A/N: Shame on me. Sorry about last chap's A/N, folks. I won't let my insecurities get in the way of this again. That said, enjoy this 'little' reprieve while I go edit Chapter 8.
Sing to Life
By JadeRabbyt
Chapter 7:Stars in Our Eyes
Sam fished out the last of the weekend's homework necessities, a couple binders and a huge textbook, then slammed the locker door shut and turned to face the seething masses. No, on second thought it wasn't the masses she was worried about. It was Danny. Sam took a tentative step forward and allowed herself to be sucked into the general torrent of kids scrambling for the exit, the double-doors already packed to capacity. She felt the soft light of the sun and a breath of fresh air and moved out of the stream, moving away from the doors and their outpouring. She looked down at her books again. What had Danny planned? Did he know any more about anniversaries than she did? Sam didn't think so. But still, how was she supposed to act? The whole discussion might be moot anyway, since there was a chance that Danny had forgotten.
Sam clasped her books to her chest as somebody bumped her elbow. She edged farther from the doors and stood on the concrete steps, and, after sweeping a hand through her hair and straightening her skirt, raised her head to look over the schoolyard. She searched the grounds, peeling away layers of kids, foliage, and automobiles. Had he remembered? She'd mentioned it to Tucker often enough that he, if nothing else, should have reminded Danny. Sam raised her hand against the bright sky. She squinted at the sight of it, but after a closer look at the particular kind of brightness it possessed, she moved her hand away and smiled.
It was exactly the kind of weather she loved. A loose-knit blanket of puffy silver clouds coated the sky, soaking up the piercing sunlight and returning it to earth as a bright haze. The light diffused across the schoolyard, lighting everything it touched with sharp, vivid colors. It was always joined by a sharp chill in the air, and the cold and the brightness gave everything a stark clarity. Free from the warm, cheerful bias of direct sunlight but bereft of the angry darkness of a storm, it was a special kind of weather than exuded confident realism.
It looked as though God, in His own way, had arranged this for her. Sam looked over the schoolyard and shifted her weight. Maybe she would enjoy this anniversary thing after all.
"Hey Sam!"
She looked over to see Danny waving to her from some yard down the concrete path, wading through the diminishing trickle of escaping students to meet her. Sam returned the wave and stood waiting for him. She wondered how she looked, if she was presentable enough to be deemed 'anniversary-ready.' She glanced back to him, and a grin tugged at her lips as she watched him approach. He looked so cute.
Danny walked with a charming insecurity, taking unmeasured steps and holding his hands raised to his waist and a little forward. There was a nearly imperceptible upward slant of his shoulders and a quiet uncertainty in his movement. Not paranoia, but a certain degree of hypersensitivity that Sam found fantastically reassuring. Though Danny's motions were unbalanced, his eyes were bright and shining in the cloudlight, but then everything shone under the white lighting. Sam took a slow breath. Danny wasn't the only nervous one.
Danny reached her, coming to a cautious stop a foot or two away from her. He fidgeted and cleared his throat. "So... Happy anniversary."
Sam nodded. "Happy anniversary." He really was cute, standing there totally oblivious as to what he should do. Not that she had any ideas of her own.
His eyes darted over her and he jumped forward as he noticed her workload. "Need some help?"
"Thank you." She smiled and held it out for him. Their hands brushed over the heavy texts, and Danny lingered for a moment over hers. Both of them blushed, and Sam let him take them from her.
Danny cleared his throat again, holding the books at his side. "Um, what do you want to do?"
Sam didn't know. She hardly knew what the allegedly 'normal' teens did on anniversaries much less what would be comfortable for her and Danny to do. Television was no help for guidance on this, but she had better say something because things were rapidly becoming awkward. She didn't mind awkwardness around other kids; she was used to it, but with Danny it was unbearable.
"Kiss her!"
Sam grimaced and spun around. "What?"
"Tucker!" Danny grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I told you-"
Tucker peaked out from the shrubbery to face Danny's angry glare and Sam's bemused relief. "What? I was just trying to help! I mean look at you two." Tucker stood from the bushes, brushing himself off. "You're treating her with kit gloves and Sam's just being... Sam." He shook his head. Sam blushed and glanced over at Danny.
