Hello

Summary: Walking home from Danny's one night, something horrific happens to Sam. Now Danny's left to try to put the pieces of his best friend back together.

Rating: PG-13 for mature themes and language.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does. And I don't own Hello, Evanescence does.

Chapter Eight

Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken.

Danny trudged up the steps to school. He'd blown it majorly this time. Sam probably wouldn't even look at him this time. He wandered threw the upperclassmen towards the freshmen locker bank. Sure, Sam had a right to be mad. He hadn't thought at all about what came out of his mouth. He was sure he'd half to pay for what he said.

He wandered over to his locker and did the combination that was almost habit by now. Tucker came up and leaned on the locker to the right of his. "Hey, Danny. Where's Sam?"

Danny pulled his locker open a little harder than necessary and let the door bang into the locker to the left of it. "I dunno."

Tucker stared at him, confusion written all over his face. "Did she not ride the bus today?"

"Oh, she rode the bus." Danny kneeled and yanked his Introduction to Grammar book out of his bag and threw it into the locker. "We both did." Danny sighed as he grabbed his American History book. "Okay, You know how she's been all moody the past couple days?"

"I'd noticed, yeah." Tucker crossed his arms.

"Well, she was still being all 'look-at-me-I'm-miss-gloom-and-doom' this morning. So, I asked her what was wrong and she said nothing and got made and went into this long winded thing that basically came down to that I trusted her more than she trusted me."

Tucker shot off the locker. "You what?" Tucker screamed at him, causing several people nearby to look at them strangely. "Please tell me you didn't actually say that and I'm hearing you wrong."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he stood. "I wish I could, Tuck," he said, making sure not to say it too loudly. "It wasn't that blunt but that's what Sam took out of it."

"It sounds like you said it, though." Tuck seemed pretty annoyed with him now. Danny didn't take it that hard though, he was annoyed with himself.

"Yeah, I didn't mean to but I said it."

"Jeez, Danny, how selfish can you be. Sam and I go through a lot for you."

Danny shut his locker and banged his head into it and just stood like that for a moment. "I know, believe me, Tuck. I don't know how I'd get through this without you guys. I don't have any clue why I said it." He turned his head and glanced at his friend. "Am I always this big of a jerk and just don't realize it?"

Tuck shook his head. "Naw, Sam's just what keeps you balanced. If she's messed up, you're messed up."

Danny blinked. "Never thought of it that way before. Does that bother you?"

He shrugged leaning on the locker again. "You guys have always been like that, since I met you in first grade. When one's upset the other's upset," he paused for a moment. "Maybe you guys are twins or something. I saw something about that on So Weird on Disney once."

Danny grinned at him, shoving away from his locker. "I don't think we're twins, Tucker."

"Never know." He shrugged, and Danny laughed at him. "I got to go put my stuff in my locker. You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. See ya." Tucker waved at him and walked away. Tucker always made him feel better. Sam did too, but she was more of a listener where as Tucker's approach usually made you laugh about it. He bent down to grab his book bag when he heard the last thing he wanted to hear at the moment.

"Hey, Fenton, where's that girlfriend of your's?"

Nevermind, Danny thought, feeling's gone. He spun on Dash. "You know what, Dash? I'm really not in the mood for your crap this morning." Dash looked like he'd been slapped. He seemed to mentally shake himself and suddenly that sickeningly cocky grin was back on his face. Danny felt like being sick.

"Ah, poor Fenton's all moody when his girlfriend isn't here to stick up for him." Dash and his friends snickered. Danny had never wanted to hit some one this bad in his life.

"For claiming we're such losers, Dash, You sure have an unhealthy obsession with Sam." Part of Danny's brain screamed at him that Dash-baiting probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do. As usually Danny ignored it.

Dash grabbed the front of his shirt and shoved him hard into the locker. He tried not to grimace as the lock dug into his back. "Look, Fenton," he slammed him into the locker again. "I really couldn't care less about you and your ugly little girlfriend."

He shoved Danny towards his locker, this time letting go of him in the process. Danny slumped to the floor rubbing the back of his head that now hurt from being shoved into the locker. He glared daggers at Dash as he walked away. Danny heard snippets of the conversation but the one thing he did catch was 'nasty little wench.'

Something inside Danny snapped at that moment. Up until that point he had kept telling himself Sam wouldn't want me to hit him, reminding himself that he didn't know for sure that it was Dash. But that was it. Right now he was beyond caring if Dash was hurting Sam or not. Everything that had been slowly simmering for the past week just hit boiling point.

Danny didn't even remember jumping to his feat or what he yelled to get Dash's attention. What he did remember was Dash turning around with a look of pure fury on his face. In hindsight, Danny wondered what he had said but at the moment he couldn't have cared less. Dash came towards Danny and Danny did the unthinkable. Danny Fenton socked Dash Baxter hard in the jaw.

The rest of the fight was all a vague blur. The end was the only part he did remember clearly. Danny rolled to side finally breaking free of the headlock Dash had had him in. The both sat there just sneering at the other for a moment. Danny wiped some blood off his lip with the back of his hand. The thought crossed his mind that now would be the time to get up and walk away. He had held his own and he was happy enough with that.

Dash's voice cut through his thoughts, "Just because she won't put out is no reason to take it out on me, Fenton." Danny launched himself at the jerk without even thinking about it. Dash seemed to think that Danny had given up because he strangely didn't seem to expect that reaction out of Danny. Danny grabbed Dash by the neck wrapping his fingers around his windpipe and shoving the jock's head repeatedly into the ground. He remembered screaming "Take it back!" at Dash right before his eyes closed.

Danny felt someone yank on his shoulders. "Well, Mr. Fenton, we are in trouble now," Lancer hissed at him as he drug Danny unwillingly away.

Hey. I hope you liked it. I was a little disappointed with how this one turned out. But sigh. Maybe I'll fix it sometime probably not. As always glorious thanks to my awesome reviewers, who this time are: Chibi-Suiko, soulful-sin, audi katia, style, sugercraze49, TinyXchamp, saikyo:the youkai priestess, Brittany Miller, q.t, RainbowSerenity, Dragon Blade5, Spice of Life, and foodguy100. Love you all lots. :P