Warnings for mentions of adult sexual situations.


Abortion

A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori


When he was seventeen, Danny found out from his parents that he was infertile. It would be impossible for him to ever have children. Which, his parents had said in private to Sam later, was probably a blessing. There was no telling what sort of problems a child with ectoplasm-infused DNA would have.

Danny hadn't taken the news well. He was just the sort of sappy male who had always wanted children of his own. Mentioning any sort of alternative options had resulted in nothing but anger and sadness.

When Sam finally agreed to accept an engagement ring from Danny when they were twenty-one, it was with the knowledge they would never have biological children of their own. She was fine with that – adoption was very much something she could get behind.

Due to these facts, Sam had never bothered with any sort of birth control. The artificial hormones weren't healthy, Danny couldn't get her pregnant, and besides, she was faithful to Danny.

Until that one night when she wasn't.

Danny had been away, and she'd gotten terribly drunk at a poetry reading. Of all the possible people, she'd ended up sleeping with Jeremy Kimler, the most masochistic, sexist pig in town. Sam had woken up outraged and with the cry of rape on her lips – she'd been far, far, far too drunk to consent – but after a long shower, a half-bottle of mouthwash, and perusing the video on her phone…

She had stared – disgusted and strangely entranced – at the debauchery going on before her camera. She couldn't imagine what had been going through her mind that night. Yes, Jeremy Kimler bore some resemblance to Danny Fenton. Black hair. Blue eyes. Taller, though, skinnier… definitely less well developed in the downstairs area.

After not too many seconds, she'd realized that Jeremy Kimler had probably been more drunk than her. He wasn't any more to blame for what had happened than she was.

She'd deleted the video, sent a few messages detailing the torment that would happen if news of the previous night slipped Jeremy Kimler's lips – although she quickly realized he didn't remember any of it – and set herself to forget it ever happened. She didn't remember the exact events very well, but what she did remember had been sloppy, too quick, and completely forgettable. Jeremy Kimler was many things, but 'good in bed' was not one of them.

Nothing good would come of telling Danny about it, and it was just a forgotten few minutes of drunk groping in the dark. Sam succeeded in pretending to forget about it for nearly a month.

Until one morning, some four weeks after that night, when she sat on the toilet, rocking slowly back and forth, holding a little stick in her hand that she had never, ever thought she'd have to use and praying to any god that would listen that the result be negative. It had been just a few minutes. And with Jeremy Kimler of all people.

She loved Danny. She loved Danny. She loved…

The words on the screen were like a punch to her gut: pregnant.

She sank to the ground, holding the stick to her chest, feeling tears run down her cheeks, and tried to figure out what to do next. There was no way Danny could know about this. He couldn't know about Jeremy Kimler. He couldn't know Sam was pregnant. He couldn't-

Her thoughts came to an abrupt end when the door to the bathroom creaked open. Sam flinched and jerked the pregnancy test behind her. "I'm busy," she croaked before the door was completely open.

"You okay?" Danny poked his head around the door, spotting her on the ground. His face creased with concern; obviously he could tell she'd been crying.

"Yes. Go away," Sam whispered. "Please."

Danny hesitated a second, then nodded and said, "Yeah." But just before he left, his eyes scanned the bathroom and landed on the counter. He stopped.

Sam followed his gaze, feeling her stomach drop when she saw the box the pregnancy test had come in sitting on the counter. "Danny…"

He didn't look at her. His face was blank. Sam felt all the worries about her fiancé finding out about that stupid, drunken night well up inside her chest. Did he know? Was he putting together this pregnancy test with a mistake a month ago? Or did he not know yet? Sam swallowed heavily, not moving from her spot.

Very slowly, Danny walked the rest of the way into the bathroom. He stepped up to the bathroom counter and picked up the box, turning it over and over in his hands. And still he didn't look at her. "What'd it say?" he asked.

"Danny…"

"Sam," he replied, his voice dead calm as he finally turned his blue eyes on her. His gaze flittered across her face, at the tense way she was holding herself, and the defiant thrust of her chin. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"

Her head moving jerkily, Sam nodded. Then, unable to take the weight of his stare, she looked away.