Danny rubbed his temples. "Tucker..."
Sam took his arm and squeezed it.
"No, seriously," Tucker continued. "You guys are just not getting the whole 'you're-a-couple-so-it's-okay-to-kiss-in-public' thing. Do I have to get out those stupid plastic dummies from health? You goin' to make me put a condom on a banana?" Tucker threw up his hands and heaved a sigh. "Somebody's got to clue the two of you in. It's your anniversary for cryin' out loud."
Sam crossed her arms, forcing her mouth into a line. "Tucker, that is the crudest, rudest piece of advice I have ever, ever..." She broke down into giggles. "I remember that banana thing."
Danny shifted his hands. "That's very very, not... good." He too remembered the infamous banana demonstration. "But we really don't need your help. I mean, not every couple is Paullina and Dash. If Sam isn't comfortable-" Danny was worked up, but Sam didn't fail to notice his hesitation over that last phrase.
She liked her lips. Time to be brave.
Sam snaked her arms around his shoulders and caught his lips in mid-sentence. Danny made a small "mmph!" noise as Sam touched her lips to his, waiting for him to catch on.
The kiss started out forced, something she had done on impulse more than affection, but the purpose became irrelevant in the process of the act as the surprise and compulsion turned to an exceedingly comfortable mutual enjoyment. She pressed her lips to his, feeling his hands rise to her shoulders and his lips move and respond to her own caresses, and Sam let it go on for a second or two before letting him go. Danny leaned back a little and shook his head. "Whoa. So I guess you're, um, comfortable?"
Sam grinned up at him and smiled, pulling his head to hers once more. "I guess I am."
She closed her eyes and lifted her head to Danny again, feeling his lips pressing against hers, feeling a twinge of fire in her blood as his arms moved around her and gently pulled her closer. Her head was spinning; anyone could see them, but for once she couldn't care less. Danny was here with his arms around her, his lips and gently touching and tugging, accepting and wanting her. Sam opened her mouth a bit more, pressing closer to him and feeling the muscles of his abdomen tense as she ran the tips of her fingers down his side. She dimly remembered that they really were still in school, with Tucker somewhere nearby.
She pulled away and put a finger to his lips. "Not so much…"
Danny looked at her, eyes wide. "Um, whoa. Wow."
Sam laughed and shoved him lightly. "Don't be so melodramatic."
"I'm being melodramatic?"
Tucker coughed. "You know, I could just leave if you guys don't want... You know, I could just leave."
"No, it's alright if you stay," Danny told him.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes. It's fine." Sam didn't care one way or the other so long as Danny was there.
Tucker glanced between the two of them. They looked more through him than at him. "You know what? I think I will just head home. Or maybe I'll visit Joseph. Whatever. I'll let you both alone."
Sam shook her head. "No, it's alright, really. We'll go play tag with that stupid box ghost or something. Really. We won't, um… kiss, again."
Danny started, jolted from his quiet reverie. "We won't?"
"Well, not while he's around…"
Tucker sighed and started backing away. "I'll see you guys tomorrow or something. Happy anniversary."
They watched him walk to the school's bike rack and unchain his scooter, giving them both a final wave before speeding away.
Sam looked up at Danny, hugging his arm. "You know, I don't really think I wanted him to join us."
Danny turned to her with a smirk. "Me neither. Not that Tuck's not a great guy and all, I mean he is my best friend, it's just..." He reached up and brushed back her hair. "This is..."
"It is. It really is." Sam gave him a peck on the cheek and, with a skip and a grin, pulled him down the steps after her. Danny tossed her books away in his backpack, concealed his backpack in some bushes, and hurried to catch her.
"Where would you like to go?"
Sam laughed. "I don't know. Does it matter?"
Danny smiled. "Good point."
Chatting and laughing, they sauntered off down the sidewalk, ambling and stumbling in the general direction of the bus stop. She gossiped with Danny about school and teachers, about the allegedly popular crowd and the probable source of the lunch food, and Sam was reminded again of how lucky she was to have him. She nudged closer to him and talked, relishing his closeness and the sense that, for the moment, they could just take five from the ghost business and the school business and just enjoy one another. Other people passed them on their way to the bus stop, some looking not nearly as content. Kids and their screaming children. Hassled single women. An older couple passed them, a man and his wife from the looks of it, and Sam sobered as she watched them. Danny asked her if anything was alright.
