I don't own Danny Phantom.
Enjoy! (:
Tabula Rasa
Chapter Seven
April 24, 2014
"Sam?"
She did not move, did not even twitch, at the sound of Tucker's voice in the doorway of her kitchen. Part of her wondered why she was not more surprised that he was here; she had not been alone with Tucker in weeks. Of course he comes over while Danny's out. It was a rarity lately that Danny leave her alone longer than the time it took her to use the restroom, so of course Tucker would take full advantage of it now. She kept her eyes forward, relishing in the way they burned from her lack of blinking, and remained hunched over in her kitchen chair. Her mug of tea was barely within fingertip's reach. The liquid had long since stopped steaming.
"Sam, please," his voice was as quiet as it was pleading. She heard him step forward, moving slowly through her tiled kitchen toward the table where she sat.
"If you're here to tell me what to do again, save your breath." She mumbled. He edged into her line of vision; his skin was paler than usual in the muted, washed out lighting provided by the bleak day in progress outside.
"I'm not," he said with just the barest hint of annoyance in his voice. Chair legs scraped noisily across the floor as he pulled the chair tucked beneath the table out; his breath left his lungs in a whoosh as he sat heavily across from her. "I just want to talk to you."
"So talk," she grunted. Her gaze rose to meet his for only an instant before she lowered her eyes again, lest he see the desperation glistening in the recesses of her amethyst orbs.
"I can see what this is doing to you," he said quietly. His hands were folded on the table, almost close enough to reach hers. "He's killing you slowly."
"It's just a rough patch," she said, and the words fell from her mouth without a conscious thought. She'd been telling the lie for weeks now. "We'll work through it."
"I don't think so. Not this time." Tucker shifted forward, his fingertips stretching far enough that she could feel their warmth on the back of her hand. But he did not touch her. "Something changed in him. I don't know what. All I know is two months ago, he stopped being my best friend. He got really hostile and territorial around everyone except for you, and he turned into a clingy asshole with you. And don't act like you don't know he's changed, I know you know, I can see it in your face." Sam winced at the truth in his words. "He won't even let you leave the house without him anymore. I had to sneak over here, Sam."
"I know," her voice was scarcely louder than a whisper. "I know."
"I never, ever thought I'd say this, but…I think you need to leave him. I think you need to tell him that you need some space, or a break. Whatever it takes. I think you need to get out of here for a little while."
"Where would I go?" She could feel the tears rising, the urge to sob creating in a knot in her throat that made swallowing difficult. She finally lifted her gaze, and his facial expression was pained. "I can't stay with you or Jazz because he'll find me there, and I can't go to anyone's parents because they'll figure out something's going on. I can't hide." I don't want to hide, she almost added, but thought wiser of it. Part of her still believed the old Danny was in there, somewhere, buried beneath a million miles of the border-line psychopath he'd recently become. Tucker, however, did not share this belief with her. Surprisingly, neither did Jazz.
"I think you should leave the state for a while, maybe," Tucker said softly. "Just go somewhere he'd never look. Montana or Utah or something, somewhere completely random." He leaned forward in his seat, hand finally sliding over hers and squeezing gently. "I'm afraid that he's going to do something really, really bad to you, really, really soon."
"He's your best friend," she whispered as she dragged her thumb down his index finger absently.
"Not anymore." He said firmly and coldly. "He stopped being my best friend the day he told me I'm not allowed to see you anymore unless he's there." Sam winced and squeezed Tucker's fingers subconsciously. "You're my best friend, my only best friend, and I feel like I need to protect you from him right now. I don't want to see you get hurt anymore."
"He hasn't hurt me, though," Sam mumbled. "That's the thing. He's been clingy and obsessive, but not hurtful. It's hard to justify leaving him when he hasn't even really done anything to me."
"He's oppressing you," Tucker fired at her instantly. Inwardly, her eyebrows rose. So Tucker does listen to my animal rights speeches, she thought. "He's not letting you have any freedom. He's put you in a cage, and you and I both know how much you hate being in a cage."
