"Shit, Danny."

Which, honestly, felt like all anyone had to say to me now. It was the words that my life could be boiled down to. Shit, Danny. I rested my elbows on the grungy table at Nasty Burger and picked up the massive greasy burger in front of me. My stomach was tiny as fuck now and there was no way I'd be able to finish that, the fries, and the chocolate shake that I'd guilt tripped Tucker into paying for, but I was sure as shit going to have fun trying.

"It sucks," I said, dipping a fry in ketchup. "I mean, it really, honestly, fucking sucks but what else can I do? Shove myself in her life? It's not fair. We've got cell shit floating around in our heads. It's made me clingy as hell. I don't know what it's doing to her but how do I know she doesn't want to just talk to me because of what happened with Vlad?"

"The cell shit is, um, going to … fix … itself," Tucker said, his hands lifting. I'd noticed that he gestured a lot more when he was forgetting words. "What about after?"

"After? I'm still going to love her. That's going to stick with me. I know that but, uh, I don't know. The cell shit will fade and I'll be able to sleep in a room alone and I won't have to hear her scream whenever it goes quiet and I won't have to go bother Walker every other day because I don't trust Vlad's conniving ass even when it's locked up." My burger was dripping and I unceremoniously licked mustard off the side of my hand. "I'll grow up. Someday. Probably. I'm Danny Phantom not Peter fucking Pan."

Tucker snorted. "We did grow up."

"Isn't that a bitch?"

"What if Sam talks to you again?"

"I don't think she will. She wanted to be away from me. I mean, I have to see her on Monday. Our parents want to talk about the cell and I don't know what to tell them. I want to tell the truth. That's scary as shit but, I guess I'm not actually answering the question." I sighed. "If she does, I'll talk back. I owe her whatever she wants. If it's space, if it's a conversation. I owe her enough to not throw my feelings in her face anymore. She doesn't return them. I hurt her. I get it."

"Isn't that a bitch?" Tucker asked. "Are you telling your Mom the truth? Dad too?"

"Is it weird I've been thinking about it?"

"No."

"That's all I get?"

"After all the whining you used to do? Yeah," Tucker agreed. "Did you think you would keep the secret forever?"

"Maybe. I mean, ghosts are moving on. Vlad's gone. Who really needs Danny Phantom anymore? Maybe I can give it up."

"You like being a hero."

I did. I really did. But it wasn't quite the rush it had been when I was younger, either.

"And it's not like you'd give up flying or anything."

That, at least, was true.

"I'll be there if you say something. You know, if you want me to."

"Thanks, Tucker," I said. "Race you to the end of the fucking burger."

"You're going to lose!"

For once, he was probably right about that.

(-.-)

Monday. It was Monday and Sam was going to be in my house. When was the last time she was in FentonWorks? When I had broken her heart? It was the only time that I could come up with.

"You can disappear, you know," I said to Jazz. "Go on a date with Tucker or something."

"He's at speech therapy. Plus, I should hear the official story. In case Mom and Dad ever ask me if you've said anything about it. Also, if you slip up, I can knock them out or something."

I laughed. "Thanks, Jazz."

I stood from the couch as soon as I heard the doorbell. I straightened up and opened it. Sam and her parents were on the other side of them.

"Hi," I said. It was supposed to be for all of them but I was really only talking to Sam. From the way her eyes flickered and then swiftly looked away from me, I knew that she knew it too.

"Hello!" Jack boomed and I got out of the way so that our guests could come in.

Before I knew it, pleasantries had been said and Sam and I were on the loveseat next to each other. I could feel all our eyes on me and her and it made me want to twitch around, disappear, maybe. I tried to hold it in, even though Sam wasn't. She was patting the couch and playing with the edge of her sweater and her hair. I wondered if she was worried about the lies we would have to tell. Could our parents be more intimidating than the cops?

Yeah. Definitely. For sure.

Dad cleared his throat and sounding more authoritative than I had almost ever heard, said, "We asked you over today so we could discuss the details of what happened to Sam and Danny. I don't know about Sam, but Danny's been very reluctant to talk about it. I don't want to make either of you uncomfortable, but I think we all need answers."

Sam spoke first. "I know you've all heard the basic stories, right?"

What the fuck had she told her parents? My parents knew I'd been stuck in a box with her and that we both wandered out malnourished and in pain. Still, Mom and Dad nodded. I wondered if they'd talked to the police and, if they had, it meant they'd basically been lying to my face.

"So, maybe it would be best if you asked questions?" Sam suggested.

I'm glad that she was as smart as she was.

"I like that idea!" Pamela said peppily. I was sure that Sam could have said anything and Pamela would have said the same thing. "All right. Jack and Maddie, if you would go first?"

