Chapter 20

A circle of friends doesn't always keep perfect relationships.

- Anthony Liccione

Sam Manson had a firm belief in the power of waking up early and making the most of a day. On a typical Sunday, she started by jogging three laps around her family's estate and then her daily exercises in the swimming pool – which always had to be early, before her mom and her socialite friends could show up and monopolize the pool. Her homework was always finished on Saturday, and so as long as her parents or Paulina didn't have anything planned for her, it left the rest of her day open to read novels, write poetry, and draw, all while listening to music. Sam measured her days by how many pages in her notebook or sketchpad were filled up. Productivity, in her opinion, meant output, and in that way she could open her books and know that her time hadn't been wasted.

That was her unbreakable routine, except Sam hadn't been able to sleep Saturday night. Now it was noon, and she was still lying in bed, glaring at the wall. Her body was stiff, her eyes scratchy, and her head muddled. But she had no inclination to move.

At the moment, she was feeling pretty worthless, if she was going to be honest with herself.

More than that, she felt guilty.

She wanted to say she had no reason to feel guilty. She wanted to believe that if anyone should have felt guilty, it was Danny Fenton. She wanted to be mad at him for lying to her, for pretending to be someone he wasn't, for letting her grow so attached to Triton that she had started to consider him her friend…

But after last night, she couldn't muster any anger. At least not at him. The only person she was angry with was herself.

Because Sam got why Danny had lied to her. While she couldn't begin to understand how he had become the way he was, how he'd gotten the unbelievable power to change into a merperson, she could at least understand what was at stake for him. If anything he had told her as 'Triton' was true, it sounded like not even his parents knew what he could do – no, not what he could do, she reminded herself. What he had to do. Whether he liked it or not, he would change forms when he touched water.

That explained the ridiculous rain gear Danny Fenton was wearing every time the sky turned overcast these days, or the rubber boots and poncho at her swim meet. He was living in fear of water, in fear of being exposed, every minute of every day.

And his parents didn't know. His parents, who hunted merfolk, didn't know. He didn't trust for them to learn his secret, most likely because he was afraid they would hate him, or worse, kill him if they did. Not to mention what his school life would be like if anyone knew. If one classmate found out, chances were that the whole school, if not the whole world thanks to the Internet, would know about him by the next day.

So of course Danny wouldn't tell her. She imagined what he must have felt when she walked in on him in the pool that first time. Sam wasn't his friend, then. She was just a threat. And while she had begun to consider Triton her friend, Sam was the only one who had used that word to describe their relationship. Chances were that Triton – Danny – never came to view her the same way.

Even so, Sam had confided in him, but he had never forced her to share that information about her life. Danny as Triton had never pried; all he had ever done was to be a good listener and occasionally offer sympathetic comments or make jokes. Anything he had learned about her during those times had obviously never made it outside of that room, or else Sam would have known about it. She'd said some pretty vicious things about Paulina and the other A-listers; there's no way that wouldn't have come back to haunt her, if they knew.

Which they didn't, meaning Danny had never said a word.

Danny was fighting monsters, hiding from both his parents and other merpeople, trying to keep his secret and still going to class every day. Sam didn't know why he had taken the risk of meeting her at the Neptune High pool all of those times, deliberately putting himself in danger to hang out with her. He didn't owe her anything.

That much was true. From Danny's point of view, Sam was just a classmate, one who had ignored him and even said some pretty mean things to him in the past. That wasn't going to change just because of a few nice conversations. Sam was acting like he had betrayed her so terribly, but he didn't owe her anything.

If anything, Sam owed him.

Her face screwed up in a grimace, and she rolled over in bed, squeezing one of her pillows and digging her nails into it where it was grasped in her fists.

She owed him. He had spent time with her when he had no reason to – no reason except that she had asked. She was the one who had invited him to come back to the pool. That wasn't his idea; he had been trying to escape! But he had come back anyway. He had listened to her, kept her secrets, made her feel genuinely happy, and what had she done for him?

