I open my eyes

by Seraphine Rose

Sometimes when your about to lose something very precious, you have to open your eyes to understand. I'm not very good at summarizing, its DS and JT rated for suicide and general angst. WIP

2. Welcome to my life

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A/N Well, I don't think I've ever received such good reviews! Thank you to all of you who replied, and as requested I will be continuing this story but please don't flame me if it sucks, I rarely if ever continue a fic (especially if I originally intended it to be a one shot) and I'm afraid that as I'm writing this I am completely out of inspiration. It will probably not be nearly as tear-jerking as the last chapter but I'm writing it in the A.M. hours. I hope it exceeds expectations and I haven't disappointed anyone! However I write this anyway, and I do hope you like it! No flames please, constructive criticism welcome (though I do know I suck at grammar), oh! I didn't really know how the trio met (to be honest I don't really know much about this fandom) so I apologize if this isn't the way things happened, it just seemed to fit in with my plot. With that all said! Read and Review! Oh, for the record, I know I'm evil, just wanting to clear that up. Read and Review!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Danny Phantom (nickelodeon) or the song 'Welcome to my Life'(simple plan) so please do not sue me.

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you

Parents are supposed to have all the answers, to smooth away nightmare in the deepest gloom and chase the ghosts from beneath dust ruffles and behind closet doors; Parents are supposed to make everything okay when nothing in the world seems to be right. Why, when they needed them most, did all the answers simultaneously vanish? Why did the world turn upside down without providing the wisdom to straighten it? Why did the safe security blanket of youth come off when all adults were unprepared to set things right?

Why did his teenage son take all this in better stead then him? Jack Fenton watched the neon orange fabric of his jump suit bunch around his sagging thighs. Time waited for no mortal man, the concept of his own mortality terrified him; he fought ghosts daily but it did not turn back the hands of the clock. Everyday he discovered another wrinkle, one more graying hair, one more sign of the approaching end and the knowledge that every day was one more step taken to that endless rest. It was a chilling realization.

He wanted to blame himself for not seeing the girls' suffering, Jack wanted to say he could have prevented it and saved the children from the grief hovering over them like a black, choking fog; honesty was never strong in his character but once neither was neglect and he had shown so much of that.

When did Danny grow up? Where was he when the once little toddler stopped hiding beneath his fathers age beaten shadow, when did he become the man Jack could never pretend to be? He wanted to say he led Danny to that point, been the strong father figure that shaped a young man's moral fibers, but a shrewd conscious told him that he would have had to been there to have a hand in the wonderful man his son was becoming.

What had he been protecting his family from all this years? An imaginary enemy to protect the harsh reality of the true terrors of the world, an obsession spanning three decades to hide an inner fear of self worthlessness? The letter had been 'ghost free', Jack checked it himself but now looking at it in the faint light he knew no test in the world could cure it of the real ghosts, could take the terror out of his sons sleeping face. As a ghost hunter, as a man, as a father he should have protected his children from this horror and as an adult should have protected the other two from the darkness. Why, then, had he not?

The letter sat carefully folded on the small table at the boys' bedside, innocent and deadly in one small package. Even though just slightly glowing from the shady lamp light, tear stains burned through the paper, dripping the ink down the page, a silent mourning that spoke more words then the poor boy could ever had put to use. Love could not always be spoke in words, and it seemed his son knew more about that then he. It took strength for a man to shed a tear and Jack wondered, would he have the courage to cry if it were, say, Maddie, or Jazz….or Danny? Although he could not admit it in so many words, it frightened him that he could not answer that, could not know if the deaths of those he loved would grip him as powerful as that girls' attempt had Danny. Jack hoped he would never need to find out.

