Sam hated crying in front of people. But at this moment, she was thankful that the tears spilled out of her with no effort. The irony wasn't lost on her.
"I think we're making great progress here, Sam," Jazz said, scribbling down notes in the pad on her lap.
Sam wanted nothing more in this moment than to knock Jazz's annoying, self-righteous teeth out. Danny was in so much pain. Pain she caused. And Jazz was keeping her trapped in this stupid bedroom, bullshitting her way through a mock therapy session.
Jazz offered Sam what felt like her thirtieth tissue. Sam snatched it and blew her nose, tossing the tissue on the floor with the others. Why should she care? Her best friend was dead, and now she knew not even the afterlife could stop the torture of existence.
"Soooo…" Jazz started again, studying her notes with a professionally neutral smile. "This Skulk and Lurk bookstore, do you find the poetry sessions cathartic? Why do you like to attend these events?"
Because I like to hang out with people who don't act like the world is full of sunshine and rainbows all the time like you do. Sometimes people get hurt. People die. Kids die. For no reason at all. And that's so goddamn unfair.
"Uh… yeah, it's nice to write down some of these dark thoughts I have. When you say them out loud in front of an audience, it's a big release."
Absolute bullshit, Sam thought. She was just quoting this stupid art therapist that her parents tried to get her when she was younger. He'd encouraged her to write poetry and say it aloud to herself, but she doubted slam poetry at the goth bookstore was what he had in mind. After what happened today, she doubted she'd ever write poetry again. It all seemed so asinine. She let out another sob. To keep Jazz entertained, she told herself.
"It's wonderful that you aren't bottling up your emotions. It's healthy to find a productive way to release your frustrations. I think that the Skulk and Lurk sounds like a fantastic method of catharsis."
As if I'll ever be able to achieve catharsis. Who the hell would believe that I've seen the ghost of my best friend? Watched as he seized up in pain? That I've seen him disappear into thin air?
Sam heard the door to Danny's bedroom creak open, a sound she'd heard thousands of times.
"Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Jazz. It's just been so hard recently. I mean, you know… Danny, Tucker, and I used to hang out all the time, and now it just seems like all they want to do is spend time together without me there."
Not exactly a lie, but Sam's insecurity from the last few weeks seemed embarrassingly inconsequential now. She'd rather feel ignored for the rest of her life than live another second knowing that she killed her best friend.
Jazz put her pen on her lower lip, thinking to herself.
Sam heard Danny's bedroom door click shut. Come on, Tucker…
Jazz made another note in her book then looked back up at Sam. "When did you start having these feelings?"
"Uh… more intensely the last few weeks, but it's not like it's a secret those two are glued together at the hip. It feels like they do everything together."
"And what's wrong with that?"
Sam's tears continued to pour, her heart aching for her friend. She felt so stupid locked in this room with Dr. Jazz telling half-truths. "It just hurts that they're my best friends, but I'll never be close to either of them as they are to each other. No matter what I do, I'll always be the third wheel, the odd girl out."
Maybe we can talk about sexism next.
Sam's phone beeped in her bag. "Just a sec, Jazz," Sam said, wiping her tears.
The message appeared at the bottom of the long string of unanswered texts from Tucker. ALL CLEAR. MEET ME BEHIND THE SCHOOL.
"…Sam, is everything okay?" Jazz asked, leaning forward.
Sam fought the urge to scowl and instead gave a sad smile, nodding.
Jazz was looking for another emotional weak spot, just like always. Sam detested that she'd had to spend 30 minutes crying in front of someone like that. Not all sadness needed to be solved.
"Thank you for talking with me, Jazz. This was really nice. My parents just want me home. Can I use your bathroom before I head out?"
"Of course, Sam, anytime. Talking through your problems is good for you, plus… I can't deny it's great practice for my future!"
Sam grabbed her bag and quickly made her way to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Gotta make this fast before Jazz tries to check up on Danny.
It's not like Sam could run around Amity Park looking like she was wearing the world's worst KISS makeup. She wished she had makeup remover, but Jazz's face wash on the counter would have to do. No time to look for anything else. She tied her hair back with one of the bracelets on her wrist and blasted the hot water. Sam splashed it on her face, not bothering to adjust the temperature. The too-hot water stung, and her aggressive scrubbing didn't help.
This is nothing compared to what Danny had to go through. I'll never feel anything as horrible as what I made him experience.
Sam rinsed the soap off with handfuls of water and stared herself down in the mirror for just a moment. She was breathing harder than she had realized – she looked frantic, like an animal trapped in a cage. Her face, now devoid of makeup, flushed red from the hot water.