Left him, after he had risked his life to save his mom from a monster that had frightened Sam so much she hadn't been able to move, left him unconscious and poisoned for anyone to stumble upon. What if Tucker hadn't been alone? What if Mr. Fenton had already gotten back, or Mrs. Fenton had woken up? What if Tucker hadn't known about Danny's secret? And Sam had abandoned him because she felt mad?

How selfish could a person get? Sam always complained about her parents and Paulina and Star and the rest being so self-absorbed, while the whole time she was just as bad.

She felt utterly disgusted, and right now she couldn't even be sure if Danny was alive.

Sam growled and rolled over again. This time her eyes made contact with her writing desk, with the cork board hanging on the wall above it, with a picture she had spent about half of the night staring at and the other half wanting to tear down and rip to pieces.

It was the sketch she had drawn of 'Triton' the night she had met him. She hadn't lied to him when she said she hadn't been able to sleep after that. Buzzing with energy, afraid she had imagined the experience, Sam had sat up for half of the night trying to capture Triton exactly as she had seen him in the water. She had done dozens of other sketches of him since, but this one had been her favorite.

It was before he had realized she was there. He had been floating in the middle of the pool, eyes closed and head tilted back into the water, arms limp at either side and his tail dipping downward. His white hair had drifted softly about his head, and his whole body glowed with the same intensity of moonlight. His face had seemed so peaceful, as though he were sleeping. Sam had been able to watch him for several minutes, frozen to the spot in wonder and unbelief.

This was the scene Sam had drawn that night. The angle was from the side, and Sam hadn't included any suggestion of water, feeling that it detracted from the clarity she wanted for the fins. The result was a figure suspended in space.

Even now, her heart rate sped up when she looked at it. It reminded her that merpeople were real in this world, and maybe many other things were, too. It reminded her that the figure she had come to know as 'Triton' was a ruse. And it reminded her of how badly she had treated Danny, who in the end she had a much easier time believing in than Triton. Who was 'Triton', anyway, but a mysterious figure she had blindly taken a fascination with, whose trials and adventures did not exist outside of that room at Neptune High?

Danny Fenton was real. And Sam had wronged him.

Finally, Sam drew herself out of her pillows and blankets. She sat hunched over in her bed, unable to take her eyes off of the sketch on her wall.

What was she going to do? Tomorrow she would have to face him. Was she supposed to carry on like nothing had happened? No. That was impossible. Whatever relationship they'd had before, she'd never be able to meet 'Triton' at the pool again because she'd never be able to pretend that everything was the same between them. She didn't even know how she was going to deal with 'Danny Fenton' the next morning. He sat right next to her.

She had to tell him. She was going to tell him the truth, and then she was going to apologize.

Sam thought making that decision would help her feel better, but it didn't. Guilt continued to writhe inside of her. Eventually she got up, put on shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes, and ran laps until her feet blistered.

The last person Danny wanted to deal with Monday morning was Dash Baxter.

But, if his freshman year of high school had taught him anything, it was that the Universe was pointedly against him and bent on making every day of his life more difficult than the one before.

He got to Lancer's classroom without incident, but maybe the way Sam was giving him a strange look should have been a clue. No sooner had he and Tucker sat down than the blond quarterback, Paulina at his side, was looming over him.

It was the first time Dash had approached him, let alone talked to him, since their meeting behind the bleachers. So much for the truce.

"You finally decided to show your face, huh, Fentina?" Yup, and there were the derogatory nicknames he had so been coming to miss.

"I, uh, wasn't exactly hiding it, Dash."

"You wanna explain just what happened Saturday night?"

"I heard it was a mermaid!" called a nasally voice across the room.

"Shut up, Mikey!" snapped Dash. He turned back to Danny. "So yeah – care to tell us just why I got wailed on by a frickin' mermaid at your beach?"

"Technically it was a merman," Danny pointed out.

"I don't care if it was a mer-bunny!" cried the football player. "Look, Fenton," he growled, leaning in close. "I'm just trying to live my life like the next guy. But every time you or your freaky family shows your faces, something terrible happens to me! First my face," his nose was still slightly crooked from the accident, "and now, I'm almost drowned by something that ain't even supposed to exist!"

