Second to last chapter. I'd like to thank the following people for their comments on the previous chapter (I wish I had time to answer you all individually, but I figured a quicker update would be preferred): MintLat Fenton, KittEfox, ForeverTheWriter, anonymous, Lyssie212, crazywierdgirl16, nocluenat, nycorrall, xsugarxblossomx, omg, Tails2323 (thank you again for the lovely fanart), sapphireswimming, Turkeyhead987, Safire and Diamonds, seantrinana, Phantom Misfit, V.T-Vi Taunt Me, Jakkeirafan223, ChristinCC, darkangeloflove15, TexasDreamer01, and foofoocuddlypoo.

I can never thank you all enough for your support throughout this story, especially since I never thought I would be finishing any of my DP stories after I left the fandom in 2007. You are the reasons I came back and continue to update.

As always, enjoy~

Her first instinct was to push him.

Unfortunately for Danny, she was so startled that she shoved with more force than what was necessary. It wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't been on the edge of a cliff with a several hundred foot drop into the chilling ocean below.

Danny yelped as he fell over the side, having been caught completely off-guard by Sam's response.

Sam threw her entire body back onto the ledge and watched in horror as Danny continued freefalling down the face of the cliff, destined for the sharp outlying rocks poking out from the low tide below. Her mind wouldn't register exactly what just happened; all she knew was that she had inadvertently pushed her friend to his death and there was nothing she could do to save him now. Screaming would not save him, nor would it be any help if she jumped too. Then again, it would have made for an interesting Romeo-and-Juliet-esque ending for the two of them. Tragic romances were hardly the focus in Sam's mind at the moment, however.

Just as Danny's flailing body was beginning to near the deadly beach some two or three hundred feet down, something strange happened. For all of four seconds, Sam's heart froze as two blue rings suddenly appeared around his waist. They travelled up and down his body, until he was back in the black and white hazmat suit and his plain black hair had turned a glowing white.

Sam nearly let out a screech as she saw him now flying upwards. Her only option left appeared to be hiding behind a boulder, so she took it.

"Sam?"

Her heart pounded as she heard him land and his footsteps came closer.

Of course he survived.

Danny Fenton was also Danny Phantom.

Somehow, Sam's mind kept refusing to believe that that was even possible.

She needed time to sort these things out, but with Danny back from something that would have killed nearly any other person alive, quiet thinking time was going to be hard to come by.

"Sam," he said calmly, a few feet behind her. "I know you're behind the rock. I know...this is kind of crazy for you...but if you come out, I can explain."

"Explain?" she shouted, standing up to face him. She noticed that he was back in his human form. For some inexplicable reason, this really bothered her.

"Explain?" she repeated, walking closer to him, but still remaining at a safe distance for both of their sakes. She didn't want to accidentally throw him over the edge of a cliff again, after all. "You…you...I don't even know! This whole time I thought-"

"That I was really two different people. I know," he said remorsefully. "And I'm sorry. I didn't think it would-"

"Oh yeah you didn't think!" Sam snapped at him. "We've been here for almost three months, did you know that? Three months! And all that time, I thought Phantom was a jerk for deserting me and you-"

"Sam, I get it. I should have told you ages ago, okay? It's just..."

"Spit it out," Sam said, glowering at him. If Sam had felt conflicted before his revelation, that was nothing compared to how she was feeling now. Part of her desperately wanted to just calm down and talk it out, but the other part of her felt tremendously betrayed and wanted to really get across just how angry she was with him.

"Besides Jazz, you're the first person I've ever told," he said in a quiet voice. His gaze wouldn't meet hers, but she could still see the anguish behind those stunning blue eyes. She briefly wondered if he could achieve the same emotional response with the glowing green eyes.

"Told?" Sam laughed mirthlessly, though she could definitely sense that her fury was fading somewhat. "I get a kiss from Danny Phantom and when I open my eyes, I'm staring back at you. Not the best way to reveal an important secret, don't you think?"

"I know it was terrible, but it was the only way I could think of-"

"-oh really now? So you did the same thing when you told Jazz, your own sister?" Sam asked sarcastically.

Danny blushed. "Of course not. Jazz found out on her own."

Now that he was finally making eye contact with her, Sam took this opportunity to stare long and hard at him. Just when she thought she had reached the brink of her sanity with the acknowledgement that ghosts actually exist, now she was tipping over the edge towards the pit of lunacy with the realization that someone could be a ghost and a human at the same time. Not just this, but someone she knew! Someone whom she had trusted...

"So," Sam said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes so she could clear her mind of the hurricane of questions that was threatening to take over. "You're Danny..."

"Fenton. Phantom. One in the same," he finished for her.

"How?" she asked, unable to restrain her curiosity. She was still upset with him, but her anger had cooled somewhat, especially after the surge of guilt she felt from accidentally shoving him off the cliff. They silently stared at each other for a long time before Danny finally spoke.

"An accident," he smiled softly. "Remember when I told you my parents are scientists?"

"And they study ectoranium?"

"Yes," Danny said, pleased that she had remembered the correct way of pronouncing the ghost element's name. "Well, a few years ago—this was before I believed that ghosts existed—they were trying to build this thing called a Ghost Portal. It didn't work at first, but Tucker really wanted to check it out."

"Why?"

Danny laughed. "He's the biggest techno-geek you'll ever meet. These past few months have been torture for him, you know."

