Misunderstanding! I'm done with my finals a day early! Yay for me! To celebrate, I'm giving you guys the next chapter!

Big time skip in this chapter! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!

Chapter 3

Eleven Long Years Later

Sam couldn't wait for the beginning of Fall Semester to start at Amity University. The summers at home were always the worst for her. That meant spending them with her overbearing parents who couldn't stand her new Gothic ways.

Sam just brought in the rest of her things for her dorm when she heard a knock on her door. "Come in!" she said.

The door opened and a young African American girl walked into the room. "Long time, no see, roommate," she greeted.

Sam smirked. "Good to see you again, Valerie. How was your summer?"

"Augh! Exhausting! All I did was work, work, work! I never had one day where I could actually sleep in till noon! Can you believe that?" the girl named Valerie said.

"It can't be any worse than my summer," said Sam. "If I wasn't at some stupid benefit ball with my parents, I'm being dragged to every country club in the state."

"Sheesh! Sounds like the most boring summer ever," said Valerie.

Sam rolled her eyes. "You have no idea," she muttered as she unpacked her belongings. An old beer bottle was lying on top of a pile of her clothes in her suitcase. Inside the bottle were a few pennies and dimes, two dried out Yu-Gi-Oh cards, a note with a child's handwriting on it, three shell casings, and a snow white pearl.

After what happened eleven years ago, Vlad banned Sam from Masters Manor. Now every time her family went, she had to stay behind. Sam was upset at first but since there had been no word about a fish boy in the news, she was relieved because she knew that Danny was safe. Still, whenever Sam looked at the bottle, a sort of guilt would tighten her chest. Every time she thought of him, she feared that Danny hated her for what almost happened to him. If Sam ever met him again, she wanted to apologize to him.

~0~0~0~

"Clothes?"

"Check."

"Books?"

"Check."

"Notebooks?"

"Check."

"Underwear?"

"Um…check!"

"Okay. That's everything," said Danny after going over his checklist with Tucker.

"I'm a little nervous about this," said Tucker.

"Come on, Tuck. We've been waiting for this moment for years. I'm pretty sure we're ready."

"I know but if we screw up, we're as good as sushi," said Tucker.

The two were finally going to college on the surface. After Danny's near-death experience, his parents kept a sharper eye on him till he was of age. It was said that when merfolk reached the age of eighteen they could grow legs and walk on land if they chose to do so. Unfortunately, no one had bothered to go on land in centuries so they unsure if it was still possible, that and because both boys' parents didn't trust them. It took the duo weeks to convince their families to allow them to go to college on the surface. After weeks of filling out transfer paperwork from Leviathan College, Danny and Tucker's families agreed they could go to the surface as long as they had someone to watch over them. Luckily they knew someone who was willing to take them in.

The two boys reached the surface. After making sure no one was looking, Danny and Tucker swam to a gathering of rocks on the shore and sat in the sand.

"So where are we staying?" Tucker asked his best friend a half-hour later.

"Mom told me we need to find someone named Dick Tock," Danny recalled. "He's supposed to run a clock shop. No one I've ever heard of."

Tucker sighed. "Well, I think we've dried off long enough. Ready to see if it works?"

Danny nodded. "Worth a shot." Both boys took slow deep breaths and closed their eyes. In a series of flashes of lights, legs replaced Danny's fins and Tucker's tentacles. The two of them looked at each other and saw the something was off.

"Well, this is awkward," said Tucker upon seeing that neither of them were wearing anything.

"At least it worked. Let's get some clothes on before someone sees us," said Danny. "You remember that drying spell?"

"Yeah. Let's dry our clothes before we get going." Danny and Tucker tried walking towards their bags but stumbled and fell face first in the stand. "Maybe we should have practiced walking before coming here," said Tucker as he spat sand out of his mouth.

"What do you expect?" asked Danny. "We're the first merpeople to ever walk on land in centuries. We're supposed to be rusty." He then got a good look at his best friend. "Dude, your hair is shorter," he noted.

Tucker took off his red beret and felt his head. He realized to his horror that his hair was indeed shorter. "What the heck happened to my dreadlocks?" he asked in horror. "It's like there's nothing underneath my hat! I feel bald!" Danny started laughing at his friend's reaction. Tucker frowned. "Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look more different than me."

Danny stopped laughing and crawled over to a nearby tide pool. He looked at his reflection in the water and saw that his long snow-white hair that was usually tied in a ponytail was now raven black and short and his neon green eyes were now icy blue. "What the HECK?!" he exclaimed. "Is that supposed to be me? I don't even recognize myself! Why did my appearance change more than yours?"

Tucker shrugged as he used a drying spell on their clothes. "The book I found did say that our appearances would be different on land. Some more than others," he recalled. He looked at Danny and squinted. "Dude, you look all blurry."

"What do you mean? You could see fine a moment ago," said Danny as he put his clothes on.

"I wasn't like this before we came here," said Tucker.

"Maybe your eyesight is different on land too."

"That's the only explanation I can come up with," Tucker shrugged.

After about an hour of teaching themselves how to stand upright and walk the two of them finally left the beach to find their temporary home. The sights they saw astounded them to no end. They wanted to see what the arcade was like but they had no money so they reluctantly walked on.

Tucker suddenly bumped into someone while walking. "Excuse me," he said.

"Watch where you're going, loser!" the person said. He had blonde hair and broad shoulders that could intimidate anyone shorter than him.

"Hey, buddy, we don't want trouble," Danny said.

"Too bad," said the blonde brute. "You two dorks asked for it the second you bumped into me." He cocked his fist and prepared to strike the two newcomers.

"Dash Baxter!"