The survivors spent most of that day lounging beneath their respective covers, watching the horizon intently for any signs of rescue. When Sam and Mark returned to their shelter, Ced shifted over just far enough to make room for Sam to sit down beside him. She remained there, reclining back on her hands, while Ced played his guitar. At one point, he even began to sing a few songs his band wrote, and, upon positive encouragement from Sam and Gwen, he sang through their entire playlist.
"That's the last one," he said regretfully as he plucked the last chord.
"You should write some more," Gwen suggested, shielding her eyes from the sun.
"Yeah, it's not like we're super busy with other stuff right now," Mark laughed, gently toeing the sand pooled around his feet bare feet. Their shoes and socks were all piled together to Mark's right.
"I did have an idea for a new song," Ced muttered, turning his gaze back to the neck of his guitar. "I'll play what I have so far for you guys. This one's called, 'oh no, the scary pig man ghost monsters are trying to eat Sam.'"
This earned a hearty laugh from Mark and a playful punch from Sam. "You're lucky I like you, or else I'd kill you," she warned as Ced began to sway in time with the song.
"I don't doubt that for a second," Ced grinned, never missing a beat in his new tune.
When the sun began to set, the survivors who were splashing in the shallow water of the beach made their retreat back to the shelters. Someone shouted something about searching for firewood, which drew Mark, Sam, Gwen, and Ced from their shelter to further down the beach.
"It'll be dark, soon. We should build a fire, a big one. Bigger than all three we had last night." Jesse was saying when Sam was within earshot.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Mark said loudly. While the group of survivors surrounding Jesse immediately turned to appraise Mark, Sam noted that Jesse kept his head down and his eyes closed. "Now that we know those other things are on the island, we don't want to give our position away."
"They already know where we are," Jesse said through clenched teeth. "We killed their leader off a few hours ago. Well, I killed their leader off."
Mark exhaled slowly, his breath hissing through his throat. "It's not smart to light a signal fire, regardless," Sam said before Mark could retort. "There's a good chance that the two that ran away were disoriented and won't be able to find their way back here on their own. Mark's right, lighting a fire could create a smoke signal that could cause them to find us again." When the tension did not settle, Sam tried again. "We could probably get away with small fires, and I mean small. It can't be like it was last night."
"If we light that fuse lodge up, it'll make a smoke signal three miles high," Jesse snarled, though through the violence Sam heard a desperate plea. "Plus…and I, uh…no offence to the folks still inside it, but…the smell's gonna start attracting wild animals. We're killing two birds with one stone, here. What if there are search crews just out of sight? What if they're just over the horizon, but they can't see us? Lighting the fuse lodge up in a signal fire could be the difference between life and death for us on this island!"
"There's no guarantee that there is rescue out there," Sam said gently and slowly. A new kind of tension was spreading through the group, one tinged with a melancholy that made her heart ache. "I believe that they are looking for us, and I believe that they will find us, but…there's no guarantee that they're right over there. There is a guarantee that something is in the woods. Two somethings. And those somethings can probably kill us. Plus, a smoke signal won't do us much good if there's no light for rescue to see it with."
"There's the pep talk I've been waiting for," Ced muttered under his breath, but no one laughed.
"We can't risk it. Not with the possible consequences. Light fires if you want, but keep them small and contained. Try to keep the amount of smoke to a minimum."
"I need to check the stitches," Mark murmured as the group dispersed.
"Let's get a little light and then you can check." Sam said, stooping to gather driftwood half-buried in the sand.
"I thought I saw a dead tree we could pull from over there. Mark, will you help me?" Gwen asked, gesturing toward the tree line.
"Sam…what d'you think is going on here?" Ced asked quietly when Mark and Gwen were out of earshot. "Like…I dunno, it just seems strange that you, the ghost expert, survive a plane crash on an island that may or may not be creating ghosts. Seems a bit more than just chance that you ended up here."