Danny clenched his fists on the top of his desk until his nails were biting into his palms. "You think we planned for that to happen? My mom got kidnapped! She could have died!" Danny took a deep breath, trying to calm down before he did something like blow up a water bottle. "Look, my parents have been telling you – all of you," he added, looking around the class at all of the students who were watching them, "for years that merpeople were real and that they were dangerous. It's not my fault you didn't believe them."

"Well, they better do something about them," said Dash. "Or else."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "Is that a threat?"

Dash suddenly seemed to remember who he was talking to. Some of the anger and arrogance in his eyes broke, and he flinched.

"No, I'm just saying. They better do something about them or else someone's gonna get hurt." Glowering, Dash turned and threw himself into his chair at his desk several rows up.

Paulina was still standing over his desk, looking down at him with arms crossed and an unhappy expression. Jabbing a finger at Danny, she spat, "Just because your parents aren't total crackpots, don't think this makes you any less of a freak." Then she spun on her toes, her hair flipping over her shoulder, and went to her own seat.

"That was unusually direct of her," Tucker observed.

Danny sighed, running a hand through his hair. "She's just scared." He'd heard her heartbeat; through the whole conversation, it had been running fast. In fact, looking around the room, anyone who had been at the party Saturday night looked exhausted, like they hadn't gotten much sleep. Maybe they'd had nightmares. It wasn't stopping Kwan from telling the story enthusiastically and with wild gesticulations though, and the other students in the class were eating it up.

"Hey… Danny?" came a voice to his left.

Danny glanced at Sam, whom he'd never expected to talk to him – as Fenton, at least – ever again. She looked nervous and just as worn out as the other A-listers, and her heart was racing. Danny frowned, puzzled. "Sam?"

"Can we talk?" she said.

"Uh, sure?"

"I-"

Just then, the bell rang, and Mr. Lancer's voice commanded their attention. "Alright, people, I don't care what kind of mythical creature may or may not have attacked Amity Beach this weekend, it's time for English class. Get back to your seats."

"Later," he mumbled to her, conscious of her pained expression. What in the world did she have to tell him?

He wasn't going to find out any time soon. That entire morning, at every opportunity, his classmates and then students he didn't even know kept approaching him and interrogating him, wanting to know what had gone down Saturday night, whether his parents had killed the mermaid – "merman" – or not, if it was safe for them to go near the beach, even if it was safe for them to use the toilet, which Danny had to acknowledge was a legitimate question now. It felt like he was reenacting his parents' Merfolk Awareness Program, only now he was the Fenton in charge and people were actually listening.

Several more times Sam tried to pull him aside to tell him whatever she wanted to say, and each time some other student would butt in.

He was getting really tired of it.

He got to lunch after chemistry class and met Tuck at their usual table. "If one more person asks me if merpeople can attack them in their bathtub, I'm going to flip."

"Of course they can't," said Tucker, snorting. A second later, he jerked his head up and asked, "Can they?"

"Really, Tuck?"

"Just saying," the technophile said, holding up his hands in surrender. "We had a toilet monster, why not a bathtub monster?"

"No, I know," said Danny. He sighed. "And I appreciate that they don't think my parents are crazy anymore – really, I do – but I just wish they would leave me out of it."

"Speaking of which," said Tucker, nodding his head toward something over Danny's shoulder.

Groaning, expecting to have to give another merfolk lecture, Danny looked behind him. Thankfully, it was only Sam.

She approached their table, opposite Danny, and looked between them. Her eyes lingered on Tucker uncertainly, but she must have decided that whatever she had to say was safe for him to hear, too. "Hi. Can I… can I join you?"

One of Tucker's eyebrows rose in astonishment. He looked at Danny as though to confirm he was hearing it right. Danny just shrugged at him, equally bewildered, and to Sam said, "Yeah… sure."

Nodding and swallowing nervously, Sam sat down next to Tucker, who scooted over to make room for her. The way she was looking at Danny was incredibly intense, and he started to feel nervous.

"So," he said, trying to scare the awkwardness away with his voice. "What's up?"

Sam took a deep breath and let it out. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them again said, "I know."

Danny and Tucker's eyes snapped to each other. Tucker twitched his eyebrows in a way that said, Does she mean what I think she means? Danny made a face back as if to say, I don't know! Play dumb!

