Author Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I hope this chapter is okay. I'm not sure where I want this story to go...also, the DS part, that's going to be a little slow. I don't want it to be unreal, and like out of nowhere they fall in love, you know? But it will happen, just the right way.
Disclaimer: Same as before, Danny Phantom is most definitely not mine!!
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Sam lay awake, staring up at her ceiling, her big purple hues memorizing every crack and crevice. She could hear the yells and cries from downstairs where her parents were at it, yet again. Glancing over at her alarm clock on the bedside table, Sam groaned. It was three o'clock in the morning, and Sam really needed to get to sleep or else she'd regret it in the morning. Sam thanked the Lord it was a Friday and she didn't have school the next day, or else she didn't think she could make it. Why couldn't they just give it a rest for once?
Just as she was beginning to doze off, a loud shatter and a crash sent her eyes flying open. That definitely didn't sound good...her breathing became haggard and she pulled her blankets up to her chin, squeezing her eyes shut. Please let Mom be okay, she prayed, Please let Mom be okay...after a few minutes of silence, Sam heard the slam of the front door and a car pulling out of the driveway. Shakily getting out of her bed, she tip-toed to the window and caught a glimpse of her father speeding off down the street. Taking another haggard breath, Sam crawled back into bed and into a fitful sleep.
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Sunlight poured into the grand bedroom, causing the sleeping girl to squint and groan. Pulling the covers up over her eyes to shield her from the day's crisp embrace, Sam tried her best to get back asleep. After a few minutes of trying to doze off, Sam gave up and glanced over at the clock beside her. Surprised that the time read half past noon, Sam sat up, rubbing her eyes. Memories from the night before came flooding back to her. Sam flopped back onto her pillows and stretched. She wondered how long it was going to be before her father returned.
Descending the stairway, Sam found the house oddly quiet. Usually the radio or TV was on in the kitchen while Mrs. Manson went about her business, but today everything was still. Hurrying into the kitchen, Sam found a note waiting for her at the counter. Taking it, she saw it was from her mother saying she was out for the day, running errands and such, and she'd be home later. Sam crumpled up the note, and shot it towards the trashcan, missing of course, but not caring nonetheless.
Just as she was pouring herself a glass of orange juice, there was a knock at the front door and Sam grumbled. Who could be visiting her first thing in the morning? A little voice reminded her that it was in the middle of the afternoon, but Sam chose to ignore it. Setting her glass down and making her way to the front door, still clad in her pajamas which consisted of a loose hoodie and pajama pants, her hair thrown on top of her head, Sam let out a huge yawn. She couldn't wait to move out of the house and get her own place...just another year she reminded herself.
The person at the door knocked again, causing Sam to frown.
"I'm coming!" She yelled, irritated. Unlocking the front door, she grinned tiredly when she saw it was only Danny, leaning against the door frame, hands in pockets, looking the opposite way.
"Oh hey Danny," she said, turning around and walking back towards the kitchen. "Shut the door on your way in, would you?"
Danny smirked, following Samantha, after shutting the door. "Why, good morning to you too. You do know that it's twelve-thirty?"
Sam took a sip from her orange juice as Danny sat down at the kitchen table. She looked down at him. "It's a Saturday, I slept 't get to sleep last night."
Danny raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Whatever. Tucker told me to tell you that he couldn't hang today, he has to help his grandparents with house stuff...like mowing the lawn or whatever."
"Oooh, lucky him," Sam said, raiding the fridge for some breakfast. "You want anything?"
Danny shook his head, drumming his fingers on the table. "No thanks...so what do you feel like doing today?"
"I dunno," Sam said, sitting down across from Danny, biting into an apple. "What do you want to do today?"
Danny smirked at the girl in front of him and shrugged. Sam grinned.
"We really need to start being more decisive, or we're never going to get anywhere."
Danny grinned and studied Sam. She didn't look right...her eyes were hollow and missing their usual spark, her skin was pale, and she looked more tired than he'd ever seen her. But it was her eyes that really spoke to him...they looked so dead, broken. Sam must have noticed Danny staring at her, because she blushed and coughed.
Danny snapped out of his daze and rubbed the back of his head absentmindedly. Finishing up her apple, Sam crossed to the trashcan, throwing out the core, but stopping dead in her tracks. There, in the trashcan, was what she had heard crash last night. One of her mother's fine china plates. Sam could care less about the broken china, but what made her breath catch in her throat was the red substance stained all over the pure white of the plate, and the rags thrown around it soaked in none other than blood. One of her parents had been hurt last night, though she had no idea which one. She silently prayed that her mother was safe, but she didn't want her father hurt either. The plate had been swept clumsily up and thrown out, probably in a state of shock. Sam wondered why her parents hadn't even tried to hide it from her. She stiffened, and felt slightly dizzy.
