A/N: Joy, another chapter! Um. Yippee?

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Impossible to Love and Be Wise

Chapter: Invisible

If hearts were unbreakable, then I could just tell you where I stand.

-Clay Aiken

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Samantha Manson threw her backpack against the wall of her room and it made a satisfying clunking sound. She collapsed contentedly to her bed.

Oh, she had both of them fooled! Tucker had always suspected her feelings for Danny, Sam imagined, but she knew he couldn't be sure and he wouldn't confront her about it. And Danny…well, he was a thoughtful kid once he knew what was going on. But before that, he trusted everything everyone said and didn't like to overthink anything. When she said they were just best friends, Danny would totally buy it.

And provided Sam never admitted to having written that weird letter, she could get her feelings out loud and clear anonymously.

"I'm stupid," she said to the empty room.

'It's true, you know,' said her inner cynic, who seemed to take control sometimes. 'You're playing a very risky game here. What makes you think he won't find out or you won't crack and tell him? And besides all that,' it added, 'You're turning into a total emokid.'

Sam smirked at the ceiling. "But it's all I can do for now," she told the ceiling. "Of course I just want us to uh…" She thought hard, and for lack of a better phrase, finished, "be together. If I could just poof us together, I would. But that's really not how he feels. He worships the ground Paulina walks on. And if I told him, I'd ruin everything we've already got between us. Teenage relationships never work. It's not that I think they're always pure hormones, but still…they just don't work out! And Danny and I are different – I mean, we face death all the time."

Sighing in general disgust at her own slightly-coherent babbling, Sam pulled herself into a sitting position. "I'd never admit it, but I hate being a teenager." She reached under her bed and grabbed a tiny, dust-covered book given free with any purchase at Amity Park's bookstore. It was pretty cheap and just full of love-related quotes and Sam wouldn't even want to be caught dead with it, but she could read it alive as long as nobody saw.

"Love is being stupid together," announced Paul Valéry. Sam grinned.

"People who are sensible about love are incapable of it," said Douglas Yates. Inwardly, Sam nodded, completely relating to the feeling of insensibility.

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight," advised Phyllis Diller. Sam almost laughed out loud.

"The course of true love never did run smooth," boomed Shakespeare, and truer words were never spoken.

Sam snapped the book shut. "I can't take it any longer," she said out loud. She wanted to put this masquerade of calmness away and save it for a better time. In the safety of her own room, Sam could do anything she wanted. It was a safety zone, and that shield of gothy coolness wasn't necessary.

After a few minutes of deciding, Sam walked determinedly over to the stereo, which was ready to blast ultra-loud music – just hit the button and CRASHBOOMBANGSMASH.

When she did hit the button, though, Sam's super high-tech mp3 player did not play the usual head-banging tunes. Actually, they were kind of head-banging anyway, but they were much more lovey.

Songs about running away together, songs about flying together ('been there, done that,' thought Sam), songs about how one person would always catch the other when she fell…songs about just how hard the hero would fight for the love of his life.

Sam reclined against her bed, shut her eyes, and drifted off to a place where teenhood wasn't so hormone-obsessed and people took her seriously. And places where she wasn't invisible, and where people really wanted to believe she'd written them love letters.

"Sammy, hun, turn the radio down," called Mrs. Manson half-heartedly from downstairs a few minutes later. She knew her daughter couldn't even hear.

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Meanwhile, Danny Fenton knocked on Tucker Foley's door. After a prolonged silence, a crash, and some scrabbling sounds, Tuck finally answered. A chair or two behind him lay knocked out of the way.

"Dude! Could you help me figure out this letter?" asked Danny brightly, stepping in. Being friends for that long, you start to think it's silly waiting to be asked in.

"I've got my suspicions," said Tucker, quickly getting over the sudden conversation, "but don't you think you might be taking this a bit too seriously? I mean, if she really meant that letter, I think she'd say something more direct. This could very easily be a prank."

It was as though Danny didn't even hear the second nine-tenths of that sentence. "Who do you think sent it?" he begged eagerly.

"Well, if it were real, which I'm not sure it is…honestly, I've suspected Sam all along." He just let the sentence hang in midair, hoping it wouldn't wreak all havoc.

Danny pulled the note out of his pocket, opened it, read it and observed the handwriting, and plunked down on the couch.

"You really think so?"

Tucker nodded. "At first, I dismissed the idea, but all the way through last class, I thought about it. Sam has acted a little too casual toward you and a little too hostile toward Paulina for a long time…and haven't you noticed her dropping little hints all along the way? The fakeout-makeouts, the jealousy toward every female within fifty miles, the blushing…Sam can hide her feelings, but not that well."

Danny leaned back, still reading the note, and grinned very widely. Just to confirm the new idea, he came up with a few more excuses to let his best friend refute. "But it's not even in her handwriting, and I know her handwriting really well…"

"I don't think it matters," said Tuck. "She could have gotten someone else to write it."

"Who else?"

"I don't know." Tucker shrugged. "The point is, anyone who's really interested in sending a good anonymous note wouldn't use her own handwriting."

Danny kept staring at the letter. "Wow," he said softly. "I always thought she thought I was kind of a dunce. So I drive her crazy, eh?"

"I think it's more like…she knows you're a dunce and she likes you for it. And that fact drives her crazy," said Tucker.

Danny went ghost right where he sat, then stood up looking…well…he looked a bit "whomped," to tell the truth. The full magnitude of what he started to believe just hit him.

"Ah, Danny…? What are you doing?"

"Tuck, we have to get this sorted out." Looking nervous, probably more nervous than before most ghost fights, Danny Phantom leapt into the air. "I'll probably talk to you…later. Okay? I'm not sure when." He floated in midair, looking out the window at the twilight, and added, "This is completely surreal."

"Danny! Before you go!" Tucker yelled. "Um, don't tell Sam I told you this. She didn't say anything to be, but…I think she might kill me for it anyway."

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A/N: Okee, second chapter of setting the scene…I can't even tell if it's interesting or not, since writing it has made me completely jaded.