Chapter Twelve
AN - And again, this chapter wasn't spell checked. Sorry everyone, but I decided to post it or else there would be more delays and you don't like to wait, do you?... :)
"Your room didn't change much." Dan said, walking around in Sam's room. She stood still by the door, looking at him as he observed every little detail. "You used to have a red bed." He said, looking down at her bed as if he was remembering her lying there, asleep. "I watched you sleep once, did you know that?" He asked, lifting his face to glance at her. She smiled at him, waiting for him to continue. She obviously didn't know that. "It was about a week before the C.A.T. I wanted borrow your notes, but when I came over I found you asleep and I think I stared for a while before going back home."
Now, he was being very talkative. Sam could see in his eyes that he relaxed when he entered her room; the room that brought many good memories of his teen hood. She took a deep breath as she saw him walking around with his blue eyes and messy black hair and a touch of boyish charm on the way he walked. She couldn't surpass a smile when she realized that she was looking at how Danny was going to look like when he grew up.
"I didn't know that." She smiled sadly at him, finally moving from her spot on the door to sit down on her bed. The silence fell over the room as she sat down and he remained standing up, looking down at her, waiting for her to say whatever she needed to say. "Did you become human again?" She asked quietly.
"No. I may look human, but…" He looked down at his fingers. They had been bruised and had some small cuts on them because of the fight the night before. He straightened his hand so she could see that instead of dry blood, his fingers were oozing green ectoplasm. "This isn't a human body. That body was killed many years ago, it can't just return from death."
"I see. In a way you're still a ghost." She breathed heavily in disappointment. She didn't know if she was really expecting him to turn human again, but to find he was still an immortal ghost while she was a human girl made her realize that indeed that dream fantasy that had been going between them would come to an end. "I had so many questions, but… they all seem pointless now."
"What do you mean?" He asked, looking straight at her. His piercing blue eyes looked at her with conviction; there was no trace of the shy look Danny would give her now and then.
"I wanted to know why you wouldn't tell me your name at first. But I understood your reasons and fears as soon as I found out who you really were. Then I wanted to know why you'd make love to me and why your eyes would change colors and why you didn't fight Danny anymore and how you've gone from a monster to a sweet and caring lover."
"I don't have all those answers." He replied quietly, never looking away. He didn't care that she had called him a monster, he indeed had been one, but in a way he didn't feel like one anymore. "All I can say is that it felt right to be with you."
"I know." Sam smiled at him. "I have the answer now. I believe you've been redeemed." She stood up, her smile was slowly becoming a grin and he watched her warily.
"I'm not harmless if that's what you're implying." Dan said in a serious tone. "I haven't become a good person. I hate my younger self. I can still kill people even without my powers. I probably killed someone yesterday." He stopped for a moment and looked at the window. "I still feel so much anger."
At that moment, Dan heard a baby crying in the next room. He frowned and looked at Sam who flashed him the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. It was a mix of satisfaction, seduction and happiness. He was in a total loss of words at that sight. She slowly stood up and quietly walked out of her room, leaving him standing there, staring at the empty doorframe.
Seconds later the cry stopped and he heard baby giggles instead. Then Sam showed up in the door frame again holding the small infant in her arms with a motherly smile. Dan smiled, too. The picture before him was certainly Sam's future. She'd grow up, have babies and live a happy life. That's what she deserved, but he wasn't the one that could give it to her.
"You may still feel anger." Sam suddenly said, stepping close to him. "But that's normal. Everybody does. You are free from all that revenge and evilness."
"Sam…" He sighed, taking a step towards her so he could put both his hands on her delicate pale shoulders. "I'm beyond redemption."
"You're wrong." She shook her head cutely, with her eyes closed for a moment before looking back up to keep the eye contact. He took that small fraction of moment to realize how long and curvy her eyelashes were. "You've redeemed yourself already. You saved me and… just look at you. The Vlad half in you was pushed back, probably even disappeared forever."