She heard him move, felt him settle down next to her and pull her arms out from behind her back. He took the pregnancy test and set it aside, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "Now what?" he asked.

She'd cheated on him – would he call of the engagement? Would he ask her to get an abortion? Would he ask her to move out? Be mad at her? Never speak to her again? Call her parents and… "What do you mean?" Sam asked, her voice cracking. Even as she leaned against his warmth, she couldn't look up at him.

"You heard what my mom said," Danny said, making Sam blink and her rambling thoughts hesitate – Mrs. Fenton didn't factor into a mistake with Jeremy Kimler at all. "If… something happened and… you know… there's no telling what sort of problems the child would have. Because of me. And it'd be too dangerous for you to… you know…"

Sam stared at the water stain in the paint, her heart twisting as she realized what Danny assumed was going on. He thought he was the father. That under some strange, twisted circumstance, he'd managed to get her pregnant.

"I don't want you to get hurt," Danny continued. "As much as I've always wanted kids, I don't… You're so much more important, Sam. And…"

It broke her heart, listening to Danny stumble over his words over how much he loved her and she'd been unfaithful and now she was pregnant with a child that didn't belong to him, and he didn't know. "Danny," she breathed.

"I know how you feel about… about abortions," Danny's voice hesitated over the word, "but in this case… we talked about…"

She thought about it, just going to the doctor and getting some pills, or whatever they did at this early of a point in a pregnancy. But abortion was wrong. It was so very, very wrong. It was the killing of a life… She couldn't help but reflexively wrap her arms around her stomach.

Were this Danny's child – doomed to a short life of pain and horrible risks to Sam's life for carrying it – Sam wouldn't have hesitated or questioned it. They'd already talked about it. She'd agreed to it. She wasn't going to torment an infant child like that.

But this wasn't Danny's child. The DNA to create this being inside of her belonged to Jeremy Kimler. And, while Jeremy Kilmer was a wretched, vile human being in every definition of the term… he was a healthy human male. The DNA he'd given was undoubtedly healthy as well. Making the child growing inside of her healthy and viable.

"I can't," she whispered, choking on the words. She pulled slightly away from him, not wanting to feel the slow movement of his body next to hers. Not right now. Not when she'd so horribly broken his trust, and then lied to him, and now couldn't decide if she should tell him the truth or not about the father of the baby growing inside her.

It would break him. It would tear him apart. Their relationship wouldn't last. Their perfect, storybook ending wouldn't ever be.

"We talked about this," Danny said. "Sam, you can't take the risk-"

"My choice," Sam said. She still couldn't look at him, although she could feel him staring at her. "My body, my choice."

Danny was quiet, then sighed. She could feel his breath on her neck. "It won't be healthy, Sam. It'll be in pain, if it lives that long, and there's no telling-"

"My body, my choice," Sam repeated, closing her eyes and leaning forwards. She pressed her forehead into her knees. "I can't…"

She wasn't sure what she meant by that. She couldn't do a lot of things. She couldn't tell him. She couldn't have the abortion. She couldn't carry a child to term that wasn't Danny's. She couldn't lie to Danny and raise a child together that wasn't theirs. She couldn't…

She couldn't…

"I can't," she whispered again, tears soaking into her pajama pants. Her body was shaking.

Danny didn't say anything. He just sat there and patted her back and listened to her cry. It was only because of the occasional sniffling cough that Sam realized Danny was crying too.

Every day thereafter, Sam woke up desperate for a miscarriage. She would carefully check her underwear for any sign of blood. There never was any. Every day Danny would stare at her. He mentioned the doctor several times. He even went to some sort of abortion clinic and came home with all sorts of pamphlets guaranteeing that the zygote growing inside of her wasn't advanced enough to feel pain yet, to know that it was alive. He kept telling her that he loved her… and that he didn't want her to do this. It was too dangerous.

