-- Author's Note -- Greetings once again my faithful readers! I am pleased to have you join me once again for the latest chapter in 'Return to Me.' As you can already tell, I'm sure, something is going down with Sam. But can you guess what it is? If not, don't worry, you'll find out by the end of the story. LoL. Now I've been waiting forever to write this chapter... Well, part of it anyway. In fact it was because of that part that I came up with the idea for this story. Also, I was thinking about adding a bonus to the end of this story with a peek at what's going to happen to our Halfa duo in the next part of 'For the Love of a Halfa.' Let me know what you think about that, and please review! Thank you again for reading!
Chapter 7 The Day After
Danny awoke with a start. What was I dreaming about, he wondered. The dream slowly came back to him as he looked around the dark room. He had been reliving the fight from the day before. The only thing different was, was that he had actually been a ghost.
"She was going to kill me," he muttered to himself as his eyes flashed with fear.
The sun was starting to peek in his window. Looking at the clock, Danny saw that it was nearly 6:30. No way I'm getting back to sleep now, he thought with a groan. So instead of returning to his soft pillow and warm bed, Danny got up.
He winced as his feet hit the frozen floor for a moment. After deciding that no one else would be awake, he floated into the bathroom for a hot shower.
Forty five minutes later, after his arm had stopped stinging from the pain, the Halfa was trying to drown himself. Just as he thought it might be working the door burst open.
"Dad!" Danny screamed trying to cover himself.
"Where's the ghost?" his father shouting looking around the bathroom.
"There is no ghost!" he shouted now. "And I locked the door!"
"Ah, but my Alohomora unlocking device made quick work of that lock," the large man said proudly, motioning towards the small box in his hands.
"That's great Dad. Now will you please go away?"
"But Jazz said there was a ghost in here."
"Well, she lied. There's no ghost, just me." The ghost hybrid, Danny thought.
Once his father had left, Danny got out of the shower and finished getting dressed. Both of his parents were already working down in the lab by the time he came downstairs.
"Sorry about that Danny, but you didn't hear me knocking on the door. And Dad's the only one strong enough to break down the door," she offered passing him a plate of pancakes.
He stared at her for a moment before looking down at the steaming food in front of him. No words were offered to his sister to give her a hint as to how he felt about what had happened. Instead he just slowly started picking at his breakfast.
She sighed and got up to finish getting ready for school. The truth was Danny wasn't even thinking about what had happened in the bathroom. Rather that had just been something to break his thoughts about Sam.
Was it possible that something had happened to her? "I mean she could have just bumped her head on the way to school, right?" Pause. "Right?" Danny asked again his voice slightly cracking. He waited for a moment before dropping his head right into his pancakes. Weren't things supposed to get easier after he told Sam how he felt?
"Danny! Come on, I'll give you a ride to school. Otherwise you'll be late!" Jazz called from the living room.
"For what? Dash shoving me inside my locker?"
"Let's go," she said ignoring his comment.
The hybrid got up and followed his sister out to her beat-up car. As he fixed his hair in one of the mirrors he was glad that he hadn't remembered to put syrup on the pancakes.
Neither Jazz nor Danny said anything on the way to school. Once they arrived Jazz waved him off with a concerned look.
Danny managed to make it to his first class just before the bell rang. He took a seat next to Tucker in the middle of the room. Almost fifteen minutes after class he started Sam strutted in.
"Ms. Manson! Please kindly take a seat and stop disrupting class!"
"Sorry," she said before heading to the back of the room. The two boys heard her mutter "Not" as she walked by.
Tucker gave Danny a sidelong glance. All Danny could do was shrug at his friend.
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The bell rang signaling lunch and students filed out into the hallways.
Tucker and Jessica met up with Danny at his locker. He was considering if he could do any real damage by slamming the door on his head.
"Will you stop it?" Jessica asked him.
"What? I'm not doing anything," Danny muttered back.
"Yeah, except plotting your death. At least she's in school today."
