Author's Note: I still don't own Danny Phantom or any of its characters.

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He didn't have much time to ponder her meaning, as the giant flaming entity picked up a car and hurled it across the parking lot toward a group of students who hadn't yet boarded buses or run. He used the net he'd been forming to tangle the car, slowing it and pitching it from its original trajectory. It landed in a heap of twisted, burning metal in a patch of bare lawn.

He shouted at the kids to get out of the way, but even so he knew he had to get the thing away from the parking lot where it could cause so much damage. He let a pool of energy build in each of his hands and looked the ghost over for weak spots. Before it could make another Toyota into a flaming missile, he let two bursts of energy fly from his hands into the ghost's face. He knew it wouldn't stop the thing. It probably wouldn't even hurt it. But it got its attention.

It turned its massive body until it fixed its glowing red eyes on the source of annoyance, a black-clad ghost that was darting around it. It took a swipe with one mighty armored arm and missed, much as a gorilla might miss an annoying fly. Danny smiled and headed around the side of the school building, past the football field, down a sloping hill to the edge of the woods. As far from people as he could get.

The huge ghost swiped at Danny again, then realized it might be easier to just send a wave of fiery ectoplasm his way. Danny barely avoided it, then gathered his strength to send what looked like a lightning bolt toward the larger ghost. The bolt of energy took on a physical form, like an arrow, and actually made a dent in the giant's armor. Part of him wished that Sam could see him, see the new powers he'd mastered over the last few years. But most of him was glad she was safe on the other side of the...

"The thermos! Where is it?" he heard her voice from nearby, behind him. He groaned. "Sam, I told you, stay back! There's..."

He was cut off by a red projectile from his opponent that looked harmless until it exploded in a mushroom cloud of fire just a few inches from him. He went intangible a millisecond before it roasted him and looked around for Sam. She was crouched beneath a picnic table, which, he had to admit, wasn't much protection against this sort of ghost. He had to get her away.

"The thermos doesn't work on this guy. On any of them." As he yelled to her, he darted behind and around the massive spectre, trying to confuse and distract it. "Now get out...of...the...way!"

Each of the last words was punctuated by the release of a whip-cord of ectoplasm from his hands, each strand tangling itself around a limb of the monster. Danny drew them together, hoping to topple the beast, but as seemed to be his luck lately the whole thing backfired. The ghost used the threads like a fishing line, dragging Danny in toward him, pounding the much smaller half-ghost against the ground until it shook.

Danny shook his head and blinked, looking up at the creature standing over him. It raised one huge, fireball-filled hand and pinned Danny to the ground with its other. Danny struggled to break free. At the last second, when he knew with an unpleasant certainty that he was going to eat ectoplasmic fire as his last meal, something black streaked along his line of vision.

Dammit all, it was Sam! She threw a rock--a rock!--at the fiery ghost. It bounced from the ghost's armor like a pebble against a high-rise. But the creature looked. Looked and laughed. It laughed so hard its entire body shook. The ground shook again. And as it reached down to grab Sam, presumably to crush her like a bug, Danny shot free. And he saw it. The spot he'd have to go for. Just at the back of the thing's neck there was a spot where head armor met body armor. A weakness. He'd found a similar spot on each of them so far. Thankfully.

He concentrated all the energy he had into a beam of ectoplasm and aimed it at the back of the giant's neck. It howled in fury as it spun on him, the tiny human woman forgotten. And then it dissipated in a spectacular show of fireworks that showered the back of the schoolyard in cinders, thick and heavy like snow.

Danny closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath of relief, then swooped down for Sam. She was lying on the ground, blood trickling from a gash in her forehead. For just a second his heart stopped. Well, would have if he hadn't been a ghost that didn't technically have a heart. But she moved, looked up at him, and grinned an unmistakably Sam-like grin. He grabbed her, turned them both invisible and flew away toward the only place he could think of, which was his beige apartment.

"Why didn't you stay? And what the hell was that thing, anyway? And why wouldn't the thermos work? When did you get that lightning-bolt thing? Why didn't you just use the Ghostly Wail on it?" She hadn't stopped with the questions since they'd left the school, and he hadn't answered a single one. He phased through the side of his apartment building and deposited her on his futon. It only took a second to change back to human form. He fought the urge to slump down next to her in exhaustion.

"It takes too much out of me still, and it wouldn't have stopped him anyway." He sat down on a nearby chair and closed his eyes. "Why didn't you stay back?"

