"Seriously

"Seriously? Like, properly hurling?" Sam asked wide eyed, Danny nodded and hissed at her Sam to be quiet.

"Yeash, I knew Paulina was image obsessed but that's way more than I thought." Sam whistled quietly.

"You reckon she's like that back in… back how we were before? If this hadn't have happened?" Danny asked concerned.

"I guess, nothing much else seems to have changed. Poor girl." Sam said pulling a grimace at the notion.

"I thought you'd be the last person to sympathise with the girl, you hate her, despite how awesomely hot she is." Tucker said rolling his eyes at Sam.

"Yeah, and how hot is she now that you know what she DOES to look like that?" Sam retorted, "Anyway, I've got a heart. The poor girl's sick in the head, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"But why would she do it?" Danny asked with a sad sigh.

"Because she's sick, I mean it, it's a full blown mental illness. It makes you hate everything the mirror shows you, regardless of what's there, it makes you hate yourself. And what's worse is it could kill her." The goth pointed out as she or rather, he attempted to fish a fry out from the bottom of a nasty burger bag.

"I get that, but why'd she start in the first place?" Danny questioned whilst feeling hungry as he'd abstained from Nasty Burger food after this morning's mirror revelations.

"Lotsa reasons," Sam shrugged, "mainly because it's what we as a society demand from women, that they be some ideal shape even when it's physically impossible for most, we're not all built the same way and regardless of how skinny you get you're never gonna look like those airbrushed magazine models, but some people can't accept that." Sam explained.

"That's crap, not every girl does what Paulina does, do they?" Danny protested with his hands on his hips defiantly, he was starting to like being able to do that and could clearly see why Sam used to use it on him all the time with her 'you just said something dumb and I'm mad at you for it' look.

"No, but Paulina made you swear not to tell, you wouldn't know if it wasn't by chance, how many other girls do you think end up like that? And even if they don't the vast majority of girls loathe what they see in the mirror." Sam said and Danny winced at this, remembering this morning clearly.

"Hey, it goes the other way too though, if you're not an athlete or not really smart and funny you're a nobody." Danny pointed out, Tucker raised an eyebrow at this.

"How would you know?" He said with a bit of a glower.

"She's got eyes in her head." Sam shot in quickly whilst Danny floundered for a response.

"Whatever, can we stop talking about this? It's making me feel sick." Tucker said rolling his eyes skyward.

"Me too, screw the mirror, I'm getting a burger!" Danny said defiantly as he jumped up and stormed into the restaurant, he was fairly sure he heard a cheer of 'you go girl' from Sam half sarcastically from where she and Tucker sat on the curb outside.

Sam reclined backwards, resting on her elbows and stretching her head back and basking in the sun.

"Hey Sam?" Tucker said slowly as he looked over at his friend.

"Mmm?" Sam murmured not opening her eyes.

"Danny's been acting weird lately don't you think? You think she's okay?" Tucker said looking around to make sure Danny wasn't on his way back yet.

"A little I guess. I'm sure Danny's fine." Sam said opening his eyes and looking back up. At that moment a packed red four by four pulled up noisily in the parking lot, Sam's eyes widened as Dash got out of the car and pulled his football jersey off over his head, which momentarily pulled his shirt off exposing his bare tanned muscle rippled flesh.

"Eeep!" Sam squeaked snapping forward and pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her face in her knees as she simultaneously felt blood rush up to her face turning her normally pale skin scarlet and blood rush lower to… well, to make her uncomfortable to say the least. Danny hadn't warned her about this when she'd called him back after the 'teach me how to pee' debacle and he'd explained stuff like urinals and boxers and so on.

"What's with you?" Tucker asked as he stared at his friend who was apparently trying to curl into the foetal position upright.

"Nothing! I just… don't want to get beaten up." Sam lied quickly and scrunched her eyes shut and tried to think neutral thoughts, certainly not thoughts of that stupid jock Dash who was so arrogant and ignorant and yet so confident and self assured and carried himself with a certain energy that had nothing to do with arrogance. Sam tried desperately to shake those thoughts out of her mind as the jock walked past her, she did not want to be seen like… like this, by him or anyone.

"God Sam, don't be such a girl." Tucker said rolling his eyes.

"I'd watch what you say, Danny wouldn't be happy to hear you say that." Sam muttered and hugged her knees tighter to her flat chest.

"You're damn right I'm not." Danny's now feminine voice thundered behind them.

"Oh come on Danny, don't be so oversensitive." Tucker grumbled irritatedly, Danny glowered and forcefully sat between the two boys.