"Ced, trust me. I've dealt with my share of conspiracies. I think it was a serious stroke of bad luck that our plane crashed, and I think the universe added insult to injury by making us crash land on an island with a ghost lab on it. But…I don't know. This just doesn't feel like a plot to me. Just a series of unlucky events. It's like Lemony Snicket wrote our plane crash."
Ced was not amused. "Then how do you explain that weird siren sound from the last night? Or that three ghosts found us and almost killed you? I'm telling you, there's something bigger going on here. I have a really bad feeling about it."
Sam lifted her chin and stared hard at a point just above the line where the ocean met the sky. "Like I said, I've been part of my fair share of bigger plots. Some I've known about, others I didn't know until after it was all over. If anything, this is just a sign to me."
"A sign of what?"
"I made the right choice when I moved to Australia." She clenched her jaw and stood, shuffling the driftwood around in her arms to get a better grip around it. "As for the choices I made once I was in Australia, well…I've definitely made mistakes. But the move to Australia itself? Not a mistake. In fact, it might be the best decision I've ever made for myself."
"Well, be that as it may. I've got a really bad feeling about this island. In fact, I…I would even say that I've got a bad feeling about you, specifically, being on this island. Don't ask me why, okay? I've always sort of had a sixth sense about this sort of thing," Sam chuckled as they picked their way back to their shelter. "Don't laugh, I'm being serious for once! Honestly," he shook his head and dropped his driftwood at their feet. "Please promise me you'll be careful, okay? Please."
"Alright, I'll be careful. Well, as careful as I can be." Sam began rearranging the driftwood. "But you have to swear that you'll keep that voodoo sixth sense away from me if it starts tingling again, you here me?"
"Wow, you're hilarious. When we get off this island, you should pursue a career as a stand-up comic," he said sarcastically as he knelt beside her. Sam laughed and threw a twig at him, which promptly tangled in his hair.
"No, leave it! You look like an island goddess," Ced batted his eyelashes and smiled theatrically and Sam laughed all the while.
"Ced, you didn't mention your band dresses in drag," Gwen chided as she walked up behind them. Ced's face flushed as Sam fell backwards and clutched her stomach.
"It's our newest gimmick," he said after a moment of stuttering. "Did I not mention we're all drag queens?"
"What?" Mark asked as he drew even beside Gwen, furrowing his brow at Ced. "Who's a drag queen?"
"No one, nothing, don't worry about it," Ced muttered over Sam's howls of laughter. He yanked the twig out of his hair and threw it at Sam, who was laughing far too hard to even feel it bounce off her arm. "You're such a jerk!"
The sun was nearly set by then, painting the island in a dazzling red-and-orange glow. Sam gasped for air, desperately trying to subdue her own laughter, but she needn't have tried.
"There it is again!" Someone shouted. Immediately the four tore out of the shelter and stumbled backwards, toward the water, eyes fixated on the new source of light. Now that Sam was prepared for it, she noticed the light was pulsing slightly, shooting directly upwards. The trees blocked her view of the base, but she guessed it was several miles into the forest.
The wail started up again, and Sam clapped her hands over her ears along with the rest of the group, but she loosened her grip just slightly. Just enough to really listen to it.
The moment the wail died down and the light was gone, Gwen, Mark, and Ced turned to her, each wearing identical questioning looks.
"That wail was unsteady and crude. Whoever the ghost is, he or she hasn't had much practice with the wail yet. It may be a new power they've just recently developed, or it could be a recording." It isn't as powerful as Danny's, she thought. "That's good news for us. It means that whatever ghost is on this island isn't as powerful as it could be."
So lately I've been posting some of the stuff I write for Danny Phantom to Tumblr, and I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response. I think I'm gonna go ahead and republish this on Tumblr and update them simultaneously. So basically what I'm saying is, if you follow me on Tumblr, expect to see chapter one of this fic published there soon. And if you don't follow me on Tumblr and you happen upon it, if the original source says it's from ylimemily8, that's me.
Thank you for reading! (:
- Tori