"Wait a minute," she said as she sat forward on the futon. "The Ghostly Wail wouldn't stop it? What was that thing?"

He sighed and stood up, heading for the tiny galley of a kitchen. A minute later, after bumping his head on the cupboard door, he came back with a damp paper towel. He started to reach forward to wipe the blood from her forehead but stopped himself, instead handing it to her with a shrug. "Your head is bleeding."

She took the cloth without a word and pressed it to her forehead, her eyes searching his face as she did. "You really wish I hadn't come, don't you?"

He dropped back into his chair. "Don't be silly." He didn't even sound convincing to himself. "It's good to see you. I just wish you hadn't gotten in the middle of that fight. These aren't the ghosts we fought when we were kids. You could have been killed."

She laughed, a small smug laugh, so familiar it might have been hours she'd been away not years. "I don't know if you noticed, but it was you that was almost killed. I seem to recall saving you back there."

He stood up again. As tired as he was, he didn't seem to be able to stay in one place. "Sam, it's not a joke. This is..."

The doorbell rang, saving him. He walked over to the door quickly and yanked it open. Two uniformed police officers stood on the other side.

"Mr., uh, Fenton?" One of them spoke as he read from a notepad. Danny nodded. "There's been an incident at the school. We were just wondering if you saw anything."

Danny slipped his hands in his pockets. "No. Actually, Miss Manson and I," he nodded toward Sam who had quickly shaken her hair over the cut on her forehead, "left the school a while ago."

The policeman looked him over. "Well, you'll be glad to know that none of your students were injured." He didn't have to add "no thanks to you, coward," but it was implied. They thought he'd run away, abandoning his students to their fate. He swallowed. "Well, uh, thanks for letting me know."

The cop nodded. "If you decide you saw anything, just let us know, ok?"

He shut the door and turned back toward Sam. She half-smiled. "You know and I know."

He shrugged. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" He figured it was safer to get her on another subject. Any other subject. She shrugged. "I twisted my ankle a little. Nothing major. Stop changing the subject. Why can't you use the thermos on that ghost? And where did it go?"

He knelt in front of the futon and tugged off her boot. He could hear her suck in a breath as she winced at the pull. Her ankle was swollen and black and blue. If she'd left it much longer he'd have had to cut the boot off. "You need some ice on this."

"You're changing the subject again. What's going on with that thing? And why..."

He was already gone, rummaging around in his freezer. He pulled out one sorry tray with three ice cubes in it, tossed it in the sink, narrowly avoided hitting his head on the cupboard door, and walked back into the living room. The neighbors no doubt wondered at the burst of light that came from his windows as he changed into a ghost. Sam probably wondered if he'd lost his mind until he sat next to her on the futon, pulled her leg onto his lap, and wrapped his gloved hands gingerly around her injured ankle. Then she smiled as the cold from his hands radiated through the swollen joint.

"Nice one." She relaxed, letting his cold fingers ease the pain in her ankles.

"Tell me about your company. I eat your energy bars every day."

She leaned forward with a dazzling smile on her lips. Those lips.

Valerie was somewhere above them, going on about "loser love". Somewhere, a ghost dog was doing heaven knew what. But it was really hard to think with Sam on top of him, her lips locked on his. He stared at her for a full minute afterward, until she asked if he knew it was just another "fakeout make-out".

"Cardboard and dog food," he muttered, distracted.

"What!"

He blinked twice, hoping he didn't have the same goofy expression on his face as he'd had when they were fourteen and hiding his secret from Valerie Gray. "The competition. The other brands that aren't yours. Taste like cardboard and dog food. Not like yours. Yours are good. I can't believe your parents would help you with a..."

She looked like she might slap him. "Help me? Help me! I started that company without one bit of help from my parents. They've done nothing but tell me it was a bad idea, that I was going to fail." She looked down at her hands. "Which is probably the only reason I really worked so hard at it. "

He smiled at her words as he forced his eyes open. He was listening. But he was so tired... His fingers, which had been massaging her ankle, slowed as he felt himself drifting off to sleep.

He was awakened by a shriek. He jumped a foot in the air, sending Sam tumbling to the floor. He bumped his head on the floor lamp next to the futon and sent it crashing to the floor, which in turn plunged the room into darkness. He went for the light switch, nearly tripping over Sam, then looked around the room thinking he'd see a ghost. All he saw was Sam, rubbing her elbow where it had hit the carpeted floor. Then he realized the shriek had come from her. Her face was even paler than usual, and her eyes were rimmed in red.