She didn't smell cooked flesh, but his skin was burnt and peeling back, revealing green-tinted flesh, oozing…
Sam squeezed her eyes shut, grabbed her bag, and bolted. Down the stairs, out of FentonWorks, down the street. She didn't stop sprinting. She couldn't. She needed to see him, to feel the burn (he was burning, trails of smoke curled around his damaged body) in her lungs.
Sam darted through intersections without waiting for cars to stop. Horns blared (the portal did nothing to muffle his screams) in protest at every crosswalk. She knew she was panicking but was powerless to stop it.
Finally, mercifully, Casper High came into view. She didn't slow down and darted around to the back of the school. All she saw were some kids running around the track… no sign of-
"Sam!"
Sam turned towards the voice and spotted Tucker sitting on the bleachers. He hopped off and jogged over to her.
"You're breathing really hard… did you run all the way here? In those boots?"
Sam looked down at her platform boots for a split-second, then back to Tucker. "Tucker, are you serious!? Don't you think there are bigger things to think about right now?"
Tucker held his hands up in front of him. "Relax, everything's okay… for now."
"How can you SAY THAT!?" Sam exploded, her rage getting the best of her for a moment. She lowered her voice to a hiss, not wanting to draw the attention of the track team. "We kill our best friend, and you have the audacity to tell me to relax?"
Tucker turned towards the school and motioned for her to follow. "This'll be a lot easier to explain if I can just show you."
Danny shivered. The blanket wrapped around his body did nothing to warm him up, but he was happy that Tucker had grabbed it from his bedroom before they left. He'd done it to cover Danny's glowing body on the way to the school, but right now, it served as a familiar comfort in a world that was suddenly so different… and he didn't want to look down at this foreign body right now. Instead, Danny watched his breath trail out of his mouth in clouds. When he was younger, he used to pretend he was a dragon when he was in the cold, with the power to breathe smoke. He'd hold his breath for ages so he could release the most gigantic puff of vapor possible. Playfully, Danny took in a big breath and held it, counting the seconds.
When he passed the three-minute mark with ease, he realized he didn't need to breathe anymore.
He let the breath out, feeling deflated and foolish. Maybe his body was just breathing earlier due to instinct, not biological need. Why does that make me feel so damn sad?
Knock knock knock…knock…knock…
That was the knock Danny and Tucker had agreed on when he left to go wait for Sam. Danny stood up from the worn leather sofa and trudged slowly to the door, thankful he could at least take these few steps by himself. He didn't want to think about how he had run to school this morning with relative ease. It felt like another lifetime.
Finally, he reached the door and inched it open, just to make sure it was really Tucker on the other side.
"C'mon man, let us in before someone sees us."
Danny swung the door open the rest of the way, relieved to see both of his friends. They hurried into the room, and Tucker shut the door behind them, re-locking it.
Danny took in Sam's bare face, a comfortingly familiar sight. She looked like her old self again, now that she'd removed all the black makeup. "Sam… thank god you're okay."
Sam blinked in surprise, then scowled. "You're thankful I'm okay? Danny, are you serious!? Look at you! We heard you… we heard you screaming in there. We pulled you out."
Danny forced a chuckle. Even worrying about him did nothing to quell her typical anger. "Yeah, uh, thanks for the reminder. I miss being trapped in the ghost portal already. Barely hurt."
Sam winced, and Danny immediately regretted his casual sarcasm. Pretending like everything was okay was definitely not the move here. But who knew how to act when you were coping with your own death?
"Sorry," she said simply. It was obvious she was trying not to cry.
God, you can be such an asshole, Fenton, Danny thought, kicking himself mentally.
"Anyways," Sam said, taking a deep breath to collect herself. "How did you guys even get into the guidance counselor's office? Jazz said Casper High hasn't had one in years. There's no way it was unlocked."
"Jazz is right – nobody has used this office in ages. That's why I figured this would be the best room to hole up in. It's also why we're not turning the light on. As for how we got in…" Tucker gestured to Danny's ghost with a flourish. "Dying has its perks. We just had to wait until Slimer over here turned all incorporeal, and he walked right through.
Sam squinted at Tucker, confused. "Incorporeal? What like… more than he already is?"
Danny was already feeling weak from standing – his bones ached. He trudged slowly back to the reclining couch and slowly inched into a sitting position, pulling the blanket Tucker had grabbed from his bedroom back around his shoulders.
"Definitely feeling pretty corporeal right now," he said with a humorless laugh, more vapor trailing out of his mouth.
It was a miracle he had made it the few blocks to Casper High. At the halfway point, he had passed out again, and Tucker somehow managed to lug his body the rest of the way to school. Danny knew they would both be sore for weeks, if not longer.
"No, it's different," Danny continued, looking down at his hands. "Like… I'm untouchable. I just walked right through the door like it was a hologram or something."
