A/N: Hey, guys! I'm not dead! Well, almost. I got into a really bad car accident, but I'm okay now. What a way to start the summer, right? Sorry I've been a little behind, but I promise I will update, even if it takes a little while. But as long as you guys read it, I will write it. Because I love writing, I love this show and its characters, but I love you guys most of all. I've never felt more inspired than when I get a new favorite, follow, or sweet review. Thank you for being patient with me.
"You've got a lot of explaining to do."
That voice couldn't be talking to her, could it? She hadn't done anything wrong, as far as she could remember. That wasn't saying much, considering she couldn't remember anything at the moment, but that voice did sound awfully familiar.
"I know."
She knew that voice too, from one of the deep recesses of her memory. Something cold brushed her forehead and then sat there. Her nose tickled, but she couldn't find the strength to move her arm and scratch it. She tried to, but that made everything hurt. A hand gently brushed across nose, and the tickling stopped, but her whole body still ached.
"Sam is gonna need to know, too."
There was that voice again, the first one that spoke. Tired, but calm, a voice that reminded her of long nights in front of the computer, battling away on the newest games. She always won, of course, because Tucker was good, but not good enough to beat her. The name battered around her brain like the clash of a gong. How could she forget?
"Tucker.." Her lips failed to repeat the name that her mind had discovered. She could feel them twitch, but nothing but Tucker's voice reached her ears.
"That's why we're patiently waiting for her to wake up."
The second voice. She knew that one too, remembering it with a swirl of emotions and the sudden thought of bright blue eyes. A crackling squeak escaped her chapped lips.
"Was that her?" Tucker.
""I think she's waking up. Finally."
Sam tried again. "Da..nny?"
"Sam!" The two boys cried at once. Sam felt like she had to break through a wall of cement to peel open her eyelids, but eventually they came up, giving her a blurry view of two faces staring down at her. "H..ey..guys." Her voice cracked with each syllable. She might have laughed if her throat wasn't as dry as the Sahara.
"How're you feeling?" She saw a blurry image of Danny's lips moving, seemingly slower than the words were coming out, like video game lag.
"Eh." was all she could manage. Half of his face was blotted out by a black line. She let out a hiccupy gasp as that same tickle returned to her nose.
"Your hair never wants to stay put." A pale hand appeared to brush the black strand away. Danny laughed, the tired chuckle of a long day. She wanted to see him, to see if his face was as tired as that laugh. Sam blinked, squeezing her eyes shut for a few long seconds before forcing them open again, and the blurriness began to fade. Two more blinks carried the rest of the smudges away, and Sam found herself staring into clear blue eyes. She definitely remembered those.
Bracing her arms behind her, Sam propped herself up on her palms, only to fall back down when a rush of pain hit her head. An ocean raged in the confines of her skull, battering her brain in fervent, angry waves. Danny and Tucker caught her before she could hit her head and do any more damage than she already had.
"Easy, Sam." Tucker's calm voice lulled her eyes closed again. "Your body is under a lot of stress right now. It's gonna take a little bit for you to recover from that. Getting possessed by one ghost is enough, but two-"
"Tucker!" Danny hissed.
"Yeah." Sam murmured. "Ghosts..." That struck the gong of memory, too. Something about ghosts. But who had gotten possessed? Obviously not one of them, because they seemed okay. And there's no way it could be...wait-she was the one with the raging headache, who couldn't even sit up. They couldn't mean... "Me?" she croaked. A cough bubbled in her throat, and she forced it down. "two ghosts...possessed.." she heaved a heavy sigh as another name broke through the fog in her head. "Poindexter?"
Sam struggled again to sit up, ignoring Tucker's warning cries. Her arms shook. The tiles of the school felt like fire under her palms.
"No," Danny said quietly, holding her shoulders to keep the girl steady. "Two ghosts possessed you. But Poindexter was one of them."