And Sam kept not telling him that it wasn't any more dangerous than any other pregnancy, because the child inside of her wasn't Danny's. Every time she steeled herself to come clean, and walked up to him, she'd lose her words.

She loved him too much to lose him. She loved him too much to break his heart like this.

She scooped up some of the brochures sitting on the bedside table and stared at them. She loved Danny much more than she loved Jeremy Kimler. She loved Danny much more than she loved this problem slowly growing inside of her. It would be so easy. Just go get it taken out. She wouldn't even have to admit to Danny she'd gone – she could just say she'd miscarried. It'd be completely plausible to him, given that he thought the child's DNA was flawed.

But she never went. She kept putting it off. She couldn't condone something she saw as murder… even for Danny.

And she couldn't say anything. She kept hoping it would all just fall apart. That this wouldn't end up happening to her. That something would just happen and she wouldn't have to deal with this any longer.

It was nearly ten weeks after that fateful night with Jeremy Kimler that Danny finally dragged Sam to the doctor. Not to get an abortion, but to get a pregnancy checkup.

"If you're going to carry this thing, we need to make sure it's healthy," Danny said as he pulled her into the doctor's office and made her sit in a chair. "Run lots of tests," Danny told the doctor. "There are lots of abnormalities that run in my family and I want to know what my child has."

Sam grabbed onto that thought. It could be her way out. Perhaps the child was mutated in some way. Surely any spawn of the disgusting pile of flesh that was Jeremy Kimler would have some sort of massive defect that would clear her conscience enough for that abortion.

They couldn't run very many tests, not at ten weeks. A few genetic tests. But most would have to wait. Fifteen weeks, twenty for some of them. Some would have to come even later than that. Sam made sure they ran them all.

Nothing. Negative. Every test came back with the same result: the baby growing inside of her was perfectly healthy.

She made it to twenty-four weeks, the legal cut-off for abortion in her state, and she still hadn't told Danny. The baby was still healthy. Sam had run out of logical reasons to believe that the baby would just disappear and she wouldn't have to tell Danny about Jeremy Kimler. And she couldn't hide the fact that she was pregnant from their families any longer.

The phone was cold in her hand when she dialed her parents' number, listened to it ring, and nearly cried when her grandmother picked it up instead of her parents. It took more than fifteen minutes of random conversation before the words finally blurted out of her mouth: "I'm pregnant."

Of course, Sam's family knew nothing behind the reasons why Danny couldn't have children. Sam had simply said years ago – ignoring her parents' looks of disapproval – that they'd eventually choose to adopt and wouldn't be having children of their own. Once they got over the horror of six months of secrets and their first (and possibly only) grandchild being born out of wedlock, the Manson family were beside themselves with glee.

Sam knew the reaction of the Fenton clan would be very different, and she could only dial them up with Danny's steady presence next to her. Mr. and Mrs. Fenton knew very well the reasons why Sam carrying a child of Danny's to term was a horrible idea.

Their response to the news had been silence. Then a lot of questions that mostly centered around why Sam was choosing to keep it. Danny had tried to explain, but his parents hadn't been very understanding.

Mrs. Fenton eventually had stated – unequivocally – that Danny would never have a healthy, biological child. The woman had been quiet for so very, very long after that comment, then had simply wished them good luck on the impending few months and had hung up the phone. Listening to the dial tone, there was no doubt in Sam's mind that Mrs. Fenton, if nobody else, knew that the child wasn't Danny's.

Sam ran her fingers over her growing stomach as Danny set the phone back in its holder. "My parents don't understand luck and faith," Danny said, shaking his head and dropping onto the couch next to her. He grabbed her fingers and splayed them over her stomach. "And you know they don't do so well with being wrong. You'll have to ignore them."

"Your parents aren't wrong very often," Sam said. She stared at him, her heart breaking at the look of pure glee on his face as he rubbed her stomach.

Danny snorted and waved the comment away. "They're wrong all the time." He grinned at her, green glittering in the back of his eyes. "Mom and Dad'll come around when they've got a grandkid to hold."

"Yeah," Sam whispered.

