A/N: Well, I guess I've gotten to the point where I'm writing this mostly for myself. No one seems to care any more, but I suppose that's okay. The dangers of writing for a dwindling fandom and all. Also, I think I've realized that it's a lot healthier if I only try to churn these out on weekends, so that's what I'll stick to. I'll aim for at least one every weekend, possibly two if I can manage. After this chapter, I will tentatively estimate another four or five chapters to follow. The 'or five' is in case it gets away from me again. This story is continually taking on a life of it's own, and I've realized that, somehow, I've created an entire 'verse. *le gasp* For instance, the majority of this chapter... I don't know quite when I became a TxJ fan, but my inner writer was screaming at me to put in some TxJ action. I didn't, for the most part, but I suppose what I did write is open to interpretation.

Sorry for the rambling. I know no one reads my A/Ns anyways, so its not like anyone cares but me. Enjoy the story that maybe someone might actually read eventually.

Danny checked back in with his sister every day for the next week, a plan of action that had been reached as a group. While Jazz's not-remotely-subtle hint that Danny was only forgiven if he planned on visiting (and often, as his ghost powers took away any real excuse to do otherwise) had carried most of the weight of the decision, Danny didn't want to completely botch things with Sam, either. As she was being fairly moody, our favorite halfa was left waiting for her whims to take a less melancholy turn. Jazz and Tucker's reports were the only source of information he had while he waited. A few other factors played minor roles, but the decision was made pretty much on the first two alone.

It was over tea in Jazz's office as she was attempting to explain for the millionth time what she actually did at the hospital (Danny, by this point, understood, but intended to continue referring to her as Odd-Job-Jazz in feigned ignorance so long as it annoyed her) that Tucker finally came in with the go-ahead. They had explained already, secondhand from Sam's own pained recounting, how the locket dredged up memories, and they'd all been awaiting an opening for Danny's return since.

"I think it's all clear for you to visit, if you want. She's still petulant as ever, but it's as good a mood as we'll ever get." Tucker grimaced a little, only halfway kidding. Danny put down his cup the second the sentence was finished, all thoughts of tea forgotten.

"For real? I'm all good to just... walk in?" Something, after a week of being forced to wait and several days before that by his own accord, seemed too easy. Surely this wasn't why he was waiting... he didn't even know what he was going to say. After his latest faux pas, surely he had to... jump through hoops or raise the dead or... or something? Solve a Sudoku puzzle at the least!

"It's all you ever did before," Jazz reminded, a little bit of nervous excitement showing through the calm mask she usually tried to display. "What would make this time any different?"

"I don't know... the fact that I've had to wait? That I was stopped at the door for my last attempt? That I... damaged her psyche by being a bumbling idiot or something?" After standing up, he found pacing unsatisfactory and proceeded to float from one end of the room to the other, a chill almost visibly congealing around him.

"I'll give you bumbling, and maybe even idiot on your bad days, but I don't think even you have the power to 'damage her psyche'. A lot of this is just the meds. Despite the fact that they're what put her here, she's still not cleared to be off of them." Tucker was leaning against the door frame, watching in something akin to amusement as his best friend degraded into a bundle of nerves. "Just go get it over with. Like ripping off a band-aid."

"What? Sam is not something I want to get rid of. She's not a band-aid." Danny rounded on Tuck, who immediately proceeded to hold his hands up before him, the universal gesture of sarcastic innocence.

"Well, then. Go see her. Or else you might not need to get rid of her."

Danny glared at him for a moment, bending down at the waist so that his feet didn't have to touch the floor, and Tucker drew upon the courage from the first time he'd faced the matured-but-not-aged Danny in the Ghost Zone. It was easier now, with the more human blue eyes shining at him. No matter that the same chill hung in the air, he'd never quite been able to get over the inhuman glow in the Phantom eyes.

Neither boy said another word, and the more ghostly of the pair eventually brushed past the winner of their unspoken competition on the way out of the office, taking the chill with him. After waiting a moment, Tucker collapsed into one of the chairs.

"Are you sure they're gonna be okay?"

Tucker scrubbed his hand across his face before answering, looking a million years old now that his mask had dropped. Jazz was the only one that he ever let his guard down for any more, since he had long since learned that she could see past his masks no matter how good they were. "Honestly, no. I don't know why he's here, and I don't think he does either. With Sam's attempt to justify and tame her tangle of emotions, that's not gonna hold up. This is just going to keep happening until he finally really looks at what he's doing and prioritizes. Knowing Danny, that's not going to happen."

Jazz stared at her ever-cooling mug for a long moment, attempting to will herself into taking another sip of the usually-calming drink but no longer in the mood. "Is she even in a good mood, then, or was that a lie too?"

"No, she's back to the usual ratio of sincerity to sarcasm. It's as good a day as it'll ever be, and it's not like we have Danny's nice, round eternity to wait. I mean, we all know that Sam's days are numbered."

Setting her own cup down next to Danny's to be forgotten, Jazz sighed and walked around her desk to kneel down beside Tucker. Draping one arm over his back and making slow, comforting circles, she put the other on top of both of his clenched hands. "I know we both want things to work out between them, but maybe they're too far gone. Maybe it's just flat out too late, and we're only making things worse by interfering."

Tucker didn't answer for long enough that it was apparent he wasn't planning on it. "Are you sure you did the right thing?" Jazz tried again, and she could feel him tense.

"She would've always wondered, otherwise, in the back of her mind... wondered what could have been. I think it would've eventually eaten her alive."

The redhead attempted to smile, even though Tucker couldn't see it. That was probably a good thing, as the attempt didn't do very well. "So you decided we'd be better off wondering, instead?"

"Well, we're a bit more mentally sound, wouldn't you say?"