"That's what I meant." Sam rolled her eyes. Even that small movement made her stomach churn. "Poindexter," she gulped, making her dry throat burn even more. If they were just sitting there, she knew the ghost must be gone already, but that didn't stop her mind from conjuring the shadows into human figures. Black silhouettes with evil, glowing eyes. "Where is he?"
"He's taken care of." Danny tapped the metal thermos at his waist, giving her a gentle smile. "No worries, madam."
"He..he possessed me?" Sam lowered herself back to the ground with a sigh. Her trembling arms couldn't hold her up for any longer.
"Yeah, for a while."
Her purple lips (though half of the lipstick had been rubbed off already) tilted into a frown. That explained why she was lying on the dirty tile floor, trembling like a newborn kitten. But something still bugged her, an itch in the back of her mind. Tucker had said something that had taken her back. Something about ghosts and possessions, and-oh. Oh.
"There were two ghosts?" She nearly shouted, despite the protests from the sand dunes scratching at her throat. She thought she saw Danny wince, but maybe it was just her imagination. Or maybe she had shouted a little too loud.
"Well, you see.." Danny rubbed the back of his neck , dodging her eyes the whole time. "I...I'm, well, I guess..that I'm the.. other ghost."
Sam braced her hands behind her back, ignoring the trembling in her very bones, and raised her head to watch him with squinted eyes. And to tell him to stop joking around when she had a serious question. This might be the everyday for him, but for her, being possessed was kind of a big deal.
"Danny, you jackass. Can you please be serious for once?" His cheeks glowed pink, and Tucker coughed as a poor disguise to hide a laugh. She would slap them both, if her hands weren't being used to hold her up. "I'm kind of freaking out right now, and you two are making it worse!"
"Sorry." Tucker chuckled, tilting up his glasses to wipe his eyes. He didn't look sorry at all.
"Sam, calm down," Danny said exactly the thing you don't want to say to an angry girl, "I know it doesn't make sense, but just-just hear me out, okay?" Sam tucked her legs underneath her, lips falling into a doubtful frown.
"Okay." Sam said the word slowly, deliberately. He looked sincere enough, so she put a leash on her tongue for the time being. She rested her weight on her elbows while Danny fumbled for his words, probably not expecting that he would get that far.
"I've never done this before," Danny mumbled, running his hand through his mess of black hair. "Jazz just kind of, I don't know, found out, I guess. But I've never told anyone myself."
"Told anyone what?" Sam asked, her eyebrows quirking up. She rubbed the feeling back into her hands, gone numb long ago from the pins and needles racing through them.
"Dude, why don't you just show her?" Tucker piped up. "You're not very good at explaining things." Sam snorted a laugh that made her head rage.
"Okay." Danny said. He nodded, gulped, and nodded a second time. "Okay, I'll just show you, then." But he didn't move. It took a jab from Tucker's elbow to finally get Danny up and on his feet.
"Close your eyes." Danny said. Her eyes were narrowed to slits already, but open enough to read the nervousness written across his face.
"Why-" she started, before a blinding light answered her question. Sam sucked in a gasp of breath, and cold air filled her lungs as her hand shot up to cover her eyes. She forgot that she needed that hand to keep her stable, and she fell back against the ground when her other hand gave out.
A few seconds past, and the light faded as quickly as it sprung to life. It took Sam a few more seconds to blink the white poka-dots out of her vision. When her eyes had finally adjusted, she didn't believe them. Danny was..gone!
"Danny?" Sam nearly shrieked. She scrambled to her feet, almost toppling back to the ground. She was still stumbling to find her balance when two silver gloved hands appeared around her shoulders, keeping Sam's shaky legs planted to the ground.
"This way." Danny's voice said, but it was those silver hands that turned her around to see glowing green eyes instead of blue ones. Wild, white hair instead of messy black locks.
"Phantom?" she gasped. She tried to take a step back, not out of fear, just out of the pure shock of having a superhero within kissing distance. But he held her tightly by the shoulders.
"Yeah, but also-"
"Danny?!" that was definitely Danny's voice. And hadn't he been there just a second ago? Before that crazy bright light nearly blinded her for life?