Sweat glistened on his sons pale brow, and Jack quietly smoothed away the wrinkles on the cold forehead, watching him suffer the horrors a father should be there to guide their son through. In sleep he saw the small child that once depended on him for surety and safety, the child that stood on the edge of adulthood, peering over, the child he was afraid to let go of. Doing so would be allowing him to make the same mistakes Jack himself had made. Already he suffered the choices of his heart and Jack tried to blame the girl who stole the love of his child, to blame it on careless thoughts and heartless actions, to blame it on the hurting soul whose room stood beside theirs, but he could not find it in himself to do that. Children, young adults suffered the teaching and actions of the generations before them…They were at fault for being so blind as not to see a child's pain. Danny, Tucker, Sam, even Jazz, though they were growing up at such an alarming rate they were still children, scared, anxious, unsure.

Guilt ate away at Jack as he lovingly smoothed his sons' rich onyx hair, brushing the unruly locks from the boys gently closed eyes. A painful sore felt as though it ripped open a hole in his soul, love and regret fighting for dominance in his heart as he watched the boy doze in his peaceful, untouchable dreams. Just when his son needed him the most was when Jack discovered himself failing, falling from the cloud that he gazed at the world from all these years. Was it to late to help his son?

Parents are supposed to have all the answers, but all Jack seemed to have was the questions.

Do you ever wanna runaway?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming

Why did people fear the darkness and the shadows that crept from room to room? What could be feared in their conscious mind that did not lie within their breast, within the very walls of their mind?

The shadows moved across the blandly painted ceiling, puppets to a masterful puppeteer pulling strings just beyond vision; perfection in death, perfection in life for they seemed to pass between both worlds, a message of hope and disappointment to mortals with either both, or neither. One never passed with out the other, such as darkness and light, light and shadow. Hope and disappointment intermingled with sunrise when you possessed them, and when you lost them you were left with only the darkness of your soul and the pain of your hand.

Her deep lilac iris' tracked the movement of the puppets across their stage, mind focused on the deep darkness within her that fueled them, gave them life and her hope. Death came with the loss of just one emotion, numbness followed and then the waking, but always the numbness, the emptiness, the loss. Hope fueled a soul like oxygen fueled fire and here she lay suffocating in her own pain and decay awaiting the welcomed darkness and the first breath air; they took away her hope for a mortals end but she could still have minor death, momentary sleep. Sam could still have her darkness.

Nothing could take from her the color that surrounded her whole existence, it permeated her skin like a familiar perfume and, after sixteen years of fermenting, finally tainted her heart; darkness could not disregard you it merely allowed you to exist with in it and welcomed its children to return to its all encompassing embrace. It was the best friend of a lonely heart and even it now forsook her, as all others had. What use did the world have for he, a broken heart so caught up in her own misery she pleaded with blood for someone to see her in a stereotyped world, but who would see the worthless little maggot cloaked in ebony, drifting through a world of model smiles and charming laughs. Who notices coal when they have a diamond?

Sometimes it was as if the darkness was suffocating her, that a black hole was slowly ripping her soul from her body, crushing her under itself until she gave in, collapsed upon her self and it could separate them and making her the empty shell of a girl she had become. She cut to feel a pain rather then that of nothingness, to remember the rush of emotion, any emotion, to rehumanize herself. Each drop of blood felt warm to her cold heart, the knife that drew it the only friend who could understand. Still it came, day after day, especially in the shadows, a stone of guilt and self hated forcing her to carry its weight on her chest until her ribs cracked and dam broke, sucking every breath she had from her, taking her appetite, breaking her mirrors, her scale, failing the classes and crying the tears Sam's soul could not until nothing remained but a whisper of a flame, of a person who had the life squeezed from them. Nothing but a memory.

What was suicide? Welcome darkness, a return from hell to home, at least in Sam's mind, and the ultimate punishment for a being who had no right to continue their pitiful existence when they could rid their loved ones and their world of the burden of befriending a whiny, self absorbed bitch. Her nails bit into her fat, fleshy thighs until she felt hot blood flow down her fingers, warming her frigid soul; she longed for a knife to take her from this meaningless existence but no dice, once burned twice shy. No one would ever leave her to her own devices again. But she would find away, she always did. That was what freaks did.