He laughed nervously. "Um, know what?"

Sam looked around them, obviously uncomfortable, and leaned in. Quietly, she said, "I know that you're Triton."

Even with the few seconds of ominous forewarning, Danny was dumbfounded. His mouth fell open and all he could do was gape at her, horrified, trying to figure out when and how she could have put it together. He tried to think of something to say in response, but it was like he couldn't feel his tongue.

"Wait," said Tucker. "Who's Triton?"

Sam frowned, looking puzzled. "You know. His," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "his merperson half."

For a second, Tucker just blinked. "No way… You know?" he exclaimed. Then he whirled on Danny. "She's seen you?"

"You didn't know?" said Sam.

"No, I didn't know!" replied Tucker, altogether too loudly. People were starting to look their way. "Danny, when did that happen? Triton?"

"Hey," said Sam, her own voice climbing. "It's not his fault, and don't you think you're-"

Will both of you just shut up?

Tucker and Sam winced. Danny couldn't find himself feeling remorseful, though. Trembling, he managed to say, "We're not talking about this here," before standing up and stalking out of the cafeteria.

He led them to the janitor's closet down the hall. He peeked inside, found it empty, turned on the light, and ushered the others inside. Only after glancing furtively up and down the hallway did he join them and close the door.

"Alright, spill," said Tucker, crossing his arms and glaring at Sam. "What do you know about his mer-half?"

"That's not important," Danny said. "How you know about my human half is the real question." Danny had a lot of other questions, too, like Did you tell anyone? and Are you mad at me? but those would have to come later.

"I saw you on the beach Saturday night," she admitted to Danny, "after your fight with Plasmius. I saw you change." Then she addressed Tucker, clearly having missed Danny's implicit warning, and Danny was still in too much shock to intercept her. "And I caught him looking like Triton at the pool a couple of weeks ago."

Danny groaned. Tucker looked pissed. "A couple of weeks ago?" he said. "Someone found out about your merperson half a couple of weeks ago, and you didn't think I should know? When exactly did this happen?"

Danny swallowed thickly. "The – the first night at the pool," he said.

"Danny! What were you thinking? Why didn't you tell me?"

His eyes were turned toward a mop and bucket when he answered. "I didn't tell you... because I knew you'd say I shouldn't meet with her again."

"What are you, his mom?" said Sam, incredulously. Danny really wished she wouldn't say any more.

"No!" protested Tucker. To Danny, he said, "And you're right, I would have said that. So, instead you just kept meeting with her in secret? And that's the real reason you didn't want me going back to the pool with you, isn't it? Not because you felt bad about asking for my help, but because you were deliberately meeting her behind my back and putting yourself in danger. You lied to me."

"Tucker-"

"And this isn't the first time!" He pointed at Danny accusingly. "Ever since you got your powers, you've been lying to me. You don't tell me when you get new powers, you don't tell me when someone finds out about you. I bet there's still things I don't know about!"

Danny couldn't answer. But his silence was enough.

"There are." Tucker gaped. "You're still keeping secrets from me, even now."

"Look, Tucker," Danny tried again.

"I thought I was your best friend, Danny."

Danny's heart clenched in his chest. "You are my best friend, Tuck."

"Well, you're sure not acting like it." Tucker inhaled sharply and frowned into a corner, like he was too angry to speak. When he finally turned back to Danny, he said, "I've been doing everything I can to help you. I've covered for you with your family. I tried to help you figure out your powers. I faced a mud monster with you. And both times you went in the ocean, and I didn't know if you were going to come back alive or not, I had to think about what I was going to tell your parents when you never came home. I didn't ask for any of this, Danny, but I've been trying hard because you're my best friend in the world. But apparently that wasn't enough for you."

He shrugged, shook his head, and made for the door. "I'm done."

"Tucker!" Danny reached out a hand for Tuck's shoulder, but the other boy shrugged him off.

"I need some space, man. Just… leave me alone."

The door latched shut behind him.

Danny stared at it for a few seconds, astounded. When at last he could peel his eyes away, he glanced at Sam, who seemed to be in an equal state of shock.

