. "Very well, Dan, keep an eye on her. If she gets hurt..." he trailed off. I got the message.

"Fine, whatever," I grumbled.

Zoe squealed irritatingly and shot out of the tower like a rocket. Whilst I was gaping Clockwork smirked. "Might wanna hurry up."

Not to be outdone I smirked back. "Sure, try not to spy on smart-allec when she's in the shower while we're gone." The look on his face was priceless. I flew off before he could retort to catch up with that brat.

I eventually caught up, but only cause she'd decided to wait for me. The collar kept my powers down, but I've had a lot of practice with flying. Part human or full ghost I still loved it. I guess we had something in common.

"What took ya?" she joked, "up for a race."

I shrugged. "Sure, why not."

After some racing I got tired and decided to cut my losses and took a break. She kept flying about further away from me.

"Zoe, get back here. If I lose you Clockwork'll kill me."

After some searching I found her. Unfortunately, so had a couple of other ghosts. Skulker and Technus. They had her cornered and I quickly flew over to them.

"What do you want welp?" Skulker growled. "Yes, tell us what you want. We do not have time for idle chit-chat, this child is valuable, so get your own hostage," Technus added in that annoying voice.

I figured I'd play it cool. "Okay, but you do realise who her guardian is, right?" I quirked an eyebrow, trying to keep a straight face at their confused expressions.

"What do you mean?" Skulker asked.

"Well, Tin-head, in case you didn't know, its Clockwork."

I nearly laughed at the looks on their faces. They were terrified. Anyone with a timeline was.

"Uh, you know I think I gotta go meet up with Ember, see ya."

Technus gulped. "I too have plans, big ones. Bye," and they were gone, it's amazing how much power Clockwork has over these wimps.

I looked at Zoe to check if they'd injured her. She shot up to me and hugged me.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," it took all of my self control to not kick her away from me. After a while I began to feel a little weird. I wondered how long it had been since someone had hugged me. Fifteen years, that's how long.

We flew back to the tower. Zoe started telling Clockwork about what happened.

"Well Dan, I should probably thank you for keeping Zoe safe," he said, looking at her affectionately.

"Whatever," I replied, "had fun stalking Jazz," I smirked.

"Ooh," Zoe giggled, "hey Clocky, will you have a tea party with me?"

Clockwork looked mortified. "Do we have to?" he asked, looking at me. I smirked back. This was gonna be interesting.

"Yes, we always have a tea party on my birthday. And Tommy, if you tease Clocky It'll be dress up time," she glared at me. So much for gratitude. Not that I cared.

"I don't mind teasing him about Jazz, that's kinda fun," she giggled again and grabbed Clockwork's arm.

"C'mon Clocky, we need to talk anyway, in private," she gave me a pointed look before dragging Clockwork to what I guessed was the direction of her room.

I was bored so I turned invisible and followed them.

We got to her room. It looked kinda like any other girl's room only thankfully purple and black instead of pink.

They sat down at a small table and she started pouring some imaginary tea.

"Clockwork," she said, addressing him by his full name. She sounded a lot more business like now.

"I've been doing some thinking. I've, of coarse, known that you have a crush on someone, and when you last visited you told me about the meeting," she was referring to the Goody-goody's allies meeting, "when you told me about Jazz my suspicions were confirmed," I was wondering how she knew her name, we never actually said it in front of her, "you can't keep pining over her like this, you need to tell her."

She stopped looking like an innocent little princess and more like an adult. She was a lot smarter than she looked.

"It would never work out," Clockwork sighed, "I could never ask her to be immortal and I couldn't stand having to watch her age and die whilst I stand beside her. Besides, she needs to live out her life, not be stuck here." He slumped over sadly.

"I'll give you more time to think on this. In the mean time there's something else I want to talk to you about. You can come out now Dan."

I re-materialised in shock. "How did you...?" I pointed my finger at her. How did she know?

"I can sense other presences," she explained, "dead or alive, I can sense you, just like I sensed those idiots that tried to kidnap me."

I shook my head in disbelief. "Wait a sec, so you weren't in any trouble?"

"If I were than Clockwork would have sensed my fear," she said, "and I'm a pretty good fighter, I was testing you, when I hugged you you could have just pried me off to avoid it, but instead you let me do it. It's been a long time since you've had any physical contact that doesn't involve fighting, am I correct?" I gaped at her. She'd just read me like a book.

"Okay," I said, "what are you? How did you figure out all out? How much has Clockwork told you?" I glared at him and he glared back.

"I told her about what happened, she drew up her own conclusions. She's much more intelligent than she seems." I shook my head. "You know what? I don't need to hear this." I got up and flew out.

"You could have saved us," Jazz shrieked.

"You could have done the right thing," Sam moaned.

"But you just had to take the easy way out, didn't you?" Tucker wailed.

I ran through the darkness. Around me were horrible images of my friends and family, and teacher.

They kept telling me that I'd failed. That I was a monster.

I collapsed despair. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I cried. I kept repeating it over and over again.

"Dan, Dan, Tommy, wake up!"

I shot up out of my nightmare. It was dark and I couldn't see anything. Someone was next to me, I was hysterical and grabbed them and hugged them close whimpering, "I couldn't save them," over and over again.

They rubbed my back, told me it was alright. After a while I came to my senses and sat there sniffling. The person switched on the light, revealing their identity.

"Zoe?" I sniffed, curling away from her in embarrassment. No one was ever meant to see that. I've been having that nightmare for years.

"I won't tell anyone, not even Clockwork," she assured me, "do you want me to stay?"

I looked at her in shock. She wanted to stay, with me?

I didn't know what to say. Usually when I have that dream when I wake up I just cower there until morning and carry on like nothing had happened. But now someone wanted to comfort me.

I was still tired and scared so I just nodded and lay back down.

She switched off the light and sat next to me. She hummed some sort of tune and eventually I fell back to sleep.

A/N: Poor Dan. Or should I say Tommy. Sorry it took a while, I'm a little lazy, hope you enjoyed.