Sam looked after the couple. The man carried himself amiably, well-dressed in a coat and boots, but the woman was old and tired. She scowled and walked with a hunch, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk. Sam shuddered. She didn't think that she and Danny would ever end up that way, and as dismal and frightening as the prospect was, that wasn't what worried her. The man and the woman, they reminded her of someone. Something? She couldn't put her finger on it, but it made her feel cold. Cold and weary.
Danny was talking to her again.
"Oh, I'm alright. It's nothing…" She smiled at him, but her eyes trailed after the couple.
Danny put his arm around her. "Not in a million years." He rested his arm across her shoulders and turned her forward, sparing a backward glance. "Nuh-uh." He smiled and kissed her forehead.
Sam leaned against him and let the deja vu slip away. It was impossible to hold a dark thought on a day like this, and the incident dropped away easily. Danny poked fun at the imagined occupations of passers' by, chatter of the squirrel living in an old oak tree, and the sour mug of a poofy Persian that sauntered along a wooden fence. They reached the bus stop, and, noting that the stop led to a number of interesting places and was equipped with a bench, Danny and Sam elected to grace the humble wooden fixture with their presence while looking at the posted metal placard bearing the various buses and their future stops.
"I think this one goes by the mall," Sam mused. She turned to Danny. "What do you think? Joseph works at that Japanese place, and Tucker's probably hanging around. Do you want to surprise our friends?"
"Oh boy, we'll probably catch it from the popular crowd if we do." Danny sighed. "On our anniversary? You up for that?"
"I am if you are." She touched her head to his shoulder.
Danny turned to get a better view of her. Not a trace of cynicism in the glow of her cheeks or the curve of her lip, only genuine trusting happiness. "I've never seen you like this."
"Like what?"
Danny stuttered, conscious of the eavesdroppers waiting around them. The groaning bus rounded the corner a couple blocks away. "I'll tell you in a minute."
The bus lurched to a stop and soon the two were safely stowed in the back, voices muted to others by the rumbling engine. "Like what?" she asked again.
"Well, happy, I guess." Danny paused, wondered how delicately to tread. "When I first met you you were... less enthusiastic."
Sam sat back in her seat and put her hands on her knees, facing him. She didn't look angry, just serious. "I hadn't met you yet."
Danny rubbed his neck. "Well, yeah, I guess, but it seems like it would take more than just me to... change you like this."
She peered over at him, eyes half-lidded. "Do you really want to know?"
"It would be nice," Danny confessed. Why had he even brought it up? He didn't want to put a damper on the day.
"Remember Alex?"
He nodded, brow furrowing. "What about him?"
"I don't know. It's hard to explain." Her eyes drifted to the bus windows, watching the shops file by. "It brought up a lot of things for me. It's true what I told you that time on the phone." Danny leaned closer. He remembered that conversation, and it was one of the many reasons he truly hated Alex.
Sam's eyes shifted over the windows. "I did have some... problems before I met you." She sighed and frowned at the bus floor. Danny took one of her hands in his own. "I don't know. It's embarrassing. I still had problems after I started hanging around with you and Tucker. Depression, you know. The same old teen angst story; friends, parents, whatever. Everybody knows it. But meeting someone, something, like Alex, it really changes how you think about that." She met his eyes, letting her earnestness shine through them. "It makes things clearer."
Danny shook his head. "If you say so, Sam." She sighed and looked back out the windows. Danny was on the verge of another question when, with a shudder and some whiplash, the bus pulled up at the mall.
Sam stood and pushed through the doors. "Never mind it now." She smiled. "Let's go check out the latest obsessions of consumerism." They crossed the expansive parking lot, seeing mothers and their hyper children struggling into minivans while slobs moseyed to and from the mall with glazed eyes. Sam knew for sure it was a mistake the minute they passed through the doors. The noise was awful, the air was stale, and the shop windows declared their goods like world leaders declaring war.