Sam almost laughed at the thought of Tucker obsessing over various gadgets and gizmos, but then she remembered that she was supposed to still be mad at Danny and kept a neutral expression instead.

"So we went into the lab and it was nothing special. Just a giant hole in my basement, really. Just when I was ready to leave, Tucker had this 'great idea' and said I should check out the inside."

"And a ghost attacked you in there?"

Danny chuckled. "Not quite. My dad has a thing for putting important items in the wrong places...such as the on and off buttons. Guess where he put it for the portal?"

"Inside?" Sam guessed.

Danny nodded. "I didn't realize it until after I had pushed it. Little did I know, I was in for the biggest shock of my life."

"Literally or metaphorically?"

"Both. The accident gave me ghost powers, but since most people in my hometown hated ghosts at the time, I figured it would be better to have an alias so Danny Fenton could have a life outside of ghost hunting. Hence the two names."

"So," Sam said slowly, trying to process the influx of new information. It certainly made sense, once Danny explained it to her, but her mind was still numb from the hundreds of questions still floating around inside. "Now you're Fenton and Phantom. And only Tucker and Jazz know your secret?"

"And you," Danny added, smiling.

"This is a lot to take in," Sam groaned as she slumped down against the rock. Her head ached from information overload, along with the fact that she had to come to terms with this new reality being presented to her. Ghosts! Half ghosts! What else could possibly exist that she hadn't believed was real before?

"So what will become of Danny when he gets off this island?" Sam inquired after another long, awkward period of silence between them.

He shrugged. "I'll probably go back to the usual. Just trying not to fail out of college while protecting the town from ghosts. What are you going to do?"

Sam smiled vaguely. "Same. Minus the ghost fighting part. Hopefully keep in touch with you and Tucker for a little while, at least."

"Oh," Danny's face fell. He hadn't thought about that. The idea of losing Sam, just after he revealed his biggest secret to her...was unimaginable. They had grown incredibly close over the span of the last couple of months, even with the bumps in the road, which he readily took the blame for, as he never divulged his secret until now. He cared for her and quite possibly even loved her; something he had never felt for another girl in his life.

"Is this goodbye then?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"Not until we get back to the mainland," Sam said quietly. "Depending on how fast your 'Specter Speeder' thing travels, that could mean we still have several hours."

"And if I don't want to say goodbye...?"

"Tough luck," Sam said bitterly, turning away from him as tears began welling up in her eyes. "Did you really think this could last forever? We were supposed to die out here. That, or be rescued and go back to our normal lives and try to forget this ever happened."

Danny's whole body trembled as he thought back to the first night of the crash. He could never forget that. The awful choices he had to make about who to save and who to abandon. There was also the night he couldn't save Paulina as she drowned at sea. He had still managed to save Sam's life, but that was still only a 50% success rate.

"Normal life" be damned. Those memories would never leave him.

After several seconds of watching Danny mentally torment himself, Sam nodded towards the beach, where the tiny figures of Jazz and Tucker were trying to push the Specter Speeder up the beach to avoid the high tide.

"Let's get back to the beach."

Try as she might to forget the hurt expression she had seen on his face at that very moment, the image continued to haunt Sam for the entire duration of their trek back to Tucker and Jazz. She was trying to be realistic, that's all. They lived two very different lives and most likely would never have met if they hadn't been some of the only survivors of the same devastating plane crash. Now that they were going home, they needed to get their heads out of the clouds and resume their lives back in civilization. There would be an adjusting period, sure, but they would learn to readapt to their surroundings and their three month stint on an abandoned island somewhere near Bermuda would hopefully become nothing but a distant memory.

"Ready to go?" Jazz asked in a voice too cheerful for either of their moods once they returned to the beach.

Sam watched with mild interest as Danny rubbed his two hands together then briefly placed them on a compartment labelled "Ecto Converter." It was a visibly painful experience, but he did an excellent job of trying to hide it. Only Sam seemed to notice.

At once, the Speeder roared to life, ready for another flight thanks to its new energy supply.

Tucker and Jazz got inside immediately, desperate to get off this island as soon as possible. Sam lingered in the doorway as she observed Danny standing a few feet in front of her with his back facing her, getting one last glimpse at the island. At that moment, a sudden urge to release all of the tears she had been harboring for weeks overwhelmed Sam. She wasn't sure if it was from a hormonal imbalance due to lack of proper nutrition, the nervous joy she felt at the prospect of going home, or out of sorrow for how much she was going to miss Danny.

The only way she had ever dealt with sadness was suppressing it or pushing it away. That's what she had begun to do: push Danny away. Yet, with him so near, it was quite a challenge to fully forget him.

"Danny," she called to him in a strangled voice. "We're leaving."

"Okay."

He turned around and, noticing that Sam was still watching him, blushed and made a quick swipe at his cheek.

But Sam had seen the lone tear, anyway.

If there are any artists out there who read this story, I'll love you forever if you could create a fanart piece of Danny falling off of the cliff and Sam sitting at the top going "Oh sh*t." I was literally lol'ing while writing that scene, but my stick person drawing skills aren't up to the task of recreating it in visual format (I'm a writer for a reason).

Next chapter is another one of my favorites. I don't do this for any of my other stories currently, but I will be responding to reviews of this chapter at the end of the next one. Any last thoughts or constructive criticism before the final chapter will be greatly appreciated :)