Sam walked over to him and crouched down, putting a too-warm hand on his glowing arm. Danny wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the new differences in temperature.
"You seem pretty touchable to me," Sam said.
Tucker laughed. "Jeez, touchable? Get a room, you guys, I'm right here!"
Sam removed her hand with a jerk, turning bright red. "So not the time, Tucker!"
Danny smiled. He used to notice Sam blush all the time, but he hadn't seen it since they'd started high school.
Sam frowned, blush deepening. "And why are you smiling?"
"What?" Danny tried and failed to wipe the grin off his face. "I'm not smiling."
Sam stood up and threw her hands in the air in frustration. "I can't with you two! This is serious! What are we supposed to do? Danny, what are we going to tell your parents?"
That got rid of his grin. "We aren't going to tell them anything."
Sam paused, clearly thrown off by his sudden sobriety. "Danny… you're their son. Don't they deserve to know what happened? What are we supposed to say when they find the… the body of their kid inside that stupid portal?"
"That's the thing, Sam," Tucker cut in. "I don't think his body's in the portal... I think it's right in front of us."
Danny faded from sight. The blanket remained in place, floating in a concave shape.
"Well… probably," Tucker amended. "Danny?"
A frustrated sigh came from the empty space above the counselor's chair. "Yeah, I'm still here."
Sam stared at the space Danny had been – an unnerving, unfocused look, from Danny's perspective. He'd never had someone look through him before.
"You know when he fainted on the floor in front of the portal?" Tucker continued. "His outfit and hair changed back, he stopped glowing. He looked just like the Danny we've always known. The same thing happened on the way to the school. He passed out, and that weird energy ring re-appeared. I had to carry him the rest of the way… he was like ten times heavier than before."
Tucker took a deep breath. "This is what I wanted to tell both of you. I don't think Danny is really dead."
"All of that doesn't mean anything, certainly not that Danny's alive."
"Sam, I felt his heartbeat."
Sam froze. That couldn't be true. The ghost of Danny Fenton was sitting right next to them, completely invisible. It couldn't get more ghostly than that.
"Ghosts have hearts too, Tucker. Danny even said that ectoplasm stuff is like ghost blood. How would it pump around without a heart?"
"Actually, uh," Danny's voice said, now coming from the ceiling. His blanket had slumped into a loose pile on the chair. Chunks of the popcorn ceiling sprinkled down onto the leather chair. Others hovered in the air. "I don't think they do. At least… I can't feel my heart beating right now. Your pulse isn't a feeling you'd expect to miss – weird, right?"
Tucker's mouth fell open in surprise. "Dude, are you flying right now!? You can fly?"
"It's a lot less cool when you're getting covered in asbestos. A little help?"
Sam held her breath to avoid inhaling ancient flakes of the ceiling and stepped onto the chair, wobbling on the uneven surface. She reached a hand towards the hovering chips and jumped in surprise when an invisible cool hand wrapped in hers. She stepped down, dragging Danny down with her as effortlessly as a balloon on a string.
She sat down next to him, still gripping his hand so he wouldn't float away. She took her other hand and found his wrist, pressing down.
"You're right… no pulse."
Tucker smiled and crossed his arms triumphantly. "You see? And I know what I felt. He was alive, Sam."
"But what good does that do us?" Sam snapped. "Let's say you're right. So then what, he's only alive when he's sleeping?"
"How ironic," Danny laughed. She felt his shoulders shake next to her.
Tucker dropped his smile, scrunching his face in thought. "Well… I don't know yet. But it's better than nothing, right?"
Sam considered this. "Yeah… I guess you're right."
Sam's hand suddenly clenched into a fist – it was like Danny's had disappeared into thin air through her fingers.
"Now, see, that's the untouchable thing I was talking about," Danny said, his voice echoing like it had been for hours.
Sam looked back up at the ceiling, searching for her invisible friend. "Can't we call it something else? Otherwise, Tucker's going to make jokes for your entire afterlife."
"I'm still next to you – no more floating, thank god. As much as I'd love to invisibly float out of the school and into the thermosphere. I think uh… I think only my arms are untouchable. Intangible."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Intangible? Okay, Mr. Thesaurus."
Danny laughed, fading back into sight. "Hey, I'll have you know I'm acing English right now!"
Knock knock knock. The trio froze.
A.N.: Happy Sunday, everyone! Let me start off by thanking my beta reader for this chapter, solsock. I've been struggling to balance angst with plot-progression, but I think this turned out okay. What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts in a review.
I always like to give shoutouts to people who interact sooo: Thanks Urufu Fire for the follow. In addition, THANK YOU Dp-Marvel94 and ViAndDash for your consistent reviews! You two make me feel like I have actual fans, and I read your reviews with joy every week.
Thanks for reading,
Ani