"It's just, you know, lucky. Like, lucky that it happened at all. And lucky that you didn't listen to me about getting rid of it. Lucky that it's healthy. Lucky that…" Danny trailed off. "Sam, you okay?"

She wondered what she looked like, debating destroying the man next to her by finally explaining that the child wasn't his. She wondered if he'd accept it, sweep her up in a hug and tell her it was okay and she was worried over nothing. Or she wondered if he'd stiffen, sit there in silence, and then vanish for awhile to think things over, and their relationship would slowly, steadily fall apart. Or she wondered if he'd say it was okay, sweep her up in a hug, and then drift away as the child grew inside of her, not nearly as okay as he said he was.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm fine." She looked away.

"Really, Sam. Don't worry about my crazy parents." He touched her arm. "They're wrong all the time. It'll be fine, you heard the doctor. There's nothing wrong with either you or the baby."

"I know," she said.

"And we get to be parents. I know we were planning on waiting until after we're married and graduate from college, but-"

"Danny?" she interrupted, abruptly turning to stare at him.

"Yeah?" He waited, cocking an eyebrow, but seemed to give up after a while and went back to babbling. "We can get a new apartment, one with two bedrooms. And I can paint the baby's room, you know, and maybe Dad can help me build some furniture or something. Or maybe your parents would get us something. And I was thinking…" He stopped speaking, leaning forwards until his nose was inches from hers.

Eventually she couldn't take the silence any more. "What?" she whispered.

"I like James. Or Janetta."

It took Sam a long moment to understand the context of the words. "You mean, like, names?" Her stomach roiled at how the grin made the corners of his eyes wrinkle. How he could be so very, very pleased with something that Sam knew was so very, very wrong.

"I was looking for an apartment," Danny said, pulling back, face looking a little flushed. "I saw this one a few blocks over. It's got two bedrooms – a little more than we can afford, but they said we could go look at it tomorrow."

Sam took in a deep breath, held it a second, and then let it out with a burst of air. "Yeah," she said, feeling horrible for, yet again, not being able to tell Danny about Jeremy Kilmer.

Danny grinned, jumped off the couch, and headed towards the kitchen. "I'm going to make some supper. You hungry? Of course you're hungry. What are you hungry for?" He stopped and spun to face her, his face lighting up. "What's the baby hungry for?"

"I don't know," Sam said, unable to muster up even the faintest hint of excitement. Danny had been waiting very, very impatiently for nearly a month trying to keep this pregnancy a secret. He was so excited over finally being able to tell everyone.

The smile faded from his face. "It's okay, Sam." He looked serious for a long second as he stared at her. "I understand."

She gazed at him.

"It really is okay," he said, his voice very gentle and soft. "I understand."

"No you don't," Sam whispered.

The smile crept back onto his face. "Yeah," he said, his voice softer than even hers had been, "I do." Then he vanished into the kitchen. "I'm going to make chicken and mashed potatoes and you're going to eat some. I'm not letting little James or Janetta Fenton eat nothing but tofu for the next several months."

"My body," Sam breathed, "my choice. I don't have to eat chicken just because…" She couldn't finish it. Tears were curling down her cheeks.

She didn't know if Danny really understood how this child had come to be. She didn't know if Danny even meant that he knew the child wasn't biologically his with those cryptic words.

All she knew was that Danny understood. And it was okay. Sam reached for that with the same grasp a drowning woman would hold on to a life raft. She pushed and prodded it around in her head until she came to the conclusion that Danny was telling her he knew about her night of indiscretion and he didn't want to know more than that. Sam kept that thought in her head and made peace with it.

She eventually wrenched herself off the couch, walked into the kitchen, and ate some chicken. Because it was her body, her choice, and she was choosing Danny's happiness.

Danny never brought anything up. He never asked who the father really was. Sam never said. Mrs. Fenton stared at her long and hard the first time they'd come over to help Danny build some baby furniture, but that had been the end of that.

