Here we go, Part 2 to Isolation. I absolutely want to write more for this, and I'd love some feedback for it. This is the thing that's got me the most excited for writing at the moment, especially since I'm still not even close to the part I want to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Paulina mumbled angrily to herself as she walked down the hall. Finally, she could go to lunch. She couldn't believe she had to waste half of her lunch period on some stupid computer error. At least the assignment was in now and she wouldn't have to worry about it again.

As she walked through the halls, the unmistakeable sounds of hitching breath and crying teen reached her ears. Though Paulina wouldn't have minded some gossip, she really just wanted to go to lunch and not deal with some crying loser. But she grimaced as she realised the sounds were coming from the hall she needed to walk through to get to the cafeteria.

Hoping that she could just pass by without being noticed, Paulina slowly turned the corner, but froze once she realised who it was.

It was the Fenton boy. The one with the crazy parents that ran around in garish jumpsuits claiming to be hunting ghosts. She didn't know his first name, only knowing 'Fenton' from the family and the obscene nicknames Dash always came up with.

Paulina didn't know him personally, nor did she know him well, but she did know that he had two friends. There was the tech nerd who was always naming his tech, she knew even less about him than she did Fenton, but she knew the other one well.

Sam Manson, the goth freak that was always making out like she was better than Paulina. Unfortunately, their parents were friends, and that meant the two were forced to spend time together whenever their parents met up. They generally maintained their distance at school though, and no one knew they knew each other outside of school. She was pretty sure even her friends didn't know. Which was fine by Paulina, and she had no intentions of changing that.

But she did know how close the three were, and it confused her that they weren't here to comfort their distressed friend. Maybe they got into a fight? But with her impression of their friendship, she didn't think it would be so bad to get to this point. Honestly, he was crying like the world was ending or something.

Her curiosity got the best of her, and after looking around to make sure there was no one here to see her talking to this loser, she called out to him.

"Fenton?"

Her voice surprised him apparently, because his head shot up and he immediately locked eyes with her. Whatever expression she expected him to have on his face, it was not the mixture of shock and hope she found.

"P-Paulina?" Okay, this is creepy. She'd had people look at her with reverence before, but Fenton looked like he was afraid she'd disappear.

"Yeah?" Seriously, the almost crazed look was freaking her out. "What the hell's up with you? Why are you acting so weird?"

That seemed to make him realise what he was doing as he winced and drew back into himself, though his eyes kept flicking back to her. "Sorry… You… You know who I am?" He sounded pathetically hopeful, and she focused on that rather than the desperation that came off him.

"Don't act like it makes you special or anything." She said, rolling her eyes, "People only know you 'cause you're a Fenton. You're still a loser."

For some reason, that made him chuckle. It sounded off, but it was still there. "I'll take it." He whispered.

Paulina frowned at him. There was something strange going on. "Where are your friends."

He curled in on himself and looked like he was about to cry again. She was just starting to think it was a fight when he spoke again, "They don't know who I am."

"What?" She asked, disbelieving. She must have misheard because that didn't make any sense.

"They can't remember me. I thought they were just mad 'cause of what I said yesterday, but they really don't. They don't know who I am."

Paulina stared at the boy as he started crying again. This didn't make any sense. How could close friends just forget each other? Things didn't work that way.

"That makes no sense at all, Fenton. People don't just forget somebody. It's probably just some dumb misunderstanding." Though even as she said it, there was some part of her that couldn't believe it. How could you misunderstand somebody that badly? And the way he reacted when she said his name still put her on edge. It's like he was glad anyone knew who he was.

"Believe me, if that were the case I wouldn't complain. I've never wanted to be an idiot more in my life." He chuckled wetly. "But they were serious."

Paulina growled in frustration as she dug through her bag. She wanted to get away from this enigma, but she also wanted to make sense of it all. She threw him a small packet of tissues she kept as an emergency. "There. Your face is a mess."

He looked between them and her like he couldn't believe she would do such a thing. "Thank you." He said quietly as he opened it.

"I'm going to lunch now." Paulina ignored the brief look of panic on his face before he reigned it in. She could tell he didn't want to be alone, but she couldn't stand to be here any longer. "I'm talking to your friends later to get to the bottom of this." She said before she could stop herself. Sure, she wanted answers, but that didn't mean letting Fenton know about it.

"You-you are!?" He gave her a look of pure shock.

Paulina crossed her arms with a huff. "I don't like it when I don't know things. And I don't understand this at all."

"…Thank you." Paulina blinked, surprised at the words. Fenton was giving her a small grateful smile.

"I'm not doing it for you." She narrowed her eyes.

His smile dimmed a little. He looked so fragile and it was starting to annoy her. "I know. But, thank you."

She didn't know how to react to that, so instead she asked him a question. "What's your name?"

Fenton blinked at her, confused. "What?"

Paulina rolled her eyes, "Your name, loser. I only know your last one."

"Oh, uh…" He looked surprised, and she supposed she didn't blame him. It's not like she'd asked before. "It's Danny."

With that, she nodded and walked away. He didn't call out to her and she didn't look back. She went straight to the cafeteria to enjoy what was left of her lunch period.

As she walked over to her table, Paulina's eyes scanned the room, easily finding the two she was looking for. They were sitting in a back corner, alone, and didn't seem concerned at all by their missing friend. She wanted to ask her friends if she'd missed anything between the trio but didn't want to seem interested if there was nothing to say. There was no reason to worry though, as Star quickly brought it up anyway.

"Did anyone else notice what happened with Fenton earlier?"

Dash rolled his eyes and looked like he was going to say something along the lines of, 'who cares', but Paulina stepped in before he could.

"No. What was it?" She maintained an air of bored curiosity, not letting anyone know she was actually interested. She didn't want anyone to know about her conversation with Fenton until she got the rest of the story.

