A/N: I must be butter, cuz I'm on a roll! X)

P.S. The chapters all have soundtracks, yes :D -is facetomato'd-

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Impossible To Love And Be Wise

Chapter: Collide

Don't stop here…

I've lost my place…

I'm close behind.

Even the best fall down sometimes,

Even the wrong words seem to rhyme;

Out of the doubt that fills your mind, you finally find

You and I collide.

-Howie Day

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Danny flew through the progressing twilight – the perfect setting for a boy who felt like he was, in fact, in the Twilight Zone.

When he'd told Tucker this felt surreal, he'd meant it. Really.

The more he thought about it, the stupider Danny felt. Of course he'd picked up Sam's hints – he just hadn't paid them much attention because he'd assumed she didn't really feel that way about him. Had it been that he didn't actually want to believe it? Had he only seen what he was willing to believe or had he only seen what he actually believed? There was a big difference.

Danny, caught in the middle of all this musing, almost missed the ghost sitting on the wing of a large commercial airliner making faces (at a terrified passenger, though Danny couldn't know this). It was like a big, hairy, grayish person with big lips and eyes.

"Oh, crud," said Danny at his ghost sense while, highly annoyed, he stopped in midair and zooming toward the plane. Carefully avoiding the jet's engines, the Halfa swooped down from above the ghost and nailed him in the chest, sending him spinning off the plane. The airliner flew on, oblivious to the battle about to begin.

The ghost, meanwhile, turned on Danny and flew quickly at him, but Danny was ready.

"Seriously, don't you guys ever learn that rushing only works when I'm not looking?" he said in the spirit of the fight, quickly blocking the ugly critter with a quick swipe of the hand. Glancing below, Danny couldn't even make out the roof of the Fenton residence, but the dueling pair was so high up that any point in Amity Park would be easily accessible provided he could see it.

Danny flew up, turned around, and dove with all his strength at his enemy, who was a little surprised at the boy's ferocity. The two went intangible and plummeted toward Amity Park; there, Danny could just make out Fenton works, so he kept doggedly in that direction.

Through the sky, through the clouds, through the factory smoke, through the Fenton walls, through Jazz's room by accident…finally, to the basement. Jack tinkered with some random new invention, oblivious to his invisible and intangible son and an ugly airplane ape making a beeline for an open Fenton portal.

"In you go, pal!" cried Danny at last. The ghost disappeared into the green mist and Danny pounded the button to shut the portal door. "Well, that was easy."

Alarms blared.

"Maddie! We've got ghosts!" yelled Jack. "One of them called me 'pal'!"

Snickering, Danny exited through the wall, happy with his own invisibility skills. The alarms would go away soon enough and it would be safe to go human now…

SMACK.

A newly-solid Danny had appeared out of thin air and crashed into Sam on the sidewalk.

"Nice to see you, too," she groaned from the cement.

"Sorry," said Danny, lying opposite. "Ghosts at it again, me distracted, you know the drill."

Cue Extremely Awkward Moment Of Silence. They both sat up, wincing at the complaints of their not-so-funny bones and bruises.

"So, what brings you here?" asked Sam, loathing the silence.

"Ghost fighting," said Danny.

"Oh, right. You told me that," said Sam sheepishly.

"Yup." Danny took a deep breath and removed the battered love note from his pocket. "Sam…I really have to talk to you. It's important. Do you have a while?"

"Uh…sure." Sam caught her breath, staring at the note…she had rehearsed this many times before. He'd accuse her of sending the note, and then she'd act like it was such a pathetic idea he'd just give up on it right then and there.

"Sam, I think you sent me this," admitted Danny plainly.

Now would be a great time to confess, of course. It could even be now or never. What if she never ever got the chance again…? But that was absurd.

Sam laughed very convincingly, because she actually felt some hysteria coming on. Danny couldn't know that, though. He just assumed he'd made a stupid proposition.

"That's hilarious!", she said.

"I'm not in love with anybody!", she said.

"I sit in my room and crush on people you don't know, though," she said.

Now Sam was giggling between words. "Ah, Danny."

Danny gave her one of those intense blue-eyed stares, full of confusion this time. "He gave me a look you could have poured on a waffle," sang the stupid book of love quotes from inside Sam's head.

Softening her attitude, she added, "Danny, I'm your best -- one of your best friends." She looked into his eyes, hoping her stare was just as meaningful as his. "It'll always be that way. I'll always care about you – but not in the way that note says. Crushes don't last, Danny. Friendship does."

Danny relaxed and smiled. "Thanks, Sam. I'm sorry I put you on the spot."

Sam shrugged. "No problem. I'd do the same in your shoes. It is a pretty intriguing letter, isn't it?"

"She signed it 'love'!"

"Sometimes, people get caught up in the moment and write things to be more dramatic than they are. If you ask me, this person was a total drama queen already. 'You're driving me stark-raving mad'? Come ON."

Danny grinned. "I guess that's true…just wish I could tell who did it and why."

---

She had been his friend for years.

At first, before that fight with the airplane monster, it had been odd for Danny to think of her as anything more, but it was now becoming increasingly less odd. It's as though they were already partners in life without all the fluff that goes with believing that at fourteen. Because honestly…could you really say that it was possible for kissy stuff to add to their relationship? The only thing that could add to it would be time and personal growth. It's true of every friendship.

Oh, being in a quote-official-unquote relationship would make everything look deeper, but it would feel shallower, Danny knew.

He was totally old enough to handle makeouts and chasing pretty girls and feeling wanted.

And Paulina was still totally hot.

But Danny wasn't ready to come out of that time in life when you enjoy the lighter side of life instead of the heavy stuff.

It's not that these were Danny's thoughts exactly as he flew above town, cartwheeling in the now-starry sky, but in that time, he did realize it all.