Was it bad of me that I didn't want Mom to talk? Yes, for sure, certified bad son. I cringed when Mom cleared her throat.

"What were the two of you doing, exactly, when you were kidnapped?"

Well, that question sucked. Unfortunately, they didn't get any better and I kind of wanted to bang my head against the wall as we talked. Who took us? No idea. Where were we kept? No idea. How had we ended up at Vlad's? No idea. They liked to make fun of us, Sam said, they'd tell us that our family members were dead. Why would they do that? No idea. Why did they kidnap us at all? No idea. For all that we were able to say, we might as well have been wearing fucking dunce caps. I could tell that Mom and Dad were looking for more details than we were offering but what could I say? There was absolutely nothing that I could tell them at all.

"What happened to you?" Jeremy finally said.

"We don't know. We don't know at all," I said. "We want to but there's nothing we can say!"

There was a beat of silence following my small outburst.

"That's enough for today, I think," Jeremy said and I was grateful for it.

"I agree," Mom said. "Thank you for coming over, Sam, Mr. And Mrs. Manson."

Oh, was this supposed to be a formal event? I wanted to snort.

"Thank you for having us," Pamela said.

They stood up and cleared out. I followed them to the door and shut it behind them, standing in the window to watch Sam climb into the backseat of her parents' car. I watched as she turned and looked back and I didn't try to think about what that meant. Once the car was out of sight, I sighed and turned around. My parents were still sitting there with Jazz, just staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"I guess we were just expecting to hear something different," Mom confessed.

"We don't know anything," I said. "We can't tell you what we don't know."

I tried not to glance at Jazz. They'd take that as a sign of guilt. I just knew it and then my sister would end up interrogated.

"I mean, was what happened to Jazz and Tucker involved in what happened to you?" Mom asked, a frown forming on her face. "It's just so strange that the four of you were singled out."

No, it wasn't, because they all had the gall to be within ten feet of me. Mom was too smart for her own good. It might not have been obvious that I was the centre – it could have been Tucker, his best friend, his girlfriend, his friend; it also could have been Jazz, her friend, her boyfriend, her brother – whereas it didn't look like Sam and I had as much of a connection, but I knew that she'd figured out that they were connected. Otherwise, she wouldn't have bothered to pose the question at all.

"How would we know?" Jazz said quickly, jumping in to try to save me. "They never solved what happened to me or Tucker. I don't remember. It could have been a mugging gone wrong. With Tucker, it was probably connected, but who knows? Not until the police get more information."

Mom pursed her lips.

"You really didn't know where you were, Danny?"

I did. I was probably going to commit arson and burn the place done, if only to make myself feel a little better.

I shook my head. "No. I know it'd help the police to know and stuff but, honestly, I don't remember most of it. I was pretty out of it. If anyone was going to know anything, it was going to be Sam and we already know she doesn't."

"Do you think there's something she might be scared to say?" Mom asked. "If she thinks someone might come back for her –"

"Is that why she's taking that trip?" Dad said. "Because she's scared."

"What trip?" I blurted.

"Sam's going to Mexico with Leslie for … a week? A week and a half? Something like that," Mom said, casually, as if it were no big deal. But if something happened to her there, it would be a big deal. I couldn't help her. I couldn't reach her. I wished I could believe, deep down, that Sam could take care of herself. I wanted to be able to know that they could all take care of themselves but there was always something bigger and worse and eviller out there. Something that no one could fight against.

It didn't sit well with me, that I wasn't always going to be the strongest thing and that I couldn't always protect them.

"She shouldn't be scared," Jazz said.

"Maybe it would be smarter of us to be a little more wary."

"We are! We're being really fucking cautious!" I snapped. "I'm surprised you don't have a tracking monitor on me! I never go anywhere, I'm never out of sight, and I'm as scared as you are! There's nothing more that you can do unless you want to lock me up too! Unless you want to strap me down and stab me or tie a fucking chain around my neck so that I can't move when I hear Sam screaming in the next room and she comes back bleeding but it's so fucking dark and so fucking cold and we're on a grimy-ass floor and there's nothing that I can do to save her! We're being cautious!"

I didn't know where the fuck my anger come from but now I couldn't get rid of it. I wanted to scream. I opened the front door and stepped outside, letting the air that didn't really feel cold to me sweep across me. I went intangible and let myself float up to the roof. I wanted to fly, I wanted to take off, I wanted to go somewhere new, but I just couldn't let myself have that kind of freedom yet.

I just hung my head between my knees, gave up, and cried again.

So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about Superman or the Reflections Universe, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash reflections dash universe. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.

~TLL~