The baby came three weeks early. A healthy baby boy, with black hair and blue eyes, and at full term weight. Sam gathered him into her arms after they'd cleaned him up and checked him out, exhausted and feeling slightly high from the emotions of her (almost) drug-free birth. "Little James Henry Fenton," she whispered.

"I thought he'd be smaller," Danny breathed, stroking a finger down the side of the baby's cheek. "You know, since he's almost a month early."

The nurse, still bustling around the room, had an answer to that. "Due dates aren't always horribly accurate. They're generally based on your last period, and a guess as to when you conceived." She smiled down at the baby. "You likely conceived several weeks earlier than you thought you had."

Sam stiffened slightly, but couldn't gather enough energy to hold it for long. She stared down at her child, feeling the tiniest of fatigued smiles on her lips. She knew that wasn't true. It was a sad, stupid one-night stand that had resulted in little James Fenton. There was no doubting the conception date.

"And did you see that?" the nurse said. "He's even got his father's cowlick. Such a cute baby. And so very quiet, so far."

"Of course he does," Danny said, reaching out to take the child from her. Sam resisted a second, not wanting to give up her precious bundle, but eventually caved in at the look in Danny's eyes. "Wouldn't be a Fenton without messy hair." He carefully held James, cooing down at him. "You got the Fenton nose too, buddy. Sorry about that."

Sam laid back against her pillows, knowing that couldn't possibly be true. The kid had Jeremy Kilmer's hair. And probably just a Manson-sized nose.

"And you know what my dad got for you?"

"Oh, Danny, don't," Sam said. "Not yet. Besides, it's supposed to go on the mobile on his crib when we get home."

"Mom said it was perfectly safe!" Danny grinned at her, pulling out the stuffed animal from his pocket. It was a strange globby thing that vaguely resembled Skulker when not in his armor. He shook it right in front of James's face. The tiny toy lit up with all sorts of glowing, ghostly lights. "Oh, Sam, look at this."

She looked over to see tiny James entranced by the light just inches away from his nose. The baby made a strange burbling noise, grinning.

Danny laughed. "You're such a Fenton, kiddo. Not even a day old and you're already staring at ghosts."

"Oh," came a soft voice from the doorway. Sam glanced over to see Mrs. Fenton standing there, looking like she was about to cry. "Sorry if I'm bothering you. I know you need your rest, I just saw the door open…"

"It's okay," Sam said tiredly, "for a minute."

James made the burbling noise again, catching everyone's attention. The hand that had worked itself free of the tight wrappings while Sam and Danny had passed him around grabbed for the toy. Danny let go of the toy, allowing the child to move his hand up and down. The small toy lit up again at the jostling – but now outside of James's field of vision, was quickly forgotten and dropped.

Mrs. Fenton was very quiet as she walked over and picked up the glittering toy, then stared down at her grandchild. She smiled.

"Sam needs her rest," Danny cut in after a second. "And James needs his too."

"Yes," Mrs. Fenton said, setting the toy down next to Sam, where it went dark and still. "Yes. We'll be back later." She hesitated a second longer, then patted Sam's hand. "I…" She stopped, then started again. "I'm sometimes wrong, and this I'm very glad that I was. I'm… sorry, dear."

Sam didn't have the energy to tell the woman that she'd been very much right about everything. That Sam had just had the luck to end up spending a drunken night with someone that mostly resembled her soon-to-be-husband. She just nodded and watched the woman leave. James was placed back in the bassinet and was wheeled away by the kind nurse. Danny leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead. "You did good," he whispered.

Sam hummed a response, barely awake. Her arm brushed the strange little toy and Sam picked it up, giving it a dazed shake. It didn't light up.

"Here," Danny said, taking it from her hands. The second he jostled it, the toy glittered and glowed. "I'll take it." He set it on the bedside table, where it instantly went dark again. "I'll talk to Dad and see if he'll take the genetic lock off the power switch. I know he's proud of that damned invention, but it doesn't need to be in toys."

Sam hummed again, her eyes closing, not processing what Danny had said. "Love you," came the voice whispered in her ear.

Sam thought she might have answered.