Sam sniffed the processed air and coughed. "What now?"
Danny straightened and patted her arm. "Courage, milady." He treated her to a saucy grin. "As your guardian ghost-hybrid, I shall provide you safe passage."
Sam laughed. "Come off your high horse, King Arthur, and let's take a look." They wandered around the mall for a while, winding through the impatient crowds to a few select outlets. Danny followed Sam through the goth store, and Sam let Danny drag her through the video game stores. Neither spent much time in either place. Too commercial, they thought. Too public. Why don't we leave?
By mutual agreement, they stopped for salad and pizza on the way out. Sam assumed it would be pizza, at any rate, but she was pleasantly surprised to see Danny return with a salad. She was charmed until she realized it was a taco salad, but it was nice of him to consider her.
It was getting on in the day and more people were crowding in, filling all the tables and forcing the two to sit on the outskirts of the cafeteria, near the mall walkway. They continued to talk as they ate, but in mid-bite Danny's eyes gravitated to some point behind Sam.
"What is it?" She turned for a better look.
Danny grinned. "Are you going to eat those croutons?" Sam had a stack of them piled on a corner of her tray.
"No. Too salty. Why do you ask?"
He grabbed them off the tray and ran to hide behind a table, just out of sight of the mall walkway. As Sam turned to watch, the fabulous four of Dash, Kwan, Paullina, and Valerie walked into view, the girls gossiping and tossing their heads while the jocks postured and chuckled in a deep, self-consciously macho way. Danny grinned to Sam as the group walked right by his hiding place, showing her a single crouton pinched between thumb and forefinger. Sam waved no at him, guessing that there was probably a line between giddiness and sheer stupidity that he was about to cross with a flying leap. Danny frowned at her warnings and stuck nose in the air, eyes half-closed, brow furrowed and mouth attempting a frown, though he was so close to laughing that the last wavered wildly. In Sam's eyes, the attempt at the 'noble warrior' look was more akin to that of the retarded martyr. Danny crouched down , and, careful to remain out of sight of the other patrons, smacked Dash in the back of the head with a crouton.
Dash yelled and spun around while Danny ducked behind his table. "Alright, who threw that?" The other three turned with him, each one searching the mall with Dash after learning the trouble. Many other kids from school had been dining at the court, and Dash's booming voice brought their heads up sharply, as eager as Dash himself to identify the criminal. A few spotted Danny and exchanged thumbs-ups. Of those who saw Danny, a few noticed that Sam was seated nearby at a table with two nearly finished meals on it. They put the two together and sat back to watch.
Sam rose to creep toward Danny, blending in with the clueless adults and younger kids. The enemy turned their heads, Paullina's slanted eyes on the verge of discovering her, when another spatter of something hit Kwan from the opposite direction. They squabbled and glanced everywhere lightly but nowhere thoroughly, and Sam darted by and scooted next to Danny.
"Don't you think this is a tiny bit juvenile?" she asked.
He laughed, eyes dancing. "Yes." Sam shook her head at him. "Do you want me to stop?"
She looked at his wide grin and rolled her eyes. "Give me one of those." She grabbed one from his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, flung the crouton to land undetected in Paullina's hair.
Danny stared at her for a minute, amazement replacing excitement. "Sam, you just..."
She shrugged. "It is our anniversary."
"Right." Danny nodded, and the grin bloomed again. "Right." Danny peeked over the table.
The four were antsy now. The girls wanted retribution, and the guys, Dash more than Kwan, were eager for a justifiable reason to use somebody as a punching bag. Danny reached over the table and chucked three more croutons.
One fell flat on the floor. Another landed on Valerie's shirt, where it stuck like an obstinate booger, and the last hit Dash in the forehead. Dash's eyes boggled and Danny leaped up as they made eye contact. Dash roared and charged toward him.
Danny grabbed Sam's hand and started running. "Time to go!"
"Ya think?"
They retreated to the loud whoops and cheers of their dining audience. Danny wished he had the time to manage a bow.
Dash's feet pounded up behind them, and Sam was beginning to get truly nervous when, to her relief, Paullina recalled her juggernaut with a sharp screech. "I have, I have STUFF on me!"