"I only caught the last bit of it, but his friends looked like they were about to attack him. Then he got this real sad look on his face and just stared at them for a while. He ran off not long after that."

Paulina shrugged, "Probably got into an argument or something. Did you hear what they were talking about?"

Star waved a dismissive hand in her direction, "Nah, I wasn't close enough."

Paulina hummed, and moved the conversation onto something else before they could get suspicious. It didn't really do much to answer her suspicions, which meant she still had to talk to the two losers.

Her chance didn't come until the change over to the second period after lunch. She cornered them at Sam's locker and since she had to change her books, they had little choice but to listen to her.

"So, I hear you two developed sudden amnesia." Sam's annoyance and the nerd's wariness turned to confusion at the one statement. "What? Did you forget who I am too?" She asked condescendingly.

And the annoyance was back. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the rumour that you two are such lousy friends you'd pretend your own friend doesn't even exist." There was no such rumour, but she hoped getting a rise out of Sam would get her the truth and she didn't want anyone to know she'd talked to Fenton. He'd probably tell them anyway, once this whole thing blows over, but she wasn't going to be the one to admit it.

"Again, what are you talking about? That's sounds like something you'd do, not us."

"Oh, so whole thing with Danny was a misunderstanding?" She asked sardonically, not even hiding her glee at the word choice. She was going to hold this over the goth for a very long time.

"Who?"

The question shocked Paulina, though she tried not to let it show. Even though Fenton had seemed certain he'd been forgotten, Paulina hadn't fully believed it.

"Wait. Is this about that guy who came up to us before?" Paulina could say what she wanted to about nerds, at least they were smart.

"Black hair, blue eyes, hideous red and white T-Shirt?" Paulina asked nonchalantly, even as a strange fear began to rise in her chest.

The glare Sam gave her for the barb was nowhere near as venomous as it should be for insulting her friend. "Yeah, that's him. What do you know him or something?"

She stared. It was all she could do. 'They really did forget him.' Paulina couldn't believe this. Everything Fenton said was true. His friends had completely forgotten who he was.

Sam must have had enough of the silence because she scoffed. "We don't have time for this. Come on, Tuck."

"Danny Fenton." Paulina said before they could get away. They paused and looked at her with confusion. "Your best friend. The three of you have been inseparable for years." She reminded, hoping to jog their memories. This was really starting to freak her out and she had to wonder if she'd stepped into an alternate universe or something because none of this made any sense.

"He's a Fenton?" Sam asked, but beyond her confusion she gave no indication that the other statements meant anything to her.

"That would actually explain it." The tech geek said thoughtfully, he frowned as she and Sam looked at him for clarification. "If he's anything like his parents, the crazy is probably genetic or something. It would explain why he thought we were friends, and the little freak out he had."

Sam nodded thoughtfully, easily agreeing to the statement to Paulina's disbelief. If there were any doubt in her mind about this whole thing, any thought that maybe these losers were just trying to mess with her, it went out the window at the geek's statement. Whenever someone bullied Fenton for his parents, these two stood by and defended him. Because of their friendship, they knew all the Fentons, and would not tolerate anything negative said about them. Sometimes, they were even more defensive of them than their own son was.

Her thoughts were put to a halt when Sam gave her a condescending look of pity. "And let me guess, you believed whatever sob story he spun you." She scoffed, but Paulina gave no reaction, "You need to stop believing everything you hear Paulina."

And she walked away, dragging the tech geek with her. Paulina still hadn't moved, too much in shock to. If anyone noticed her standing frozen by the lockers and not going anywhere, they didn't say anything to snap her out of it or warn her she'd be late to class. She was left to sort through all the confusing information she'd gathered as the halls emptied until there was no one but her.

Her and Danny that is.

The sniffling brought her out of it, making her look up and catch his eye. His presence, and the fact that he was, once again, crying were all she needed to know that he had been listening in. Having his friends forget he existed must have been painful enough for him, but hearing them say he and his family were crazy would just hurt even more.

Paulina made no move to comfort him. They weren't close and she was still confused as to how this could happen in the first place. She had no idea what to do. She didn't know if she even should do something. It wasn't her responsibility, she only wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. She now knew that they'd truly forgotten him. That was the truth and she got it. Did she really want to go further? Did she want to find out the why and the how? Was this really something she wanted to get into?

She didn't have to. They weren't her friends. Danny wasn't her friend. She could walk away now and forget this ever happened.

But could she?

What if this wasn't a one-time thing? What if other people started forgetting things? And would her curiosity really let this lie?

"Paulina?"

She looked at Danny, teary eyed and giving her a look of cautious hope.

Could she really let him go through this on his own?

Paulina sighed. She didn't want to help a loser with anything, but this was serious, not only for him but for everyone. They needed to figure this out. Whatever strange and unexplainable thing happened to his friends could happen again, and right now they were the only ones that knew about it.

She didn't like it, but she couldn't do nothing.

Paulina pulled out a pen from her bag and ripped out a piece of paper, writing her address on it. "Here." She thrust it towards Fenton who jumped and took it cautiously. "Come to my place after school so we can try to figure this whole mess out. And don't tell anyone I'm doing this, got it?"

Danny's mouth hung open as he stared at the paper, not quite believing it was real. He looked at her, with eyes so full of hope she squirmed. "You-you're going to h-help me?"

"You're still a loser, don't forget that." She snapped, "But if something is making people forget things, we need to know about it."

She didn't look at him, and he didn't say anything for a few long moments. Eventually, he shifted to put the paper in his pocket.

"Thank you, Paulina. I'll see you after school."

She nodded, "We should get to class now." She avoided his grateful smile as they climbed to the next floor together.

Paulina hoped she'd made the right decision.