"In the ghostly flesh." his lips cracked a smile. A nervous one, but still a smile.
Sam felt like she should say something, or scream, but her lips couldn't seem to form coherent words. She stuttered in a language that couldn't even be classified as English, until even those nonsense words failed her, and she was left in shocked silence.
"I know this is weird, but..just bear with me for a second, okay?" Danny slowly pulled his hands from her shoulders and held them up in a gesture of innocence. She could only nod mutely as his feet began to hover an inch or two off the ground. "I'm still Danny, just with... cooler hair."
Sam just blinked, and then forced her head to nod.
How did this happen? Was what she wanted to say, but the only thing that came out was a stuttered, "H-how?"
Danny chewed his bottom lip, his eyes staring at something far past them, or nothing at all. He had been expecting this question, she was sure, but it still fell on him like an anchor. His shoulders dropped, and that figurative anchor dragged his feet back down to the cold tiles of the empty school. There, feet planted to the ground and chin lowered to the chest, Danny finally began to speak in a quiet, distant voice."Two years ago, you guys remember when my...my parents," he said the word softly, as if it still hurt to think of them, "were building that portal to try to find ghosts?" Sam winced, and Tucker stared at his shoes. Sam nodded, in lieu of words.
"It didn't work at first. They thought it was busted, but I thought that maybe...maybe there were just some wires loose. On the inside." his jaw clenched, and Sam almost expected him to give up and walk away right then, but he didn't. He wet his lips and continued, in a voice even softer than it was before. "So I went inside when my parents were going over the calculations and...there was a switch on the inside that they missed. And I..." Strands of ebony hair covered his face as he let out a soft chuckle.
"I thought they unplugged it, but I wasn't smart enough to check. I should have, but..but I didn't." Sam felt tears prick at her eyes from the bitterness in his voice. "I turned the switch and it, you know." He curled his hands into two fists, and then tore them apart with fingers splayed. Sam remembered him using that same gesture when he was barely six years old, telling her how popcorn was made. How the kernel just explodes. She never thought the same gesture could be used to explain what had happened that day two years ago. "You remember, right?" Danny asked, and Sam could only bob her head. Of course she remembered. How could she forget, when for months and months, every time she closed her eyes, she could see it, hear it. Even now.
Sirens. Screams. She saw the smoke clouding over the beautiful blue skies of Amity from her own house. Black smoke billowing over the same part of town that Danny's house was in. She tore out the front door of her house, not even bothering to put on shoes. It was that explainable panic that propelled her through the streets, which grew more and more crowded with awestruck spectators by the second. That dread that consumes you, even before you know that's what it is. Before you even know what's happening. More screams, more sirens.
"I don't remember much after that, except for pain." Danny said, head tilted up to the sky. "A lot of pain. And bright lights." a grim smile wavered on his lips. "I thoughts I was dead. I guess I was, just not...completely."
She knew the way to Danny's house. She could run there with her eyes closed, if she wanted to. And part of her did, so that she could block out the horrified, gaping faces of the people around her as they stood staring at that smothering black cloud hanging over their heads. Over Danny's house. But Sam kept her eyes open so that she could jump over the piles of dropped groceries from the people who had forgotten they were holding them when that boom filled the air, leap over those toys that the children dropped when they had started to cry. They must have felt it too, that sense of doom that pushed Sam to run faster and faster through the streets that were quickly being covered up by a thin layer of ash.
"I don't remember the explosion," Danny narrowed his shining eyes at a long buried memory. "All I saw was...green. A white flash, a-and then bright green everywhere." Danny shook his head. Even the untameable strands of his raven hair seemed to droop.
Ash swirled around her, sticking to her wet lips. She couldn't see anything through the black cloud that had fallen into the streets. But she knew she was getting close when she felt the shards digging into her feet, glass shearing the tender flesh on her toes. But even that didn't stop her.
