Chapter Ten: One Fateful Day (Part 1)

Friday, November 1st, 2003 (Flashback)

Danny headed down the stairs early one morning to find Sam already in the kitchen with a meal halfway done. Outside it was blistery cold but snow wouldn't arrive for another few weeks and for that Danny was grateful. While having an ice core like he did, it still wasn't pleasant to drive in the snow and ice. No part of his powers gave a car better traction on black ice.

"You're finally up, good, I was getting bored," Sam grumbled, stirring the eggs on the skillet.

"Sorry, I didn't wake up when you got out of bed," Danny apologized, walking up behind his wife and hugging her from behind.

"You can't sleep through a ghost sense, but you can sleep right through me grumbling about this little monster?" Sam replied.

"Apparently," Danny laughed, kissing her cheek. Quick as a flash, Danny whipped his hand out and grabbed a small piece of egg from the skillet before Sam could stop him.

"Danny! That's not finished yet! At least wait till it's off the stove!" Sam cried, batting his hand away as he went in for seconds.

"Why do you care? It's not like you'll eat any of them?" Danny teased, but relented, walking over to the refrigerator and pulling out some soy milk from inside.

"It's common curtesy," Sam snipped. With a few more stirs of the spatula, she pulled the skillet from the stove and moved towards the plates sitting beside the stove. She deposited all the egg onto one of the two plates. "Besides, you might burn yourself," she retorted, knowing full well that was practically impossible for Danny.

"If I could burn myself on cooking eggs, then they'd be more burned then cooked," Danny laughed, turning from the fridge to see his wife setting the plates onto their small eat in kitchen table.

Her dark hair flowed down her back, longer then it had been in high school. Today it was pulled back with a simple hair clip, so it didn't fall in her face. The fabric of her dark purple shirt was gathered just below her chest by a metal ring causing it to cling tight to her chest before fanning out around her waist. A black cardigan covered her arms and hung lose at her sides as well. The slim fit jeans she wore ended with dark combat boots that Danny was sure would never leave his wife's wardrobe.

But her wardrobe wasn't the reason Danny stood there, admiring his wife. No. It was the small bump of her stomach that her flowing shirt could only hope to hide. Four months pregnant, and Sam was showing so much that their families had suspected there to be twins. But their OBGYN was adamant that there was only one heartbeat. An announcement that Danny and Sam were more than happy to hear.

"What?" Sam's question broke Danny from his thoughts. "If you tell me I look fat, I swear I'll-"

"I would never say that!" Danny laughed, "What made you think I was even thinking such a thing? Can't a man simply admire how his wife looks in the morning?"

The narrowing of Sam's eyes clearly said 'no'.

"So… did you sleep well?" Danny rushed, hoping to steer the subject into more pleasant waters.

"No, I did not," Sam grumbled. "This little spawn of yours makes it impossible to get comfortable no matter how many times I turn over or adjust my pillows."

Danny sweat dropped at that comment… "Oh… r-right…" Danny frantically tried to think of something to say to calm her down. "Well… the doctor did say that should be tempora… never mind…" The glare he received after that comment shut him up fast.

"So… anything interesting at work planned for today?" he tried, hoping to salvage the breakfast table conversation.

"No, just finishing up the paperwork for next week's rally about – " and Sam was off talking about one rally or another about one topic or another that Danny didn't even try to follow. The ultra-recyclo-vegetarian was very adamant about her job. She organized rallies for everything from the importance of recycling to the freedom of animals from testing labs and beyond. While she hadn't yet converted Danny into an ultra-vegetarian, he did admit that he ate less meat since their wedding. Mostly because Sam refused to cook meat and he wasn't that great in the kitchen. Those were some of the lessons from his parents that he had been able to avoid.

Danny was still in college himself. Working towards his goal of being an astronaut. If Phantom did end up preventing that, he at least wanted to work with NASA and that took college and good grades. He had a part time job as plumber that he was also learning the ropes in. If the NASA gig didn't work out, he needed to provide for his family and he wasn't one to like to rely on Sam's family's fortune for a living. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the plumbing, it was just very boring compared to his college work and the ghost hunting job he'd had in high school. Not that ghost hunting had ever brought in any money…

DP DP DP

An hour later Danny and Sam were gathering their things up to leave for the day. Danny didn't have college today, so it was off to work while Sam gathered her computer and any paperwork, she had brought home the night before. Danny was picking up his winter coat when his ghost sense went off causing him to shiver involuntarily.

"Something wrong Danny?" Sam asked, having missed the gasp of blue air.

"My ghost sense…" Danny murmured.

"What? But ghosts never come around anymore."

Sam wasn't wrong either. It had been years since Amity Park had been plagued with ghosts. It wasn't an instant thing or anything like that. But over the years the ghosts had just stopped traveling to the living world. It was a combination of things, really. It was Skulker finally accepting he'd never capture Danny Phantom, it was the Box Ghost getting stuffed into the Thermus one too many times to find the living world worth the effort, it was Spectra getting stuck in the Ghost Zone prison and not being released for another five hundred years. Amity Park slowly became ghost free. Danny hadn't had a ghost show up in six months and he hadn't been to the Zone in nearly nine, not since Sam and his wedding in the spring.

And Danny Phantom hadn't been seen in Amity Park for just as long. Danny still enjoyed a good night's flight from time to time but if he ever had the itching to go for a flight, he would make sure to drive outside the city first. One, to avoid his parents picking up his ecto-signature; and two, he could see the stars better from the countryside.

So for his ghost sense to go off was truly a rare thing anymore. At first, he thought it might be Dani coming to visit but that thought was quickly erased as a large clock hand appeared in their living room and spun around, opening to show the swirling green portal that Clockwork was best known for.

The elderly ghost floated in carrying his Staff of Time before the portal closed behind him.

"Daniel, Sam, it is good to see you again," the Ghost of Time greeted them, bowing slightly to his young charge.

"Clockwork, hello… Yeah, good to see you too…?" Danny murmured, the coat in his hand falling back onto the hook he had just picked it up from. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not wrong, but you both will want to call in sick to work today, we have a lot to talk about."

Posted 9/25/18

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Morning Bleach