Her eyes roamed over the ceiling as pain dug through the hole she longed to plug, to fill with the missing pieces of herself long since vanished with the light. Shadows were so misunderstood, the darkness feared because it was something no one could place, it was different and thus made evil by humanities sick beliefs of normality. Damn them, Damn them all! She wanted to cry, to scream and the animalistic rage built up in her throat but could find no escape; She had loved him more then the darkness because he could save her and he turned the other cheek…she was worthless and he knew that, she was weird, she was ugly, she was stupid. Damn Danny, Damn Tucker! Couldn't they understand why she'd done this? Why did they have to search her out, why did they have to save the one person who did not want to be saved? They couldn't see in her pain, why did they have to on the brink of her freedom?

Tears burned her eyes, liquid fire that she longed to tear into and rip out, wanting to leave herself cold to the pain she could not escape, in the dark without view of the light she could never have. Sam was not afraid of the dark, how could she be when the darkness was all that could absorb the shadows of her tattered soul to dance with the remainders of other on the ceiling, scaring the ignorant and crying for the lost.

No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me

It hurt, it hurt like hell and there was no medicine in the world that could stop it from doing just that.

He knew she would pass by, that she would offer advice and the shoulder that he never felt the need to use, that she would show the calm, ever calculating persona that served her so well in a family of the strange and unusual. With her life, it was no wonder she kept a strict rein on herself, on her beliefs, on her goals. He knew nothing meant more to her then composure and surety.

What he did not know was that she would be the first to lose it and that roles would reverse for a moment, and knowing it had to be done hurt in a vein so estranged from everything it didn't have a name. It came like a sharp slap in the face, maybe of reality, maybe of mortality. Fighting the urge to double over with the sharp take to the chest he felt, the mental equivalent of a punch below the belt, he had to steady his breath at the sight of a fallen angel, beautiful in her sorrow.

Tucker never was the romantic type and in such a situation as this it hardly seemed the moment to try to be but the consequences of ignoring his instincts lead them here to begin with and to walk away…to walk away was the burn of a second times ignorance.

It needn't be asked what broke the angels' wings, the same event opened his eyes to the reality of technology and the plastic smile and he could offer little assurance or support when his own mind still whirled and spun. Their worlds had been turned upside down by their own negligence and a friends sorrow. Still, Tucker sat beside the weeping red head, her hair a stark reminder of his fiery friend, wrapped his jacket gently around her shivering figure, and took her shaking hand carefully in his, afraid her nails might draw blood from her arms. Neither needed that after the previous night.

"It scares me" she whispered, her voice was thin and reedy from all the crying she seemed to have been doing and the brokenness echoing in her voice was another sucker punch to his already unsteady mind. If she was scared, what hope was there for the rest of them? When the sane grows insane, what happens to those already lost in the throws of madness? Before he could question her words, she continued solemnly

"So many years of preparing for the worst, of steadying myself against the fall, trying to make the world saner…one girl toppled that over in a single twitch of her wrist, doing the one thing I was to sensible, to scared to do. I did everything to make sense of the world, to add security in to my unsteady life…and she makes more sense then any diagnosis or book ever could."

What could he say? Inside his pocket the technological face, the keys that brought forth the words he feared to say, clinked together as a dangerous reminder of what brought them here. Being illogical to make logical sense of the world around them, for him surety came in technology, for her psychology, for Sam…

"Jazz…" She too seemed to realize the guilt of them all, for not stopping her and for not being her, and it gnawed at his stomach, as he was sure it gnawed at hers. The nausea rose in him and he bit down the bile hovering in his throat for fear it would leave nothing but his soul for the guilt to gnaw upon. He waited in vain for the silence to break but only the sound of their quiet breaths and the nighttime chill through the leaves broke it; the quiet brought too much to his mind, left to many unanswered questions. Why? The question had echoed through his mind, the last jolt of a horror movie…he longed to press rewind on this nightmare and bring it back to the beginning, to stop this insanity. Digging at the loose cement with his fingernails, fighting back the sting of hot liquid at the corner of his eye he managed a soft, choked reply to easy the spinning confusion fluttering behind closed eyelids, spinning colors, loud yet silent words, crying, pain, tears, anger…why…why…