"Aw, no. Of course not. We both went off our rocker a long time ago; I just haven't had the heart to tell you."

At that, the pair twisted a little to look at each other, and both managed to crack a real smile for a few moments.

-S-P-A-C-E-A-N-D-T-I-M-E-G-A-P-

Once he had managed to storm dramatically—and a bit childishly, if he was being honest—out of the visibility from his sister's office, Danny drifted back down until his feet brushed the floor. Reacquainting themselves with the too-clean tile that ran throughout the hospital, they began to beat out the already-familiar path to Sam's room with hardly a second thought. Pausing briefly at the door and hoping his mood had improved since setting out, he raised his hand to knock.

A muffled "come in" was all he needed, and the weight behind the words told him that she somehow knew. He wanted to know the story there, but he resolved not to ask. Instead, he focused on opening the door and looking pleasant.

"Hey, Sam. You all right? The guys and I have been... worried." He tried to pick his words carefully, hating the fact that he had to be walking on eggshells with Sam of all people.

"Look... I'm sorry about the other day. I'm sorry about all the crap I've been putting you through. I've just... gotten a lot more messed up over the years, and I know I was a handful to begin with. You don't have to try and spare my feelings. I'm a big girl; I can take a little faux pas here and there."

Danny raised an eyebrow, testing perhaps a bit too quickly his apparent right to speak candidly. "Then what do you call our last meeting?"

"That... that was... that was me being frustrated. When it comes down to it, for all we've talked things over and for all the moments where it's felt like maybe we could somehow patch things up and be friends again... I still don't understand. I don't know why you're back because I don't know why you left. I'm still struggling to understand, and I don't want to get my hopes up if you're not back for good, and..."

"I was scared," Danny cut her off at last, his eyes boring straight into hers with an immeasurable weight behind them.

"What?"

"I was afraid. You've been wanting to know all this time why I left, and I kept telling you that I didn't know, but when it comes down to it, I was afraid. I wasn't aging, and I didn't understand it. I'd never really completely understood what was going on, since we'd tried to do it on our own, and just when I think I have things figured out, I realize that I have absolutely no clue what's going on. I was left wondering what else I had acclimatized to too much to notice; what else was slipping by under my radar. I've always been afraid that something would happen to you, and you were getting older, and half of the ghost zone knew your name. The other half still knew that you were with me, and that made you a target.

"Then my parents died, and of course they couldn't die a natural death. No, they had to die in one stupid mundane ghost attack just because I couldn't stop it. They were just too old to keep up any more, and that was going to happen to you one day. To you and to Tuck and Jazz, and to everyone else I'd ever known. I was the only one who wasn't weakening; who still had the power to stop it. I couldn't let another slip-up take you away from me, Sam! The people who could once take care of themselves were aging, and they needed me. I couldn't bear to see you die, and all I could think about was that I needed to work harder so that it didn't happen again. I... I think I went a little mad for a while." His voice calmed down a little, the raging tempest of passion and anger and a tinge of insanity that had been building in it deflating suddenly and leaving behind a very empty, very sad skeleton. The point where he finally sullenly admitted what he'd always known.

"If I just left everything behind, then it would always be that way in my mind... forever. I was being selfish, and I thought that if I could know I was protecting you and latch onto the memories I had while they were still happy ones, then it would be enough. It wasn't, though. Tuck finally snapped me out of it... and I figured I owed it to everyone—you especially—to make amends." The tiniest spark of hope shone in his eyes, dimming every second that Sam remained silent, but clinging to its foothold anyways.

It was a long, painful eternity before Sam, eerily calm, said "You're not forgiven."

"What?" Danny's mind was backpedaling, attempting to figure out just how many pages he'd skipped.

"I said you're not forgiven," Sam repeated, looking up. "Danny, just what brand of bologna are you feeding me? You've faced down death time and time again; ghosts that control the universe, that can control you; ghosts that controlled Tucker and Jazz and even me. You've fought against the king of the ghosts and kicked his right hand man's butt several times. You earned yourself an arch nemesis who, to our best knowledge, has been banished to another planet since high school. You fought for the safety of a single small town, even when it thought you were the enemy, and you even beat your own evil future self! And most of that was accomplished before you could drive! So you're telling me that, after all that, with years more experience under your belt, you ran away from everything you'd ever known just because you were scared ? And not only that, but you never once even showed your face for twenty-four years? How can you even expect me to believe that? Even if I did, it wouldn't be worthy of forgiveness; it would be worthy of a world-class beat-down. I don't even care why you left any more; if that was the excuse you came up with to make yourself sound better, then there is no way you are forgiven! You never will be! There is nothing, ever, that could possibly make it up for this."

Her usually-pale face was red, her heart was pounding wildly, and her blood pressure spiked as she proceeded to yell. The little wireless sensor on her finger dutifully relayed the information to the suddenly-audible monitor like the nuisance that it was. Sam wanted to rip it off; knew that it would do no real damage, but resisted due to the fact that she would get an earful from Jazz about it later. She'd tried before. Besides, the meager plunk it made against the wall wasn't nearly satisfying enough for her anger. She wanted to throw Danny across the room. Instead, she just pointed toward the ceiling. "Out." Her teeth were gritted, and Danny got the message. He began to float, brokenly waiting for the fuming Sam to change her mind. She didn't.

Danny went intangible just as the doctors began streaming in. They made a commotion of things, and for once Sam didn't bother to try and explain. Instead, she just flopped back against her pillow mountain, attempting to relax a little and failing.

Over the commotion, Danny felt like he was about to cry and like he was too hollow to contemplate the action at the same time. "Would it have been better if I said it was because I love you?" He whispered, before taking off.