A/N: FINE. I'm such a pushover. I'll write more than one chapter. So this is the second-to-last chapter! AND it's long. Good or bad? Don't ask me ;
It...will get fluffy? I dunno. This is the part where everything starts being a little - as Tucker would say - wonky. Don't say you weren't warned.
I don't own anything having to do with "Danny Phantom" - that goes to Butch Hartman.
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Impossible To Love And Be Wise
Chapter: Seasons of Love
Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes...
How do you measure...measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife...in
Five-hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
How about love...?
-"Rent"
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'How have we changed in the past three years?' wondered Sam, sitting on the floor outside of Mr. Lancer's room, looking up and down the hallways from this perspective for one of the last times ever.
Hmm. She remembered herself the first time she ever walked down this hall – the unsure little 13/14-year-old, the one who was so proud of her individuality, her gothness, who wore amethyst lipstick and flipped her ponytail upside-down. She'd daringly shown her midriff, mostly because adults didn't like it, and wore formidable black boots.
She was puny back then, wasn't she? This year's freshman seemed to be the size of mice, but Sam realized that's what all freshmen look like when you're on the other side of ninth grade.
Sam looked down at her shoes now. They were still quite formidable. And black. She still liked that. Come to think of it, for Sam, black and purple had become more than a symbol of "goth." It was her permanent color scheme. It's what people thought of when they thought of her.
Now to the changes. Sam didn't wear that green-patterned skirt and those purple tights anymore…now they were just long black jeans, loose-fitting, comfortable, but not falling off. They'd probably become shorts soon, as the weather could get obnoxious. She still preferred a tight-fitting shirt, but had realized at the beginning of junior year that her opinion of people with belly-buttons showing all over the place was dropping lower and lower. Now her usual outfit included merely adark purpletank and black jeans.
Sam didn't flip her hair up anymore. In fact, she didn't put it up at all, just left it at its medium length to hang down around her face as it always had.
Of course, she had to admit,she had gone a little wild with the piercings at the end of sophomore year. She had them all over her ears, the most obvious ones holding bright-green round earrings. Thank goodness they looked good and she'd stopped before trying to pierce, for example, her nose.
One thing that really hadn't changed at all was the purple lipstick. It was a bitlighter than hershirt, but she'd still never brought herself to trash it. Sam's eyes hadn't changed, either…she'd only gotten taller, less gangly and sturdier. Just like everyone else.
Tucker was less gangly, too. As a matter of fact, he was less "techno-geeky." It's not that he'd lost his love for technology, oh no – to the contrary, three years of tech ed courses at Casper High had only strengthened his interest. He just looked less the part. He'd started wearing contacts. He'd let his hair grow, only a little, enough to see from under the beret. He'd grown – the boys were now actually taller than Sam, although they were still a little afraid of her. Tucker – well, Tucker was still a little bit girl-crazy. Some things really don't change.
Danny – aha. Danny. He had definitely grown up – in more than one way. Of course he was taller and stronger – stronger, but not in a grotesque way. He looked like an extremely fit young adult, now, maintaining the same blue eyes, maintaining the same optimistic, slightly naïve but always well-meaning nature.
But he had NEVER let himself grow a goatee. After that run-in with the almost future…eek. He'd forbidden himself a mullet or a goatee, come to think of it. Danny wanted to stay as different as possible from his darker self…
…who, by the way, should be making trouble again any time now. He'd tried it once, but only once, and…well…who wanted to talk about that now?
The trio had also had their run-ins with the opposite gender, Danny the most, Sam the least. She had gone out very briefly with a random kid during sophomore year when she'd been in an extremely rebellious hard-to-get mood, but both of them grew out of "goth" and apart from each other very quickly.
Danny had gone out with Valerie because she'd asked him. Then she'd found out that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, and had taken it surprisingly well. Their relationship had always been a fairly casual one, though…they were now great friends, Valerie was one of "the group," they all hunted ghosts together and solved problems that none of them could have solved on their own. It was rapidly becoming a small agency of justice within Amity Park, really. But finally, it got to the point where Danny and Valerie were just fond teammates, and acting any other way made them intensely uncomfortable.
…unlike the way Sam still felt about Danny, though now in a more grown-up way. Back when Danny and Valerie stopped "dating," Sam had kept herself quiet until she arrived at home and jumped for joy in her room. Now Sam was still annoyed to see Danny with anyone else, but she wouldn't stoop to the level of celebrating their failings behind their backs. Well, not in a jumping-up-and-down kind of way, at least.
But perhaps the kissy stuff, if that came these days, wouldn't make everything shallower. Maybe they'd grown enough that their relationship could change without dumbing down.
'Nope, don't think about it yet. You'll know when the time is right,' said Sam's conscience, 'and you know it's not now.'
She'd done some stupid things the past few years, too – the occasional piece of Valentine's candy slipped in a backpack or locker, jokes about Danny's choice in girls, too much teasing for tiny reasons. But overall it'd gone well.
Just then Danny left Lancer's classroom in the usual blue jeans, a white shirt and a red vest.
"How'd it go?" asked Sam nervously, biting her lip a little. Lancer had wanted to talk about something, but nobody had any idea exactly what. He didn't seem to want to say.
Danny grinned, one of those wide toothy grins. "Lancer saw me going ghost."
Sam gasped.
"Don't worry, though," he said cheerfully. "Come on…let's walk." And so they started walking, eventually to leave the building.