"Huh?" Dash halted in his tracks and turned to her, and Danny and Sam risked a glance back. The teenage goddess was covered in something gelatinous and gooey. It stuck to her hair and dribbled in chunks down her pink sweater.
They stared, mouths agape, when Tucker waved to them from the sushi bar. Joseph stood next to him, raising an enormous ladle triumphantly. Tucker waved for them to go as Joseph roared with laughter.
Sam chuckled at Paullina and Danny returned the wave, shouting his gratitude, before pulling them both away before Dash had time to turn around. They ran down the walkway, hearing Dash yell as he resumed his charge, and Sam felt another burst of adrenaline sweep through her. It was almost pleasant in a death-defying kind of way. Danny pulled her into a bathroom corridor, racing to the deserted recess and turning them both invisible as Dash turned in after them. He scanned the corridor, ran down its length with an angry frown, and moved on.
They both rematerialized. Sam heaved a sigh. "Well. That was certainly..."
"Exciting? Long-overdue?" Danny took her in his arms. "Fun?"
"The least sensible thing I've ever done." Sam returned his embrace, and they shared a brief kiss.
"I've had enough of the mall," she said, glancing over her shoulder to the walkway beyond.
"Me too. How about a movie?" Sam's hair was a little disheveled from running. He brushed it with his fingers, feeling the smooth strands order themselves under his touch.
"Alright, but I don't want to sit in front." She kissed his cheek, her lips lingering.
Danny nodded enthusiastically. "I can live with that."
Sam laughed. "Don't get THAT excited. I'm still not sure what I think about this whole romance thing."
Danny caught her lips again, taking her face in his rough, confident hands. "Sure you're not," he murmured. Sam felt the hot, slow caresses of those lips on hers and thought that he might be right.
"I just don't want this to get too far."
Danny pulled away from her. "Sam, I love you, and I'm pretty sure you like me quite a lot." He brushed away her hair. "At some point you might want to trust me."
Sam quirked her head and searched his eyes. "I do love you. I do trust you. This is just kind of a new experience for me."
"That's alright, but I'd never do anything that would hurt you." Danny touched her nose. "I took you from the devil once already and I'm not giving you back."
Was it any wonder that she loved him? If anything, Sam wondered that he would bother with her.
Danny looked back over his shoulder. "I don't mean to rush, but I think we might want to move because it sounds like Dash and company are headed back this way." Sam perked up her ears. Indeed, through the typical background static of the mall came a set of hurried footsteps.
Danny grasped her hand. "Don't let go." Sam's throat tightened as the two of them went intangible, phasing through the concrete and iron entrails of the mall to emerge in the open air of the parking lot. They started again for the bus stop, Sam shivering a little in the crisp air. She tugged at his arm and he enclosed her in his warm arms as they crossed to the bus stop.
The bus didn't take too long. Some other shoppers stood around the sign post, rubbing their hands and stamping their feet while Danny and Sam huddled together on the bench. Danny wasn't sure that he was unhappy without a coat. Sam's body leaning against him was an amazing sensation, all the more so because it wasn't something as obvious as a kiss. She depended on him for something and felt comfortable being close to him, trusting him. A pride stirred in his chest. This was something more than virtue. It was more than fighting ghosts for the interests of an abstract good, and it was more than all the external responsibility and even occasional approval thrust on him by the rare grateful rescuee. This, his arms around Sam's shoulders, hers around his waist, his chin on her head and her head on his chest, this was something that felt better for him than all that hero work and its intangible rewards.
"You're going to make me quit my job," he muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing." The hero work was difficult. No recognition and no credit, but it meant something to his rescuees, and he had to admit, moments like this more than made up for it.
The bus wandered up the avenue and creaked to a stop in front of them. They both got on, almost resentful of the interior heating. Danny touched her hand. "What movie do you want to see?"
Sam looked up. "What?" Danny repeated his question. "I don't know. Something lame, but no gore-fests."
"Yeah, I'm not up for gore-fests either." She was beautiful. The neon lights shone through the pitch-black night and the bus windows to play across her soft hair.
"So what do you want to see?"
Sam blinked. I want to see you. "Whatever, I guess."