"Danny!" she screamed. The black cloud filled her mouth and throat, choking her. She coughed, but kept running. There were screams behind her, hands reaching out to grab her, but they weren't fast enough. Voices yelled for her to stop, to not go any closer, but those voices weren't what brought her bloody feet to a screaming halt. Nor was it the black smoke, quickly turning to gray, or the hands that tugged her back. It was that house that once stood proud and tall, now crumbled to a pile of charred debris before her.
"It destroyed the whole house. The portal kept me safe, I guess, but my parents..." tears welled in Sam's eyes. Her throat burned the same way it had that day, when the ash that used to be Danny's home filled her mouth and clouded her lungs. "there was nothing to protect them from the rubble, and when the house fell.." his voice cracked. Tears leaked from the corners of his brilliant green eyes, leaving shiny trails down his cheeks.
"Danny!" Sam screamed. Her feet set off running again, towards that smoldering pile of ash and brick. "Dan-"
"Don't try it, little one." a voice as gruff as the arms that held her back said. "Come on!" Those arms dragged her back. Sam thrashed, her fingers clawing and scratching at whatever they could find. Her feet battled between kicking at nothing and burying her heels into the ground. Burning glass ripped the skin from her heels, until her captor wrapped an arm below her knees and carried her like a new bride.
"Where is he?" Sam screamed, beating her fist against the yellow and red suit of the Amity Firefighter. The tears burned as they poured from her eyes, mingling with the black ash that coated her face. "Where is he? Danny? DANNY!"
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." that gruff voice said gently. He pulled her closer to his chest, and pressed a mask against her face, saying something about smoke. But Sam didn't care.
"DANNY!" she howled again, her voice muffled by the mask. She never stopped screaming, never stopped thrashing against the strong arms of the fireman, even after he had closed the doors of the ambulance behind her. She screamed until her coughs took over, and then she only sobbed as the ambulance took her away.
"I woke up in Vlad's house, and he's been taking care of me since then. I don't remember the hospital at all, but he told me I was there for a while."
"Two weeks." Tucker said quietly. Tears trailed down his cheeks too, rolling down to his chin and then falling to his shoes. "Sam snuck out of her room, and we went to find you. They wouldn't let us in."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Danny." Sam murmured. She reached a trembling hand out to him, and wrapped her fingers around his gloved hand. Her fingertips ran over the silver latex, and she wondered how much pain he had to bear to wear those gloves.
"But it is my fault, Sam!" his hand clenched under her fingers. "I wanted to tell you," He rasped, eyes shining a glassy blue. "I really did, I just... I couldn't."
"Danny.." Sam squeezed his hands. She pleaded with her brain to think of something to say, but his broken eyes, like shattered sapphires, drained the life out of her. Sam was never one to be speechless, but the dread had crawled up to her throat and squeezed it in a death grip.
"It's my fault that you guys have to dodge ghosts everyday. That you guys can't step out of your houses at night because you'll be attacked. That you have a freaking dead kid trying to attack you because you stood up for yourself." Danny dropped her hands, looking at them guiltily. His face turned away from her, but she could still see the glittering trails of his tears in the moonlight. "You should hate me for that."
"That has nothing to do with you!" Tucker argued, taking a step towards him, but Danny backed away.
"Where do you think they're coming from?" he asked, and Tucker fell back. No one really knew why the ghosts had suddenly invaded Amity. There were rumors that the Fentons were the ones keeping them away, and now that they were..gone, the ghosts had free reign, but... "The portal worked, and now it's spilling out ghosts left and right. And I can't stop it." Danny pulled the thermos from his belt loop. He ran his hands over the dented, scarred surface. His distorted reflection stared back at him from the silver shine of metal. "That's why I do this. I'm not a hero," he spat. The hand free of the thermos curled into a fist. "I'm just cleaning up my own mess."
It made sense, in a twisted way. Why Mr. Masters had bought that destroyed piece of land where the Fenton Works once towered. Why he had never cleared away the rubble. Why Phantom had always fought with all he had, and never accepted any thanks for all the good he did. How could she have not seen it sooner?