Danny noticed her sudden stiffness—he noticed almost everything about her—and immediately got up. "Sam—what's wrong?"
Danny's voice provided Sam with a dose of reality and she turned to him, surprising Danny when he saw the color was drained out of her face. Though she was always pale, the rosy tint that usually shown on her cheeks was missing. Her hands were shaking, Danny noticed with somewhat alarm.
"N-nothing," she stammered, kicking the trashcan out of view. "Nothing, just...I don't feel real good." A cold sweat broke out on Sam's forehead. Danny knew something was wrong now.
"Are you sick?" he asked, coming over to her. She took a few steps away from the trashcan, blocking it from Danny's view. "Do you feel okay?" He instinctively put a hand to her forehead and frowned. "You're not warm. We don't have to hang out today, why don't you go back to sleep?" Danny's blue hues were full of concern and worry—all he wanted to do was take care of Sam right then, make sure she was alright. But Sam shook her head stubbornly, wiping at her forehead.
"No," she said, offering him a shaky smile. "I'm fine—just a little tired, I didn't get to bed until after four last night...No, I want to go out. Lemme just change real quickly, alright? I'll meet you out front in ten." With that, Sam sped off upstairs, leaving a bewildered Danny to stand alone in the kitchen.
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When Sam met Danny out on her front porch fifteen minutes later, she looked somewhat better, but the dead look hadn't gone from her eyes. Danny observed her, trying to find out what was wrong. Besides her eyes, everything else just seemed normal with Sam. Her plaid skirt, heavy boots, pea-coat with a hood sticking out, her black hair pulled into a low ponytail, a safety pin through her earring hole. She was the same old Sam, but her eyes seemed to break Danny's heart. The only other time he'd seen that look in Sam's eyes was last year, when Danny had gotten seriously hurt fighting off one of the toughest ghosts he'd ever encountered. Sam's eyes had been hollow for a while after that, watching him cautiously, as if he might not be there when she turned back around.But Danny was fine, so he knew it had nothing to do with his ghost powers, or any burden of that matter. He wondered how serious whatever Sam was dealing with could be...he wanted to be there for her, when she needed him. She was always there for him, yet with Sam it was hard. She always put these barriers up, ever since they were little. She wouldn't tell Danny what was bothering her until it was so bad she couldn't deal with it. But what if she needed to deal with her problems before they escalated? Sam couldn't always put barriers up; sooner or later they'd continue to break. Danny shook the foreboding thoughts out of his mind as Sam and he made their way down the sidewalk, the cold autumn wind playing across their faces, and Danny was glad when Sam's rosy tint came back to her cheeks. Not because they made her look so cute and innocent, no, that was an added benefit of course, but he didn't want her to look so gaunt and sickly, because then it seemed to officiate the fact that Sam was in trouble, or whatever the matter was. Danny sighed inwardly frustrated. Girls were so confusing.
"So," Sam said, looking over to Danny as a strand of her hair blew across her face, causing Danny to fight the temptation to brush it aside, feeling just how silky it felt. It's not that Danny had a crush on Sam or even liked her like that...it was just that Danny was beginning to notice Sam. He couldn't help it. Whenever her hair was blown about, he wanted to run his hands through it...whenever she was sad, he wanted to dry her tears. Whenever she was hurting, he wanted to take her pain away. He couldn't help it, and honestly, it scared him. Was he beginning to like Sam in that way? He hoped not, it was undoubtedly going to ruin their friendship if he did. So shrugging all that away, he blamed it on teenage boy hormones. "Where are we going?"
Danny sighed, rubbing the back of his head and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Err...heh, don't really know. Where do you want to go?"
Sam looked over at Danny with amusement. They were walking along the sidewalk, nearing the park that she'd spent most of her childhood in, where she first met Danny as he stuck sand down her dress when they were four. Smiling at the memory, Sam sighed. She didn't know why she wanted to visit the park, but she figured since they were near and everything, what the hell?
"Why don't we head over to the park," Sam said, shrugging. "It's just around the corner."
Danny grinned; he hadn't visited the park in so long. Never enough time it seemed. "Okay."