The boy, Dash, stopped what he was doing and turned to face a man standing in the doorway of his shop glaring at him. The man was wearing dark sunglasses but a scar was visible going down his left eye. His skin was a rather unhealthy pale color. He wore a lavender button-down shirt with khaki pants. He carried a cane that had multiple clocks all over it.

"What do you want, old man?" Dash asked rather rudely.

The man snorted. "I just wanted to thank you for finding my two new employees. I've been waiting all day for them to arrive."

Dash scoffed. "Whatever," he muttered as he walked away.

Danny and Tucker turned to the man.

"Thanks for the save, man," said Tucker.

"Yeah. We really appreciate it," Danny added. "Were you really waiting for us?"

The man opened the door and gestured them to follow him. They did so and saw that they were inside a clock shop.

"Your parents contacted me ahead of time to let me know you were coming. Of course, I was expecting it to happen," said the man.

"You're Dick Tock, aren't you?" Danny assumed.

The man nodded and opened the door with a staircase inside. The three went upstairs and saw that they were inside an apartment. The walls were covered with a variety of clocks, sundials, and hourglasses.

Both boys blinked. This was where they were staying?

"What's up with the clocks? Don't have enough downstairs?" asked Tucker.

"This is my private collection," said Dick as he removed his sunglasses. Danny and Tucker saw that Dick's eyes were bright red, no pupils were visible. His skin suddenly started to turn sky blue, his hands became webbed and fins appeared on his head. "When we're alone, you are to address me as Clockwork."

"Clockwork?!" Tucker and Danny said at the same time.

"THE Clockwork?" Tucker asked.

"Clockwork the Master of Time and the longest living merman since Triton, son of Poseidon?" said Danny.

Clockwork smirked. "The very same. I've been wandering on dry land since the Roman Empire fell. I no longer have a tail fin. Rather, I have legs with scaly skin and fins and webbed feet," he quickly explained.

"So, you're like a fishman?" asked Tucker.

Clockwork frowned. "I find that term very offensive, but yes. Anyway, you two will be sharing the spare bedroom. Your classes are already picked out and your schedules are sitting on your beds. And before you ask, your parents also contacted me with concerns about your transfer paperwork and let me assure you that I have already taken care of it. Your college believe that you two were already students there."

Danny blinked. "How did you do that?" he asked.

"I have my ways," Clockwork winked.

~0~0~0~

Sam and Valerie walked through town to buy food for their dorm. The girls were on their way when Sam noticed someone sweeping in front of Mr. Tock's clock shop. Who still did that?

Valerie followed Sam's gaze and saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes. "He's new," Valerie noted. "I've never seen him around here before."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe he's a transfer," she assumed.

Valerie smirked at her friend. "Think he's cute?" she teased.

Sam blushed a bright red. "No! I mean, I guess he is…kinda cute," she sputtered.

"Gonna ask him out?"

"No way!" Sam said hurriedly. "I don't even know who he is. I'm not going to date a complete stranger."

Valerie sighed. "Come on, Sam. Just because you met Elliot on a blind date and he turned out to be a complete phony, doesn't mean that they all are."

"Which is why that will be the last time I ever let you set me up on a blind date," Sam quipped.

"Hey!" Valerie exclaimed jokingly. Both girls laughed. "Look! That boy is looking at you," Val sang.

Sam looked up and saw that, indeed, the black-haired boy was staring at her. There was something about him that seemed familiar but she couldn't put her finger on it. He looked pretty scrawny but also had a boyish charm that still refused to leave him. A small smile appeared for a split second when Mr. Tock's voice called him inside. He took one last look at Sam before disappearing into the clock shop.

"He works for Mr. Tock?" Valerie grimaced. "I didn't think anyone would want to work for that weird man."

Sam shrugged again. "Like you said, he's new. Maybe he doesn't know about Mr. Tock's reputation."

"Whoever he is, he's gonna find out soon enough," said Valerie. "The place smells like dead fish."

~0~0~0~

That night, Danny went to the bathroom to take a shower. His thoughts kept going back to Sam. He didn't think he'd ever see her again after what almost happened eleven years ago. Danny understood why merfolk feared humans and were forbidden to walk on land. But he also knew that not all of them were like the male human with the silver hair. Sam proved that. Danny only hoped that she went to the same college he and Tucker were going to.

Danny stepped into the shower to wash the fishy smell away from his skin. He was a little reluctant to start work on the same day he moved in because of the smell. Danny did not want to risk exposing his true self to the public.

Danny was so busy washing himself that he didn't realize that his fishy features were slowly returning.

SLIP! CRASH! BANG!

Danny fell face first on the shower floor. He lifted his head to see that his tailfin replaced his legs. His arm fins returned and his hair was long and white again.

Tucker burst into the bathroom. "Danny! What happened? You okay – why are your fins out?" he asked.

"I don't know. I was taking a shower then all of a sudden, I'm falling flat on my face on the bathroom floor," said Danny.

Clockwork came in and saw Danny's predicament. "Do not be alarmed. This is a natural reaction. Whenever you get wet you'll change back into your true selves. That means no pool parties and no swimming at the beach."

Both boys groaned. "So much for seeing girls in bikinis," Tucker moaned.

"We can't even enjoy seeing any kind of girl in a bathing suit," said Danny. "You realize that we have to avoid the locker rooms too?"

"That means we can't even sneak into the girls' locker room either!" Tucker cried.

How am I doing?

I loved coming up with Clockwork's human alias! Dick Tock! Haha! Get it?

If you're wondering why Danny and Tucker are walking on land when it's forbidden, you'll find out eventually. ;)

I know Valerie is a little OOC, I'll fix that too.

Keep those reviews coming!