"Yeah, it's hard to see why I'm offended seeing as you just used my whole gender as an insult against Sam." Danny pointed out angrily.

"It's just a figure of speech, why should I have to be so pc just because you're easily offended? You girls are always going on about this feminist stuff like you can't get a job and people slap your ass all the time, there's no more campaigns to fight and no more bras to burn, you're just people now." Tucker retorted.

"Fine, tell yourself that's true while you use some pointless detail about who I am as an insult. I mean, you're right, it's got no bearing on the kind of person I am, how smart I am or how much I should be paid or anything, heck it's not even something I can choose." Danny conceded waving his hands dismissively and opened his Nasty Burger wrapper.

"Hey, what's with the backing down?" Sam gawped shocked at the fact that Danny had just rolled over and given up when he finally seemed to be getting the point that Sam had been making all along.

"God Sam, do you have to butt in all the time? Stop acting so black!" Danny shot back, there was a shocked pause as both Tucker and Sam sat slack jawed at this remark.

"What the hell?!" Tucker finally demanded.

"Oh sorry, did that offend you? I guess you're being oversensitive, I mean it's not like you chose to be black or like it has any effect on what kind of person you are, how smart you are or how much you should be paid or even like black people are really oppressed any more, I mean you're not enslaved, you're equal citizens, there's no more protests to go to, you're just people now." Danny shot back exaggerating every word, Tucker simply gawped at this.

"Oh, you still seem offended, I guess that using something about you as an insult is still sucky even if there's not really any big problems or discrimination now. Guess you're just being too pc." Danny growled before victoriously biting into his burger.

"That's completely different!" Tucker spluttered.

"I dunno Tuck, name one aspect of the black movement that doesn't also apply to the women's lib movement." Sam conceded thoughtfully.

"How about slavery and murder?" Tucker spat angrily.

"Women have been enslaved more throughout history than black people, and still are in a wide number of countries today, and that was government sanctioned too, women were just as much property of white men as black people were. And as for murder, it was a lot more accepted, women are still stoned to death for disobeying their husbands in some parts of the world." Sam mused.

"That-that's not the point! You're as bad as her!" Tucker shouted gesturing to Danny.

"But she has a point, because the feminist movement is no longer seen as serious and there are some nutjob ones around doesn't mean that it's okay to say things like that, if anything we've gone backwards, I mean, how is it okay to make sexist jokes and not black jokes?" Sam pointed out. Tucker hunched forward sulkily and said nothing for a while, finally he sighed and looked over at Danny who had by now finished his burger.

"I guess I owe you an apology. Friends?" He asked holding out a hand, Danny smiled slightly and took the handshake.

"If it makes you feel any better I know I owe a few apologies to some people too." Danny said quietly and shot a look at Sam knowing full well that had he not been forced to be female he would have been right on Tucker's line of thought for that argument.

"And on that note, the cheerleaders have been left unattended in the car, it's my time to shine." Tucker grinned jumping up, he paused slightly and looked back at Danny warily.

"If that's not too sexist or anything?" He asked cautiously, Danny rolled his eyes and laughed.

"Don't be dumb, go on." He laughed waving his friend off who gleefully ran over to the four by four and began hitting on the cheerleaders one by one and proceeded to get shot down repeatedly.

"I wasn't that bad before was I?" Danny asked quietly.

"At picking up cheerleaders? Yeah." Sam smirked.

"You know what I mean, about all the feminist stuff." Danny prompted and rolled his eyes.

"I don't think you really need to ask me to know the answer to that." Sam said flatly, after a moment she took pity on him.

"Look," She started slowly, "I know you're my friend, I always have, and I know you've never meant to say anything that'd upset me and I know you wouldn't really endorse the idea that men are better than women or anything like that, but it doesn't stop the fact that you shared the same words and phrases of people that DO think things like that. And even if it does seem overly pc sometimes it can make it worse if people just dismiss it, but that doesn't mean you need to be freaked out about offending me either. And I know I made my share of 'men are dumb' comments in my time too. So… we're even okay?" Sam offered, Danny smiled at this. Behind the two oblivious teens the door to the Nasty Burger swung open very nearly hitting Sam in the process, Dash pushed past the two teens deliberately swiping Sam with his foot as he walked past on his way to the car.

"Having said that, being a guy's not exactly a walk in the park either." Sam muttered darkly as she watched the retreating form of Dash Baxter and tried not to stare at his ass, for the hundredth time that day she cursed her stupid male hormones.