Dan stared at her not believing what he was hearing. He wasn't shocked, but bewildered. What he heard made him feel calm, relaxed and even with a rush of happiness growing stronger inside his chest.
"What I'm looking now is at the grown up Daniel Fenton." Sam said with a gentle smile. "My grown up best friend."
He was in complete loss of words. Nobody could have said more beautiful things to him. Nobody could say the things Sam said.
Out of nowhere, Lizzy giggled in Sam's arms making both Sam and Dan look down at her. She reached up her little hands and tried to touch Dan with a big happy smile. He could swear his heart skipped a beat, almost as if he was afraid of that small baby.
"Even she recognizes you." Sam said, lifting Lizzy up so he could hold her. He had never held a baby before and he was clumsy and scared that he could hurt her. But Lizzy smiled up to him when she was finally in his arms and reached up so she could hold his shirt.
The little infant didn't judge him for who he had been or who he was trying to be now. For Lizzy he wasn't evil or good. He was just… Danny. Maybe that was exactly how Sam felt about him. He was someone who could be trusted with the task of holding her in his arms.
He looked down at his hands on Lizzy, those hands that looked like human, but were mere a ghost shell. He blinked once. Twice. He sighed. When he looked at his hands again he saw them flash invisible for a second.
For a split second he was hopeful that his powers were returning, but then he realized what had happened there. He wasn't getting his ability to become invisible back. He was slowly starting to disappear.
He quickly looked up to Sam and made her hold Lizzy, who had fallen asleep as he unconsciously rocked her. Sam smiled and took the baby back to her room, returning immediately after. She was cheerful, looking down at her face Dan was sure that she was about to start singing and jumping around like a teenager that had just fallen in love.
Sam's sudden burst of happiness came to a quick end when she looked at Dan in the face and realized he wasn't smiling, that he didn't even look happy.
"What happened?" She asked gently, placing a hand on his cheek, lifting his eyes to meet hers. She could read him like an open book now. He had resolution in his eyes. He had just made a very important choice and he looked like no one could stop him from doing what he had to do.
"I want you to stay with him." Dan said, pushing her hands away from his face and turning his back on her. He didn't have to give her a name. She knew he was talking about his younger self. She gave him a confused look, suddenly feeling all the happiness being washed away by fear of losing him. "I'm doomed anyway. See?" He lifted his transparent hand to her. Her eyes widened in shock and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to surpass a sob. "You must help him before he becomes me."
Sam lowered her gaze to the ground and nodded, letting her tears fall. For a second there, she was sure she was going to live with him forever; that he wouldn't leave her ever again. But all had to come crashing down in the next moment. She knew it wasn't possible for a ghost and a human to romance, but for a small moment she had thought that maybe it could work.
"I understand." She said quietly. "It had to happen eventually, right?"
Dan nodded and started walking towards the window. He knew he couldn't fly out of there, but he was idle to feel the sensation of the breeze in his face. He had to find something to look at; something that wasn't Sam's grief.
"I have to fight him. We started a duel and we have to finish it." He explained, getting desperate to get out of there as if it would help relief a bit the melancholic atmosphere. If he didn't look at her anymore then he could go and fight and maybe even throw good punches before disappearing, but if he looked at her all his motivation would go downstream, lost in the river of the woes.
"Could you stay for the night?" She asked him quietly. Her voice didn't give him any indication that she was crying so he turned around to verify. She had just wiped the last tear away when she had said that and she was offering him a smile that surely was hurting her. "One last night? Please?"
How could he deny a girl that was about to drown in the loneliness of life once again? He was almost bursting inside to touch her since they were in the hospital but he thought it would hurt more to say goodbye after giving in their yearnings. But she had almost begged now…
He gently pressed his lips to hers. They remained there, not moving for several seconds, just savoring the texture and the feel of each others lips, trying to memorize them. All the rush and passion had melted in sweet love and care. This time it wasn't about going wild, frenetic even. This time they would take it slow and make it last forever.
