A/N: Woah. So you guys still like this thing? Awesome! Hugs and cookies (and another doomful chapter) for everybody!

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 20: Two of Us

Danny took the long way back to town. He drifted along the outskirts of the city, passing over the fields and away from the warehouse district until he hit the suburbs. Their clean lawns and reputation for mildness had obviously become purely superficial. People wandered the streets below, and thick clouds of smoke billowed up from four or five scattered pastel hoses. The black clouds stood out darkly against the clouded blue of the twilight sky, but Danny didn't see any help or fire trucks. He definitely felt that things weren't as they should be.

"What else is new," he muttered to the air.

He passed them over and landed a couple blocks into the city, changing to human in an alleyway. Hopefully somebody could give him directions, though he'd be careful who he asked. Ordinarily he wouldn't have gotten lost, but that thing had shaken him badly.

"Excuse me," he called to a passer by. "Can you tell me how to get to the Fenton Works?" His house was a local landmark, and this person looked like a native.

The person turned, a man wrapped in a thick wool coat. His face was sunken behind the high collars and tipped hat. The eyes wandered for a moment. "Ah, the Fenton Works…" Danny had begun to think that he should have asked at a gas station, or something. "It's uh, just over…" The man waved vaguely to the north.

"Oh. Thanks." That wasn't great, but it was a direction. It shouldn't be a problem to find, flying, and besides this guy was creeping him out. Before Danny could turn away, the man stopped him.

"Hey, wait a minute…" Glinting eyes searched his face. "You're their boy, aren't you? Their son?"

Uh-oh.

"Aren't your parents supposed to protect us, boy?"

"Um…"

"You know my daughter was killed the other day!" The man seized his collar. "Killed!" He shook Danny. "Some ghost stuff, black, it was, came in and sucked out her soul!"

Danny raised his hands, clammy with sweat, and tried to pry himself free, but for the second time that day, the cat had his tongue.

"Killed!" screamed the maniac. Danny managed to duck out of the way before the punch landed. Aimed for his nose, it struck his shoulder instead. Danny struggled for his balance and bolted.

"It's the Fenton boy!" Even as he ran, Danny saw faces shoot up at him from all over the street, even those in the shops. Faces twisted in something impossibly malevolent. "Get him!"

And get him they did, if only for the sake of having someone to target and destroy for their globally bad moods.

XXX

"Sam, it's Danny! Open up!"

Sam heard the pounding from upstairs in her room. The noise startled her; both her parents had gone on business. She jumped out of her chair and clattered down the stairs to the doorway, checking through the peephole.

"Danny!" She clicked open the lock and flung open the door. He stumbled in and shoved the door closed behind him, locking it and checking through the peephole. He looked like he'd been in a fight with something that meant business. "Danny?"

He put his back to the door, breathing hard, checking the peephole again. His shirt was torn and his pants were muddy, and his face shone purple in several choice places. He finally looked up at her when she touched his shoulder. "Danny, what happened?"

She finally caught his eyes. Danny clenched his teeth and took her arm. "Listen, do you have a panic room, or something that'll—"

"This way." Sam didn't question him, not right now. She hurried down the stairs and into the entertainment basement, stepping down a stairwell one more floor into the true bowels of her mansion. Dust lay over boxes and pipes curled in every direction. The air moved sluggishly, stale and cold. She led him to the back and punched in a code on a wall panel, opening a heavy door to her immediate left. Danny darted in and motioned for her to follow. She did, shutting the door behind her. The soft, florescent light on the ceiling clicked on, bathing them both in something like safety.

Danny stood in the center, uncertain. He jumped when Sam touched his shoulder. "Sit." He did. Sam slid down next to him, the two of them leaning against the cold, steel wall. "Tell me."

Danny shook his head. "That stuff… and the people—I mean I lost them, or I think I lost them…" He bit his lip and almost stood up again, but Sam kept him down, gently pressing his shoulder.

"From the beginning." She didn't feel half as calm as she spoke, but if Danny broke down…

He squeezed his eyes shut, drooping his head and then leaning it back against the wall. His hands relaxed; his eyes opened. "I went to check out these old buildings me and Tucker found earlier this… no, last week." He glanced at Sam, his expression pained. "The bodies… Alex was busy. I mean, before he found you, or us, or…" He waved the matter away. "The blackness is, uh, motive, or something. I don't know. It chased me." He imitated the snaking, curling motion with his arm. "I got back to the city, and the people didn't think any better of me than that thing did." He rested his head in his arms. "I'm sorry. It's hard to explain."

"It'll be okay." Sam sighed and shook her head. "I have no idea how it will be okay, but it will." She looked at him. "We have to trust that."

Danny met her eyes and shook his head. "I don't think so, Sam. Not this time."

"We'll find some way to—"

"No we won't!" He turned to face her, grabbing her arms and shaking her. "You don't get it! This isn't like all those other times. There's nothing I can fight. Everybody's after me: they don't know why, I don't know why. Everybody's after each other. It's that black stuff, Sam, and it's creeping out of the woodwork! It's become a part of this whole horrible world!" Her arms fell limp in his hands. Sam couldn't help the tears, couldn't help the fact that, in her heart, she felt that Danny was right.

"Oh Sam…" Danny pulled her in a tight hug. "I'm sorry." He hated his own helplessness. "I'm sorry." At least he still loved Sam.

Sam leaned into his embrace and let herself cry. She didn't understand how it could be that she had been saved to be condemned again and how Danny could have been made a hero only to be beaten by this intangible destruction. It didn't make sense that he could give up, just as it made no sense for her to be this desperate. Here in a walk-in closet-sized panic room with the stoic light glinting above them, it didn't seem possible that things outside could have deteriorated so badly. Nothing, it seemed, save her feelings for him had been spared the poisonous touch of the darkness.

She pulled away from him, wiping her face with her hands, grinning through her tears. "The world isn't really all bad, is it?"

He met her eyes, smiling sadly, and took her cheek in his palm. "No. Not yet."

"Like you said, that blackness is in everything, and it's probably affecting our intuitions. We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously." She put her hand against his, enjoying the feel of his warm hand on her skin.

"No." Danny brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the last of her tears. "I guess not." He dropped his hand, keeping his fevered blue eyes locked on hers.

Neither of them could quite tell who moved next, but suddenly it seemed to Sam that Danny's eyes were much nearer, his lips tantalizingly close to her own. Sam closed the distance and took the kiss, feeling the cold touch of the wall on her back as Danny crawled over her, his hands on either side of her. She couldn't believe this, any of this, was happening.

She slid her arms behind his head and held his neck, her fingers in his hair, simultaneously feeling his own hands gliding over her body, forcing out all thoughts of darkness and allowing them both a small island of happiness amidst an endless ocean of hatred.