Danny scootched closer to her on the bus seat and took her hand again. He sat thoughtfully for a minute; Sam only stared out the window. Danny exerted a gentle pressure with his thumb on the back of her hand, massaging it in slow circles across her skin. Sam turned to him and looked down. The motion made her blush, but she didn't pull away her hand. She snuggled closer to him, and Danny put a hand across her shoulders.
The bus pulled up at the movie theater, where most of the passengers stumbled out. Danny and Sam tumbled out with the rest and saw each other's breaths in wispy puffs, the twilight having given way to dark night. Danny cracked a joke about a nearby ghost, but Sam shook her head. "No way. Our anniversary, don't even think about it."
He smiled. "Whatever you say."
Sam glanced up at the box office. "Let's see. We've got 'Happy Hour of the Living Dead' and 'Evil Killer Zombie Goldfish IX.'" She crossed her arms. "Hm."
Danny looked into the theater. It looked happy enough in there. The smell of salt and popcorn wafted out to tempt them, and the arcade's thundering explosions sounded appealing. People swarmed in the theater, hurrying and dashing from the bathrooms to the concessions stand to their movie, and while most of them were having fun it seemed too loud, still too much like the mall.
"Too many people." Sam muttered.
"My thoughts exactly." Danny put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head to look at the sky. He couldn't see any stars, and the night had certainly progressed far enough already. The day had gone by so fast. The theater clock said it was already eight. Danny wondered if the cloud cover would be a problem. He didn't think so, but he should have tested this out beforehand. He had tested it a little, and he was sure nothing would go wrong, but still, more preparation would have been better.
He felt Sam touch his elbow. "Hey. See anybody up there?"
"You know," he mused. "We could skip the movie."
"And rent one?"
Danny shook his head. Sam tapped his arm again. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well." He looked down from the sky and shifted his feet. "I thought we could do something special our anniversary." He looked up at the sky again. "We could do it now, I suppose, if you'd like."
Sam glanced at the sky, following the dark shifts between grey and black where the clouds passed overhead. "Sure. But what is it?"
He took her hand and squeezed it. "Follow me."
Danny took off at a jog down the sidewalk, letting her run beside them, the two of them darting past storefronts and other nocturnal pedestrians as they made their way toward Amity Park. Through the iron gates they passed and over the uncertain ground they leaped until they were well into the park, out of sight of street and shop. Danny finally rested, and the two of them stopped to catch their breath.
Sam looked around. The shadows lay sprawled everywhere, the dim streetlights left far behind. "Danny? What is it? What did you want to show me?"
He looked up at the sky again and dug in his pocket, pulling out a short cord. He held it out to Sam.
She squinted in the dark. "What is this? Is that it?"
Danny laughed. "No. That's a rope."
Sam jerked her head up. "A rope?" She realized that she was alone with him in the park and started to wonder if 'Zombie Goldfish' would have been the better choice.
Danny caught her expression and waved his arms. "No no no, don't worry. It's um, to keep us together. I'll tie one end to my wrist and you tie the other to yours, and that way nothing will happen."
"We're going flying?"
Danny nodded. "Yeah."
Sam looked up. She loved it on the few occasions she had flown with him, but this was odd. Odd and strangely romantic, with the trees all around and the murky sky above, but there was something wild and young and strange in the night that stirred her heart with happiness and eager excitement. It made her jittery and nervous, and she squinted up at the clouds. "We're going flying up there?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "Trust me."
She gave him a last questioning glance, though she doubted he could see it in the night, and secured the rope around her wrist. She felt a reciprocating tug as Danny did the same, and she blinked at the sudden bright flash as he went ghost. "Are you ready?" came his voice.
"Yes. I think so. But what exactly-" She fell silent as he took her hand, pressing lightly with his thumb, asking through that touch if she was ready. If she was comfortable. Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting the air inflate her cheeks and pass with a rush between her lips. She squeezed his hand and nodded.