He let go of her and sat on the bed, turning off the bedside lamp. Sam quickly turned the lamp on again, sitting down on his lap, straddling him and hugging him tightly. In his arms, she could only think how much she loved him. She had really fallen for him in the end.
"Let's leave the lights on this time."
"Are you sure?" He asked quietly and she nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a chase kiss on his lips.
"I love you, Danny."
oOoOoOoOoOo
Sam woke up in her bed the next morning feeling free, happy and loved. She didn't reach other to the pillow next to hers because she knew her lover wasn't there. She wasn't ready to feel the cold pillow just now.
"I remember now…" He had whispered in her ear in afterglow. "I remember all the precious things I had forgotten long ago." He had leaned in and softly brushed her lips with his, barely touching. "Precious." It was like he had just learned the real meaning of that word. He had finally remembered the meaning of kindness and love.
Her body was warm and her lips were sensitive. Each time his kisses would become gentler. His kisses that night had been completely different from the ones in their first night. Those must have been the gentlest kisses he had given her and each time their lips touched she'd get even more enchanted by him.
He had held her tightly the whole night, stroking her hair and saying her name countless times. Even if once he had been a villain, even if he had been mean to others, even if he had killed those who seemed a threat. Even with his forceful attitude he had made her happy and she had no reason at all to resist him…
… after all he had always been her best friend.
Sam lazily showered and got dressed. She was procrastinating as much as she could the fact that she would eventually have to leave her house and go find Danny and see if he was hurt. She figured by that time, considering how early Dan had left, that the battle was already over and he was forever gone.
When she thought of that tears immediately started falling from her eyes, but she didn't stop combing her hair while she cried. She looked down at the cabinet and opened a drawer to get a Morning After pill because she had stopped her birth control treatment weeks ago, thinking she would never sleep with him again. She stopped before she could completely open the package and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes wandered to her belly and she imagined herself pregnant with his child.
She could keep a part of him.
Reluctantly, she closed the package again and hid it in the cabinet.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Danny was frustrated and furious. His lip was bleeding and his fists were swollen because of the many punches she had thrown in his older self. He wanted to fight like a ghost, but his enemy no longer could transform himself so Danny decided that it was fair to have an equal fight; both powerless.
They had just stood there, glaring each other for about five minutes before Danny remembered the night he had seen Sam with his older self and the anger took the best out of him, making him throw the first punch. He didn't think he was beating up a man who had done evil in the past, who had killed a singer and put other two teens in a hospital just because they had gone near Sam. To Danny, he was punching the man who had stolen Sam from him.
He had thrown his share of punches and his older self was just defending himself, which only made Danny even angrier. Dan had blood dripping from his chin and a huge pain on his stomach from several blows, but he couldn't complain really. His mind was somewhere else, while his body was consumed in pain, he wasn't aware of it.
He was feeling very light since that morning when he woke up to find Sam curled up on his side. Her legs were tangled with his; her hair was all over his chest while she had her head pillowed on his shoulder. Her expression was of such tranquility that all his worries about fading away like smoke just vanished from his mind. She had given him more than he could ask for and he was happy that he could pass on experiencing such things.
She had been his most treasured gift and now he felt he was complete, that he could go without regrets. While he was slowly getting up from her bed he realized it was the last time he was going to do it. His last memory of her would be her sleeping face and not breaking down and crying. In a way it would be a nice goodbye.
While sitting beside her his legs flashed invisible for a second and he bit his tongue. He had to make it to Danny and have their promised fight. It was more like a symbolic fight, really, because Danny would win anyway, after all Danny would remain and eventually get the girl while he was doomed to vanish from the only plan of existence he had ever known.