Moonlight streamed through a shattered window and illuminated Danny's face in a pale glow. It made his eyes glisten silver when he looked at them, sucking in a shallow breath.
"I didn't want you guys to get hurt from my mistakes. I already killed my parents, I can't lose you guys too. It would be better if you just...stayed away."
Danny," Sam shook her head, shaking off the tear drops on her cheeks that glittered in the silver moonlight. "you don't have to throw your whole life away after one mistake. We're supposed to help each other through mistakes, and.."
"Your mistakes don't kill your parents, or turn your city into the most dangerous place in America, or turn yourself into some half ghost...freak!" Danny dropped his head against a locker with a soft bang. Sam stepped back, tucking her outstretched hand back to her chest.
"It was better if you hated me," he whispered. Sam winced, feeling a deep blush heat up her face. Her eyes dropped to the pieces of broken glass on the floor. She had never felt like such an idiot. How she had paraded around, calling him the terrible friend, when really...she bit her lip until it blossomed with beads of red. She deserved that sting of pain, and a lot more.
"Because then you wouldn't have to know what I did. I didn't want you to know that I'm the one who let ghosts destroy this city, that I'm the reason my parents are dead, and mostly because I don't want to be the reason that you end up dead."
Sam watched him in silence, paralyzed in place, until Tucker stepped up, placing his hands on Danny's face and turning it so that Danny's neon green eyes were forced to meet his seafoam ones. "Sorry, Danny, but that's not going to work out, cause I don't hate you, and deep down in her cold little heart, I know Sam doesn't hate you either, even though she tries to pretend that she does." the corners of his lips uplifted into a tiny, tightlipped smile. "We're cool with Danny Fenton the Ghost Hunter, so why would Danny Phantom be any different?"
Sam nodded quickly, wiping the blood from her lips before Danny could see. She was still so overwhelmed, and didn't know what to say. Didn't know the right thing to say. Danny just stared, watching her with those spring green eyes, so full of misery. So easily now, she could see those green eyes being blue instead.
"You're still the Danny we used to run around causing trouble with. Just with.. cooler hair." A crackle of laughter broke past the red smudges on her purple lips, and then slowly, a timid, shaky smile grew on Danny's slightly glowing face. It was a start, at least.
"It is pretty cool, isn't it?" Danny said quietly, reaching up to twirl a white strand around his finger. Tucker nodded, his grin widening as a laugh burst from his lips. He pulled Danny into a hug, not a one armed boy hug, but a real hug. Danny's arms flailed for a bit before finding their way around Tucker. Sam wished she had a camera.
The tears had dried on Sam's face by the time they let go, and Danny looked to her with wide, careful eyes. She stepped closer, ignoring the crunch of glass under her combat boots. She tried to speak, to say something along the lines of "I'm sorry for being a horrible friend, and an idiot, and an oblivious little brat," but she was never very good with apologies. There wasn't anything to say that could make up for what she did, anyway. No words could fix that two years of broken hearts between them. But actions were supposed to speak louder than words, and she hoped that would be the same case here.
She had to stand on her toes to reach her arms around his neck. And even then, the top of her head barely slid past his ear. He stumbled back a few steps when she collided with him, perhaps putting more force into the hug than was necessary. But he regained his balance quickly, and Sam felt a rush of relief when she felt his arms pull her close.
"When did you get so damn tall?" she joked, craning her neck to whisper in his ear. Danny laughed softly, causing a burst of warm breath to brush against her neck.
"I think you just got shorter." She could practically feel that little grin on his face, and the thought of it made her want to cry. But she laughed instead.
"Careful, Danny." she warned, a smile warming her own face. "My knee could do a lot of damage at this angle."
He chuckled nervously, and Sam hugged him tighter.