For a second, he had forgotten she was even there. Everything she had said came rushing back now. Danny looked away, muttering, "Are you going to yell at me and storm off, too? If so, now's your chance."

Morosely, Danny slumped into the floor next to one of the supply shelves, ignoring the grime caked on the floor of what was a surprisingly filthy cleaning closet. He propped his elbows against his knees, hung his head, and clasped his hands over the back of his neck.

Sam crouched down across from him. "I'm not going to yell at you."

Danny raised his head. "You're not?"

The girl smiled wryly. "That would feel too much like kicking a puppy." More seriously, she said, "I'm sorry I got you in trouble with your friend."

He sighed. "No, that's my fault. I…" He lowered his head again. "I think I deserved that."

A few seconds of silence passed between them. Distantly, they could hear the chatter of students in the cafeteria. Someone walked by the door, but they passed it and their footprints receded down the hall.

"Also, I'm sorry, about Saturday," said Sam.

Danny looked at her, lost. "What for?"

"When I found you… you were hurt, but I was too upset about what I saw to help you. So instead, when I heard someone coming, I left you there."

Panic struck Danny like a shock from the Fenton Electrocutioner – which really had a terribly morbid name. Why hadn't his dad gotten to name that one the Fenton Mer-Zapper like he'd wanted? And the only reason Danny was asking himself that was because he was so frazzled by the fact that maybe, on top of everything, someone else had seen him.

Sam must have noticed Danny's bad reaction, because she quickly added, "Luckily it was just Tucker! But that's not the point. What if it wasn't Tucker, and you got hurt or killed because of me?"

Danny had to think about what Sam was apologizing for. Then he chuckled. "So, you're saying 'sorry' for something I didn't even know happened." He smiled, even though he didn't feel especially happy, given the circumstances. "I forgive you. Do you… do you forgive me?"

"For what?"

He grimaced. "I lied to you. Even though we're friends, I lied to you, too. Seems like that's all I do…"

Sam was smiling genuinely, looking way more pleased than Danny had expected. "I forgive you," she said. "After all, that's what friends do, right?"

Danny almost agreed with her automatically, but he thought about Tuck and stopped. "I hope so…"

Guessing what he was thinking, Sam assured him, "He'll come around. I'm sure you had a good reason for what you did."

"Maybe…"

"Well," said Sam, and she changed the subject, pouring some cheer into her words for Danny's benefit. "You're half merman. That certainly explains a lot!"

"It does?" Danny honestly hadn't thought he had been acting too differently at school.

"But, calling me 'crazy' for believing in merpeople was a bit much, don't you think?"

He flushed. "I-" And then everything spilled out. "Look, I know I was a jerk to you. I just thought, maybe if you hated me, as Fenton, there'd be less chance of you ever finding out that I was actually Triton. But it was driving me nuts, and I tried to apologize to you but apparently I only made things worse. And then I thought if you ever knew who I really was, you wouldn't ever want to hang out with me again, and I really hated thinking about that because you're such a cool person and I really like you." He blushed even more furiously. "As- as a friend. I like you, as a friend."

Sam blinked at him a few times. Then she started laughing.

"What?" he said.

"All this time," said Sam between chuckles, "I thought 'Triton' was this cool and mysterious figure, with this dark past and mercenaries after his head, only to find out that the whole time it was really just you."

Meaning, not cool or mysterious. "Gee, thanks," Danny grumbled, and he couldn't help feeling let down after confessing his feelings like that and getting laughed at as a response.

"Not like that," said Sam, smiling. "I mean, I think I might like Danny Fenton a lot better than Triton, if I had the chance to get to know him."

"You," Danny stammered, "you think so?"

Sam crossed her arms jokingly. "Well, you'll have your work cut out for you. I'm not a pushover."

"No, you're certainly not," Danny agreed, and smiled.

"Why don't you start by telling me how this happened to you?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess you deserve to know."