"Why?" he did not sob, but the words came out strangled and forced. No he couldn't cry like her, like Danny, not even like Sammy…he felt as though he would explode like a shaken up soda bottle, the emotions building to a point he didn't think he'd survive to see. The roles were back to normal, the fallen angel, his fallen angel back to her composed sisterly role. Tuckers eyes squeezed close, his jaw clenched in expectation for the collapse of his inner walls, his steady composure was failing him and it took everything he had to keep from crumbling before the tall red head. When his breaths grew short, and he saw spots in lue of his panic attack, Tucker felt a lifesaver being thrown to him.

He had been pulled into Jazz's arms, her head burrowed itself into the crook of his neck and her arms tightened around him in a death grip desiring support and sustenance, all of which he was willing to give. Holding her close, he let a tear or two fall onto her shoulder as she shed a few of her own, each acting as a sponge for the others sorrow.

Neither knew how long they sat like that, heads leaned for support, arms drawn tightly around each other, but Tucker felt the lessening of the burden. Suddenly he wasn't alone in this, drowning silently in his pain. While the world saw his smile, his composed face waving happily, Jazz saw the mirror image of her own soul and saved him from a self-built grave…so alike and so different. They drew apart from each other, neither dry eyed or healed but slowly arriving to that point; Tuckers eyes drew abruptly to hers, the aquamarine orbs overflowed with silent sorrows and endless hopes, truly depthless seas and the boy held tightly to her hand in fear of falling in.

"You can't answer that question Tucker, no one can not even Sam herself" Her lips formed words, but his soul took them in the stead of his ears for as her mouth spoke these words, her lips brushed the clammy skin of his forehead. "All you can do Tucker is prepare to help her out of this in any way you can, to fight for her even when she's given up…why isn't important, what is important is making sure she doesn't end up in the hospital bed again. You and Danny have to catch her when she falls" He nodded, mind coming to grips, once again, with the gravity of this situation, his eyes following her as she shivered with cold and rose to go inside. With one last thought in mind he called out

"Who will catch you?" but all he received was a sad sort of smile as she disappeared in to the friendless hospital.

It did hurt; it hurt like hell to watch an angel fall.

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down

What was life but a meaningless string of days bound together by forgotten memories and unreachable hopes with a few relationships thrown into the mix, and what was death but the unbinding of that book, the ending of one tale and beginning of another. Did fate have a hand in the future of one scared young woman, or was she indeed her own fate? Had fate chosen its martyr the moment she made her first incision?

Danny gently dabbed the young Goth's face with a cool cloth, praying to bring the blazing fever down and the girl back into the living world. She had woken from her dark dreams just to be snatched away by hallucinations and a 104.5 fever that did not seem to want to break. The sheets were twisted around her ankles and bunched tightly inside white knuckled fists; Doctors said it was an infection, that this lessened the girls' chances of surviving this. Only Danny had been able to store away the pain and face a night of chilling the fever and easing the nightmares she awoke to.

Kissing her forehead felt like pressing his lips to a hot iron, and his silent tears mingled with her sweat. Growling he tossed the rag across the room and rose, pacing the room in a furor, his head spinning in his hands, or perhaps that was the floor? Something had to give and he wasn't sure how long it would be until he snapped again, until the little pillar of strength within him collapsed upon itself and he was left to shrivel into nothing.

He had read the letter over and over again, trying to read between the lines, to go back to the moment she wrote it and recreate what loose thoughts must have passed through Sammy's mind to cause her to go so far. Blank, nothing, the climax of a story withheld, replaced by a cliffhanger he despised. Still, the more he tried to see through Sammy eyes, the more happy memories that flooded his senses until he was drawn back years into the past, into moments that he could never forget..