"I'm sorry for being such a snob, Danny." she murmured softly. "I just...when you stopped talking to us, I didn't know what to do. It just became easier to blame you than to blame myself. I shouldn't have been-"
"It's okay, Sam." he lowered his head, his forehead touching hers. "I thought it was better that way." If only he had told her, maybe things would have been different. Not maybe. They would have been different. She would never have been so stupid, so naive to think that he was the problem. Stupid. oblivious, heartless...she choked on a sob.
"It's not too late, right?" she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt. It reminded her of that day, when that smoke mask had muffled her cries. She hadn't stopped, though, even when she couldn't hear her own screams. "To make up for it?"
His nose brushed against hers when he shook his head. A teardrop fell onto her shirt. She didn't know whether it fell from his eyes or hers.
Vlad's mansion was even larger than Sam's family home, and that was saying something. Danny called for Vlad as soon as he stepped past the towering marble threshold, and Mr. Masters appeared seconds later, dressed in his usual midnight black suit and charcoal tie.
"Daniel, home so soon?"
"I had help this time." Danny said, tossing the thermos to the older man. His face had been scrubbed clean of the tear trails, the red rims of his eyes gone without a trace.
"Oh?" Masters raised his eyebrows at Sam and Tucker, and for a moment, Sam worried that he could still see the stains on her cheeks. The millionaire caught the thermos with ease, and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket.
"Sam and Tucker thought they should help, cause you know, Sam was the one being haunted and all that."
"I see," Vlad's eyes, only a shade or two lighter than Poindexter's, fell on Sam and stayed there. "how considerate." The edges of his mouth twitched into a thin smile.
"And we found this." Danny took the stairs two at a time, using that same speed that Sam had watched him fight a hundred aerial battles with, though she hadn't known that he was the one she was watching that whole time. "I think you should look at it, for evidence, or whatever." He dropped his bag to the ground and unzipped it, carefully pulling out an oval shape covered in neon green netting. The glassy surface sparkled when Danny removed the ghost net, shooting out golden rays of the chandelier's reflection. The light danced in his eyes like sun sparks on the ocean.
"A mirror?" Vlad's gray eyebrows furrowed as he picked up the fragile piece and twisted it in different directions, eyes scanning over every angle.
"Well, yeah, but it's also a timeloop." Danny took the mirror from Vlad's hands and held it between them. "Poindexter created his own timeloop for Casper High back in the 50's. That's where he's been hiding this whole time."
"Extraordinary." Vlad mused. The chandelier light blazed like small fires in his eyes when he took the mirror back. He shifted it around in his hands so that the face of the mirror danced in the sparkles of light. Vlad smiled a leisurely grin at the mirror, though Sam couldn't tell whether he was smiling at the mirror itself or at his own reflection. She guessed it was a little of both. "Excellent work, once again, my boy." Vlad clapped a hand on Danny's shoulder, grinning at him even more than he had at his own reflection.
"He never fails to amaze me." He said it to Sam and Tucker, but his eyes never strayed from Danny's. "I knew he would be great the second I saw him. They always underestimated you, boy, but I knew your potential." Vlad ruffled Danny's hair, making the swirly black strands stand straight up into the air.
"Vlad, cut it out." Danny squirmed away from Vlad's hand, his cheeks the soft pink glow of embarrassment. "You're being creepy again."
"I'm doting, Daniel, there's a difference." He chuckled as Danny struggled to flatten his hair back to its normal, disheveled style. "And I so rarely have ears to listen."
"That's cause no one wants to hear it." Danny grumbled. He left his hair in the mess it was in, which, in Sam's opinion, wasn't too far off from what it usually looked like. The look fit him, though, and she couldn't imagine him with anything else. Vlad chuckled, because rich people never really laughed, (she would know) and only ruffled Danny's hair further. A gasp and a sigh of frustration, or something in between burst from Danny's frowning lips as he swatted at the hand.
"Ah, but they see it." Vlad said, his voice seeping with pride. "Especially when you lead the winners of this year's competition on their mission."
"Vlad-wait, what?" Danny gasped. "You want me to be the team leader?"