So, Danny spent the rest of the lunch hour in the janitor's closet with Sam, telling her the story from beginning to end, from the moment he'd slipped and fallen off of a classmate's boat (which wasn't quite true, but he'd promised Dash to keep that secret, and Sam didn't seem like the sort of person to stay quiet about that) to the revelation that Vlad was trying to wipe out the Merfolk (he couldn't care less about keeping Vlad's secret). Sam had endless questions for him, and in their next class, which they had together, Danny could tell she was dying to ask more. They ended up swapping phone numbers, and for the first time Danny was getting text messages from someone who wasn't Tuck or his family.

Danny was thrilled. Sam knowing about him wasn't a terrible thing at all.

But Tucker didn't even look at him during Spanish class and went so far as to change seats to get away from him, and when Danny tried to catch him after class, he didn't even turn around.

It looked like things were still far from perfect. But Tucker would forgive him eventually. He had to.

… didn't he?

"No, it is my pleasure, Mayor Montez," said Vlad, spinning his office chair toward the window occupying the wall behind him. The ocean, vast and dark under the night sky, stretched away beneath him, visible for miles. "I'm so concerned about the safety of the residents of Amity Beach, and I feel a town hall forum is just what the people need to calm their fears about this new merperson threat. I'm honored you would have me attend. And yes, I'm sure the Fentons will be more than happy… Yes… Ah, I see. Very good… Then I'll await your call."

Vlad swiped his thumb across the screen of his phone and replaced it on the surface of his desk. He reclined in his chair, clasping his hands across his lap, and continued to observe the Atlantic.

"You wish your parents to trust you, eh Daniel?" he murmured. "I promise, it will not be so easy as you think."

The meeting of the town hall Mayor Montez was arranging for the end of the week had given Vlad an idea. Considering it, it slowly bloomed, with all of the grace of a coral unfurling.

He would need to speak to his Alchemist.

As he rose to leave his home, he logged into the Fentonworks mainframe and shut down every buoy from the north to south end of Amity Beach, simultaneously commanding his own decoy program to supply data for the rest of the night. He expected to return by morning – with a few 'gifts' for the boy who had spurned his offer.

"No, it shall not be easy at all."

A/N: Well, there Vlad goes, being evil again. Like, blatantly plotting in this chapter. How'd he get his own PoV here?

Also - poor Tucker! Who could have guessed he would be the one most angry at Danny? I love Tucker, but Danny's really been taking him for granted.

As much as this story is about merpeople, it's also a coming of age story for Danny, Tucker, and Sam. They have a lot of weak points, all of them, and they will do a lot of growing up in Treading Water. :D

Thanks to: ImpudentMiscegenation, Izi Wilson, Meet-the-Far, Unlucky Alis, TabbiCC, PlunnyEmpress, Glowing Loudly, Invader Johnny, Foxprints, dangerousphantomwaffles, Specter14, Crescental, Kiomori, TimeZone13, RevyCaitEll, SCREAMING, Guest, XphiaDP, pearl84, nervousEnsemble, ChangelingRin, BuzzyBumbleBee13, Jokul Frosti The Winter Child, and samdragon57 for your reviews!

Guest - you asked a good question! Would Danny's own bodily fluids activate his mer-transformation? The answer is 'no'. He's constantly in contact with things like his saliva and the moisture in his eyes, and yet his mouth and eyes don't change. So, it must be that his fluids don't affect him, even if he were to spit on himself, start crying, etc. (But I liked the little scene you wrote. ;D)

Also, some people have expressed confusion about the sirens. Physically, the sirens are identical to the merfolk. They're just a faction of the merpeople who split off from the Empire because they like doing things like attacking humans and eating them. Possibly cannibalism, too; we still don't know much about that aspect of the sirens. Otherwise, they're the same race.

SHOUT OUT! To several awesome new pieces of fanart. Please check out "MerDanny - Treading Water" and "You Owe Me..." by Hintojin on DeviantArt, and "Vlad Plasmius as a mermaid" by KittaliaYT on DeviantArt. Again, thank you both so much.

Lastly, yesterday I created a DeviantArt account to more easily collect and look at the fanart for this story. I also decided to draw Plasmius in his merform as I imagine him. It's a bit cringe-worthy, and I learned I can't draw fish anatomy, but feel free to check out "The Siren King" by TheFullCatastrophe on DeviantArt.

Until next time,

T.F.C~