"Why shouldn't we worry?" whispered Sam. "There's so much he could mess up…"
"He couldn't believe his own eyes anyway," said Danny calmly. "He just told me he saw me go behind the dumpster behind the school and Danny Phantom flew out a couple seconds later."
"Wow. How did you get out of that one?"
"I gave him a story about going behind the dumpster to catch the ghost, but the ghost wasn't me…blah blah blah. Lancer just got a little spooked, so to speak, but he's totally convinced I'm all-human. I'll tell you," Danny added, "people just don't want to believe I'm half-ghost. It should be crystal-clear by now."
Sam nodded. "That was really close, Danny."
As the two began to leave the school, to step out onto the front steps, Tucker's car arrived in front of them.
"How was the meeting?" asked Danny.
"Great!" said Tucker. "We're getting three new computers by the end of the week..." and he continued to drone on about technology as Sam and Danny jumped in the car.
"Hey," said Sam when she saw Paulina's expensive, fancy white and pink car go past Tucker's old green and gray used one. "You know who I haven't heard about from you guys for...months, actually?"
"Who?" chorused the boys.
"Paulina."
Tucker shrugged. "I dunno. Plenty of fish in the sea." Right on cue, he tried to wink at the (older) girl in the car behind him.
"I've...gotten a little tired of her," Danny confessed, ignoring Tuck.
"You mean you've come to your senses," Sam said, smirking.
"No, not really. I'm still the same beef-eating shallow hormone-driven male I've always been," said Danny teasingly, "but we get tired of being rejected after about the millionth time."
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Two Nasty burgers, one veggie burger, a ghost fight and a car ride later, The Terrific Trio sat on the floor of Danny's room with a set of shoeboxes. One was Sam's, large because of her huge boots. The others were Danny's and Tucker's, and everyone had pictures and notes stuffed in their boxes. Most of those keepsakes centered around The Trio or, later, Valerie.
Memories surfaced, from bad dates to the time Danny, Tucker, Sam, and Valerie got slimed. Paulina scowled at the camera. Junior and senior proms went flying by, as did awkward moments under Christmas mistletoe and indescribably strange birthday gifts from the Fenton family. Jazz went to college(and sent mail constantly).The Box Ghost was paid to haunt Dash's locker ("it is shaped like a long box," argued Danny). Sam wore vampire fangs and a cape for Halloween. Tucker won recognition in the technology department in school. Lancer finished off a messy piece of cake in front of the class.
Notes had been passed, too - everything from impolite doodles of teachers to questions about the homework to minor flirtation. Comments about class. Anticipation of weekends. Secrets that didn't need to remain so --
"Hey, remember this?" asked Danny excitedly. He showed Sam and Tuck a note from years ago that he'd found in his locker.
"Oh, how could I forget that," said Sam, smiling. 'Wow,' she thought. 'Have I really been keeping that secret for three years?'
But after that much time has passed, things that happened in freshman year just don't hold as much interest, and the three friends were preoccupied with remembering people whose names they knew.
The three ended up going for a walk downtown. They had just gotten to talking about college when they saw the front of the cinema.
"Flight Hazard IV: Vengeance of a Monster? Four in three years?" laughed Tucker.
"Must be really low-budget," answered Sam.
"Remember that night we were throwing popcorn? During the first one?" Danny asked.
"Yeah," said Sam and Tuck together.
"That was fun." Danny seemed to space a little bit to his two best friends after that moment, but what he was really thinking was the way that entire day had changed the way he saw one of them.
Danny didn't consider himself a lot deeper than he'd been before - he just considered himself much more experienced in every sense of the word, from school and personal life to ghost fighting and "the contest contrary to corruption," as his Phantom half would call it. There was still that central sense of self everyone has, though.
And yet, over the years, Danny realized he wouldn't mind if Sam was crazy about him. In fact, he was pretty disappointed to learn that letter hadn't been hers.
At first, as Danny had thought about it, he'd realized how logical Tucker had been - Sam really did drop hints all the time. Honestly, who makes out with people just for a distraction?
But after that note, even when he'd looked for those hints, they hadn't really been there. She'd even gone out with that other kid for a while, and Danny felt jealous, but tried not to let it show too much. He hoped it passed off easily as mere dislike for Sam's sort-of boyfriend. Funny thing, though, about the daySam hadbroken up with the punk. Danny had run home and jumped for joy in the bedroom.
Oh, not that he wanted them to be unhappy. He just selfishly wasn't crushed to see them unhappy with each other.
---
A week later, Sam threw a very quiet graduation party for Danny, Tucker, Valerie, and herself; Jazz also stopped by for a little while to obsess over her little brother and his little friends and how much they all meant to her and how much she looked forward to keeping up the ghost-hunting work, if that was necessary, of course - not that she wanted more ghosts to attack the town or anything --
"Thanks, Jazz," said Sam after this had gone on for a minute.
"I'm glad we all know now," Danny said with relief. "It's a drag having to be all secretive."
"You still have to keep it from most people," Valerie pointed out. "Like your parents. And Mr. Lancer."
"Yeah," Danny replied, grinning mischievously, "but I wouldn't tell them half the stuff about my life, anyway."
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That evening, before going to bed, Danny wrote a note with his left hand.
"Someone is mad about you, but he's too shy to say anything."
And the next day, he left it in Sam's mailbox, then played stupid when she asked if he had written it.
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A/N: Those weren't the fireworks, as it wasn't the last chapter. Neener.