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Sam giggled as she leaned back in the swing, her hair inches above the frosty ground. Danny observed her from the swing he was sitting on, glad that his friend was finally smiling again. She sat back up straight, twirling the swing around in circles, looking at the ground, a careless grin on her face. She turned to Danny and smirked.
"It's so nice to get out of the house," she sighed, not even thinking. "Away from all the yelling."
Danny looked questionably at her, and frowned. "Yelling?"
Immediately the color seemed to drain from Sam's face and she looked up at Danny, a look of panic that made his heart clench. He could see the excuses forming in her mind, trying desperately to lie her way out of this one.
"Er," she stammered, stopping the swing from twirling with her foot. "Did I say yelling? Heh, I meant laughing...yeah, you know, my parents always happy and whatnot. Dunno why I said yelling, I told you I barely got any sleep! You know how my parents are, always optimistic...damn happy people, hate them...yeah."
Danny looked at her doubtfully, not believing her excuse. He watched her as she sighed a breath of caution, praying to God that he would let it go...she hadn't meant to say yelling. She wasn't even thinking! It's not that Sam didn't want to tell Danny about her parents, she trusted him fully, she was just embarrassed. Embarrassed that she was making such a big deal out of such a common thing. So what, her parents were fighting? But when she saw the bloody plate this morning, something inside of her seemed to fall apart. It was one thing to have her parents fighting, but another thing to have someone hurt. Sam was just so confused...she had no idea what to do. Glancing away from Danny, she swallowed. She couldn't look into his eyes, if she did, she knew she'd melt and confess everything, how much pain it really was causing her to have her parents scream and yell at each other all the time.
"Sam, what's going on?" Danny questioned. He needed to know, he needed to help Sam. She couldn't keep everything locked up together, who knew what would happen. If she didn't start talking, things could get worse. "Why won't you tell me?"
Sam continued to look at the ground, trying to appear calm and composed. "Nothing, Danny! Nothing. I'm just out of it...okay? Please, can you just leave it? If something was wrong, I'd tell you, I swear!"
"But that's just it Sam," Danny snapped, growing angry. Something definitely was wrong, and he needed to know. It hurt him that she wasn't confiding in him, but most of all it hurt because he felt so useless. He may have been a bit selfish, but he felt so useless to Sam. What was the point of being a best friend if you let them fall apart? What if Sam needed his help when it was too late? What the hell was the problem? Danny felt so in the dark. "You wouldn't tell me! I know you, Sam! You're gonna keep it in, until it eats you alive and then you're going to break down! I'm not stupid, something's up!"
Sam glared at Danny, her face pink with burning anger. "You don't trust me enough to tell you? Do you think I'm weak, Danny? You don't always have to play the white knight! I'm okay on my fucking own sometimes!"
Danny shook his head. "But you're not okay on your own, Sam! You put these barriers up, and sometimes, goddammit, it's okay to lean on someone for support! Stop thinking you have to deal with this on your own! Stop being so selfish!"
Sam stood up, glaring with all her might at Danny. She knew he was only trying to help, and she knew she wanted so desperately to tell him about her parents, she needed to tell someone. But Sam was stubborn, and she hated being dependent on someone. She didn't need anyone...she was losing trust in her parents, so how did she know she could trust her best friends from hurting her? Everything was so confusing; she wasn't even making sense to herself. All she felt was anger towards her best friend.
"I'm being selfish?" She spat. "Me? Danny, just stay out of my fucking business! I don't need anyone to help me, I'm fucking fine!" And with that, Sam turned and ran down the path leading out of the park, tears forming in her eyes. What was her problem? She wanted to tell Danny, she wanted to confide in him, but she just couldn't. What the hell was wrong with her? She cared about Danny so much...but her heart was breaking everyday because of her parents. Damn them for fucking her up like this...
Danny watched Samantha run out of the park, all anger draining away from him. Something was wrong, he knew it now. Sam wouldn't have snapped at him like that unless something was wrong. And he would do all he could to help Sam and be there for her, because he was her best friend, and that's what best friends were for. Yet the foreboding feeling in Danny's stomach made him nervous...What was happening to Sam?
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Hey guys. I hope you liked this chapter! Hope no one is confused. Anyways, review and let me know what you think. Thanks! Also, thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter: (you all get a strawberry!) Sakura Scout, galabalesh, Divagurl277, Mujitsu Yume, Ryo's destiny, lightning streak, coldplayer 813. Thanks!! Love and Strawberries, The Good Girl.