They ascended slowly at first, straight up. Danny pulled her into the air, the two of them emerging from the shadows of the trees to rise like angels over the park and the city below. Sam could see the Cineplex and its visitors, the people clustering around the box offices. Elsewhere bundled, hooded figures hurried through the streets, passing by the jovial warmth of theater and eatery. The city faded away beneath them; she could distinguish the blocky office buildings, and the roads that ran between them were filled with toy cars colored with a dark, fading set of paints. She looked upward, and there was Danny flying a little above her, holding tight to her hand and holding his face to the dark and billowing clouds above. What had been a pleasant light-screen in the day had turned into a foreboding wall in the night, and Sam tasted fear as the ground fell away and that wall of clouds dipped down to meet them. She gripped Danny's hand harder.
He turned back to her and touched her shoulder, turning her to face him. "I've got you."
Sam gulped. "I know." He turned away to the sky once more, the two of them passing silently into the clouds.
There came a fresh shock of cold as they entered the giants. Water droplets ran down her hair, damped her clothes, and Sam's teeth chattered. She could barely see Danny, and the ground below had disappeared completely, replaced with murky darkness. They passed up and up, the air becoming colder and thinner, and Sam squeezed hard on Danny's hand. He turned and looked down at her, stopped and came to face her. Her teeth chattered, and a pained look crossed Danny's face. He rubbed her arms and hugged her, then grasped her hands and lit them with the dim glow of plasma. The warmth touched her palms and flowed through her body in gentle waves, the cold fading into cozy warmth. A curious mix of sensations followed swiftly upon one another, the lightness of intangibility, the disembodied feel of invisibility, and then she gasped and could breathe again. Danny caught her eyes, neither of them speaking in the silence of the cloud, and Sam nodded. They continued up. The clouds began to thin. She could see Danny almost clearly, the cloud no thicker than a heavy fog, and she caught her breath when she saw the glint of light on his suit, a white light, faint and cold and softened by the clouds. Only a few wisps of moisture lay ahead of them, then Danny pulled her through the ghostly wrappings and onto the surface of the universe.
The sky was a tapestry stitched of starlight. Millions of tiny points peeked from their cubby-holes to shine without blink or flicker on their two privileged guests. The earth below was a blanket of fog and tinted light, and the sky above was an infinite sheet of star-spangled blackness. Everywhere stars, stars above, stars all around, stars playing hide-and-seek in Danny's ivory hair. Stars dancing in his emerald eyes. Sam couldn't believe it was real. Everything so quiet, so perfect, so delicate in its own way. Each of those millions of lights in the sky knew its place and loved it, and there was no other witness to the miracle than the one she loved most.
The stars in Danny's eyes glittered. The corners of his mouth lifted in something more than a smile. He drew closer to her in something more than a casual approach. This sight was a treasure, his treasure by right of discovery, and he had chosen to show it to her. Sam's mind came in from its universal wanderings and settled itself comfortably in those proud, glowing eyes of his, proud of her and of the supremacy of his gift, and she saw that those green windows were waiting on her approval.
"Do you like it?"
Sam blinked away tears. Her voice cracked. "It's… beautiful."
He took her in his arms, more firmly, more insistently than before, clutching her shoulders moving her close against him. His mouth moved against hers, their lips closing and closing again one another, and Sam felt his gloved hand move under her head, the other rubbing slowly up her back. The warmth of his tongue touched her lips and she opened her lips for him, bringing her hands to his shoulders as their tongues intertwined. She lifted her head to him as she tasted him, as he tasted her, and as each reacted with quick breaths, each soul soaring in the perfection of the universe around them and each soul glorying in the loving vindication of the other through their touch, through their love.
Sam ran her hands down Danny's back, feeling the plates of his shoulder blades through the black suit, the athletic prominence of muscle and the eager motion of his ribcage as their breath rushed together. He had told her earlier to trust him; that he loved her. And she did trust him. Tears started to her eyes. Everything in the world was beautiful, and she trusted him.
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A/N: Yes, this is a huge chapter, but I hope it was also an enjoyable one.I'm trying toimprove the quality of this story. By the way, the title for this is going to change, but I don't know to what yet. Last chap's reviewers are thanked mucho grande: Divagurl277, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, Sakura Scout (Chap. 8's got yer answers), smile7499 (love your specific comments!), Creator-Chaos, CHEENAMI danni, and Kybo.