Would there be something beyond or would it be just… the end? Would he float forever in the universe or would he lose his conscience and just disappear? Whatever was there, he wasn't afraid of it anymore.
If only his passing wouldn't break her heart everything would be perfect, but like every goodbye it would hurt, but eventually she'd have someone there to heal her wounds.
He smiled while his body was receiving Danny's furious blows. In his mind he pictured his last time with Sam. She had kissed and hugged him. They had truly made love that night and not just sex. It had been something else. They had found something precious together that night; it was something both of them felt in their afterglow, but couldn't describe. Completeness? Trust in its purest form? Or was it Love? The big L?
While their new discovery lingered through their tired bodies, Sam switched their positions so she was lying on top, hugging him with her legs and arms and every part of their bodies touching. Before he fell asleep, he let her hands explore his chest and let her lips kiss his. Her hands slowly found their way to his and they intertwined their fingers. Their lips caressed each other until he fell asleep.
"Fight back, damnit!" Danny shouted angrily, seeing his enemy becoming transparent. "Don't play the victim here because we both know you're not!"
They were fighting in the middle of the park, but since it was very early in the morning, it was completely empty. It was a good thing to not have witnesses in there to see the desperate fight because Danny wasn't feeling merciful and if someone tried to stop him he'd attack them, too.
His eyes were flashing red while he was consumed by his anger. It was becoming something completely unbearable. In his torment, he had completely forgotten the point of the fight. All that mattered to him was to cause that man standing in front of him as much pain as possible.
Neither Dan nor Danny had heard rushed steps coming their way.
"You must die now!" Danny shouted and from his shout came the Ghostly Wail, even if he wasn't in his ghost form. Dan was taken by surprise and fell on the ground several feet away from where he had been standing. Danny didn't even blink. He watched as his older self hit the ground, breaking all this inhuman bones and crying in pain.
Dan closed his eyes and looked away from Danny, trying to focus on trees around him, so the last thing he would see wouldn't be his attacker. His eyes came to rest on a pair of boots that stood a few feet away from him. He looked up following the legs and finally, he reached Sam's face. He didn't want her to see him dying like that. He didn't want her to see his greenish blood. And most importantly, he didn't want to see her cry.
To his surprise, she wasn't crying, and she didn't even walk in his direction, which he was glad for. Sam stared at him for a few seconds before she broke in a sad smile. Somehow her smile made all the pain go away and he was submerged in a river of numbness.
Sam watched sadly as his ghostly body slowly turned back human, his eyes were already blue, but his white hair changed to black. His pointy teeth became natural again and gradually he became younger and younger until he looked exactly like the seventeen years old Danny who was standing a few feet away from him.
"Thank you." He whispered, even if Sam couldn't hear him. She held her smile until he closed his eyes. His transparent body slowly started to fade away and she stepped close to him, trying to touch him one last time, but she didn't make it in time. He vanished right through her hands.
Sam sat there for what seemed forever. She didn't allow herself to cry, not as hysterically as she wanted, but she let one or two tears escape from the corner of her eyes. The soft breeze that ruffled her hair carried the smell of Danny's cologne, reminding her that he still stood there, behind her watching everything.
She stood up and looked at him. He stood still like a piece of wood, staring at her with cold red eyes. Those eyes she had only seen in her lover before he redeemed himself. Her heart tightened at the sight, fearing to lose Danny to the same emotions that made him change into Dan.
But Sam couldn't forgive Danny at that moment, no matter how much she would regret it later. She just couldn't speak to him. She needed time to mourn and think before she faced him again.
But she wouldn't go away without showing him that she still cared.
"Please, Danny…" She whispered quietly, standing right in front of him and reaching up to touch his cold cheeks and staring at his empty red eyes. "… you're a kind boy. I don't want to see you going through what Dan has. Don't forget that."
And then she turned around and walked away, leaving the park and leaving Danny standing there alone with a thousand thoughts running through his head, and not knowing exactly what he was feeling.