Jessica nodded in agreement with Tucker. "We've been trying to keep an eye on her. Nothing seems all that strange."
"You think everything's normal? Is that what you think?" Danny asked, his anger rising inside him. "She hasn't even looked at me once today. Not once! You have no idea what that feels like."
"Danny, please, don't cry," Jessica whispered, rubbing his back.
"Hey Fenton! Where's your girlfriend?"
Great, Danny thought bitterly. It was the last person he wanted to see today.
"Oh Dash! It's just the boy I wanted to see!" Jessica cried out as she rushed over to meet him.
"Really? I mean, yeah?" His face was turning a shade of red.
"Of course! I was thinking about interviewing you for the school paper. I just joined and it's my first assignment! Isn't that so cool?"
"Well, yeah. What did you want to enter view me about?"
"About football of course! You're the star player! Will you show me how you scored the winning point at the last game?" she asked giving him a pouting look.
"Sure. Let's go out to the field."
Tucker and Danny could only stare as the girl walked off with Dash, giggling like a little girl.
"She is one brave soul," Tucker mumbled.
Thanks Jessica, Danny thought. The halls were starting to empty as students made their way into the lunchroom.
"So what do you think we—"Danny started by trailed off. Sam was slowly making her way down the hallway towards them.
"It was then that she knew what she had to do. She had to stop all the ghosts that were coming through. She's here to fight for me and you!
"She's gonna catch 'em all cuz she's Sam Spectre. She's gonna catch 'em all cuz she's Sam Spectre. Gonna catch them all cuz she's Sam Spectre," she hummed to herself as she walked closer.
Danny could only stare as she approached him. Finally he did the only thing that he could think of. "Uh, hi Sam," he said with a small wave.
She stopped in front of the two boys for a moment, glaring at them. "Do I know you?"
"Ummm, no. Sorry to have bothered you, Ms. Manson," Tucker said quickly.
The girl studied them for a moment longer and finally walked away into the lunchroom.
"What did you do that for?" Tucker asked smacking Danny upside the head.
"Sorry. I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself."
"And if she tried to kill you again? Then what?"
Danny didn't want to talk about this. And he certainly didn't want to fight about it. "Never mind," he said then turned and headed into the library.
He grabbed a computer and sat down. After muting the volume he signed online. Once he signed into his messenger an instant message popped up.
SlayerCeres: Hey Danny!
DPhantom: Hi Mandy. How's it going?
SlayerCeres: All right, I guess. Did something happen? You're typing seems off today.
DPhantom: Yeah, I burned my hand. It still kind of hurts to use it, but I think it should be fine.
SlayerCeres: Yeah, in a week or so. Hold on a second.
There was a long pause until the next message came up.
SlayerCeres: Okay, I talked to Crescent real quick and she managed to come up with something.
DPhantom: Huh?
SlayerCeres: There's an herb store in your town at 1313 Maple Street. Do you know where that is?
DPhantom: Yeah, its downtown by the college.
SlayerCeres: Great! You should head down there and ask for this herb. Echinachea Purpurea. And make sure you get organic. All right? Also you need to ask for empty paper tea bags. If you show them your burn they should understand and help you out.
DPhantom: All right, but why?
SlayerCeres: So that you can make tea with it. Echinachea is an herb that promotes healing in the body. If you drink it at least once a day it should cut down your healing time to like 5 days.
DPhantom: Okay. And they won't think I'm crazy?
SlayerCeres: Oh no. People have been using herbs more and more for medical reasons. They tend to work better than the drugs that doctors give you. LoL. =)
DPhantom: Thanks. I'll give it a try. But anyway, I'm in lunch and it's almost over so I should get going. I'll talk to you later!
SlayerCeres: See ya Danny! Feel better!
Danny signed off after writing down the address and what he was suppose to buy. He felt weird about going to some herb store by himself though. Maybe I'll ask Tucker and Jessica to come with me after school, he thought.
"For now though, I better get to class!" he whispered to himself as he headed out the door.