"Consider it training, Little Badger." Vlad smiled his thin lipped grin at Danny, gray eyes sparkling with pride. "For the future."
"When would I ever need that in my future?"
"Someday." Vlad said in a teasing way. It was the most playful Sam had ever seen the man. Not that she had the chance to see him a lot, but still. He didn't seem like the playful type, and by the incredulous expression on Danny's face, Sam guessed she was right. Vlad took the mirror under his arm, and with one last ruffle of Danny's already messy hair, the millionaire turned his back on the three gaping faces.
"Don't worry, Daniel," Vlad said over his shoulder. Sam saw the bulge of the thermos under his jacket when he turned, just slightly, to look at the boy standing on the stairs, his face still stuck in shock. She wondered what he would do with the ghost trapped inside that banged up soup thermos.
"Not your business anymore, Sam." She reminded herself. Still, she couldn't stop the shudder from spreading through her bones at even the thought of his name. Poindexter. She gulped, thinking of those furious gray eyes. She didn't care what Vlad did with him, as long as he stayed far away from her.
"A fighter, a leader-it's what you're meant to be." Vlad said, a fierce spark of pride igniting in his slate gray eyes. Sam couldn't remember anyone looking at her like that, like they really expected her to be somebody. It was sweet, but unnerving at the same time. Maybe it was because that proud smile looked almost...possessive. She watched his back until he disappeared, listened to the soft pad of Vlad Master's footsteps until they receded into the twisting halls of his mansion.
"Danny," Tucker said, breaking Sam from her trance. She hadn't noticed Danny descend the stairs until then, until she blinked and he was right there beside her. "you know what this means?"
"That I'm doomed?"
"No," Tucker grinned and slugged Danny in the shoulder. He didn't even flinch. "It means that you've gotta teach us how to fight so that we can win this thing."
"Tucker, that's actually a good idea." Sam said before Danny could object. "First time for everything, right?"
"Yeah-wait. What is that supposed to mean?"
"Danny, you need a team that you can trust, and I want to crush Valerie into chocolate dust, so it's a win-win deal."
"I..I dunno, Sam." Danny mumbled, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. Sam caught is hand before it got there and held it in hers.
"Danny, I know you don't like the thought of us being in danger, but we can take care of ourselves." She glanced to Tucker, who nodded his agreement, though his eyes still glared daggers at her from her earlier comment. "And what if Poindexter comes back and comes after me?"
"He won't." Danny said, giving her hand a squeeze. "Vlad puts them back in the Ghost Zone, and they don't come back."
"But what if he did? Or something else comes after me?" That seemed to strike a nerve. She could feel his hand tense under hers, fingers wiggling and curling into a fist. "I want to know how to defend myself if that happens, more than just what the school teaches." And more than that, she wanted to be there the next time Danny needed help. How many times had she seen Phantom struggling, with no one to give him a hand when he needed it? Her nails bit into the soft flesh of her left palm, remembering those times he had been shot, hit, tumbled from the sky. At least now, he wouldn't be alone. Not if she could help him.
"Please, Danny." Sam said, putting on her sweetest smile. It was hard to do, when the last thought that raced through her head was all the times she had seen him hurt. And she had never tried to help, because he was...well, a superhero. But he was a boy, too. She knew that now, and she would never, never forget. "At least give us a chance."
"C'mon, Danny." Tucker prodded, clasping his hands into pleading jumble of fingers. "Please?"
"Please?" Sam echoed.
"Alright." Danny caved. A sigh tumbled from his lips as they cheered. "But you have to promise me you won't do anything risky."
"Says the reckless Inviso-bill vigilante." Sam smirked at his glare.
"Whatever," he mumbled, dragging a hand down his face. "But if it gets too dangerous.."
"We'll back off." Sam promised, though she already knew it was a promise she wouldn't be able to keep. "Deal?"
Danny stared at her outstretched hand, chewing his lip nervously. She held her breath as his shoulders slumped. He took her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers, and shook it.
"Deal."