With no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

Flashback 1: eight or nine years previous

Why, oh Why did his parents have to be the only parents on the block who attempted to demolecularize his friends? That would, of course, be saying he HAD friends which was a gross overstatement at best, most of the other kids were terrified of his insane parents as were his teachers…though that last one wasn't always a bad thing. At least Jazz could be considered mostly normal but she was his sister, it wasn't as though they could talk about anything substantial…

A subdued, eight year old Danny Fenton dragged himself down the sidewalk of Amity, head hung low and feet now and then kicking a rock to a point eight feet ahead of him. His childlike countance was increased by the locks of tousled dark hair falling in his baby blue eyes that screamed innocence, though now they were narrowed in a fit of fury.

'It's not fair' the youngster thought angrily, giving the rock an angry kick into traffic 'Everyone else has loving, caring parents but all mine do is ruin any chance I have of making friends.' His blue eyes watered in anger as his feet turned him into the park, and unknown force leading him from his usual straying path when he deigned to desert his ridiculous excuse for a home.

Earlier that day Danny's friend Dash had visited to play on his knew videogame box, but hopes of making a new friend were dashed when his father pounced the blue-eyed boys' young friend with ritual cries of "Ghost!" Now Dash was probably telling the entire fourth grade what a freak he was; feeling a sick bubbling in the pit of his stomach, he kicked a tree hard, his foot digging into the bark in an attempt to make something else feel the pain he was to young to know how to escape.

"Hey! What did the tree do to you!" a high pitched voice cried in annoyance, before he had the chance to discover the speakers hiding place something heavy, bony, and squeaky landed roughly on him, knocking Danny face first into the mud and getting a mouthful of it as he went. Kicking the wrongdoer in a warning to get off, the young boy rolled on his back coughing and pitting mud onto the ground, promising inwardly to kill whoever had the nerve to jump onto him from up in a tree.

"Listen you little-" his words were cut short when he opened his eyes to see the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever seen staring straight at him in a curious way. It was only then he noticed a sharp pain his side; the owner of the eyes was poking him! "Hey stop that!"

"Just making sure you wasn't dead" the squeaky voice responded very matter-of-factly, pushing the owner of the beautiful lavender eyes away, he sat up and took in who it was that had assaulted him. To his utter horror it wasn't a boy that sat before him but a girl, though at first glance Danny wasn't sure you could tell. She was so cover in mud and leaves it was rather hard to tell if she was human, let alone female. A low, mournful groan escaped his throat; being knocked down was one thing, but being knocked down by a girl masquerading as a boy? He would never live it down!

"Are you hurt? I wasn't meaning to fall, I guess I slipped" she shrugged and brushed some dirt off her pants "but you shouldn't been kicking the tree, it can't kick you back!"

"So YOU kicked me instead?" Danny replied dryly, only to wilt under the girls venomous glare

"Well you deserved it meany! Tree's have rights too and-" she continued on this vein of conversation for about five minutes, when the point came that she began to repeat herself Danny, in desperation, knocked her down and covered her mouth with both hands

"I. get. the. point. Now will you please shut up and tell me your name or leave me alone?"

"Technically I can't tell you my name and shut up at the same time" she girl quipped, only to receive a glare from Danny which, to his annoyance, seemed not to phase her in the slightest.

"My Name is Samantha, but if you're smart you'll call me Sam." Danny nodded and Sat up, pulling a leaf from her dark hair and studying her dark purple eyes

"I'm Danny, wanna play tag?"

Do you wanna be somebody else?
Are you sick of feeling so left out?
Are you desperate to find something more?
Before your life is over
Are you stuck inside a world you hate?
Are you sick of everyone around?
With their big fake smiles and stupid lies
While deep inside you're bleeding

When did life become so twisted?

Leaning against the doorframe of the young Goths room, a quiet, young woman contemplated the pair before her and the love that lead them to that point. Wrapped loosely on her shoulders was a single article of clothing causing more confusion then the suffering pair in the room, fighting their own inner wars.

'But who' she though bitterly 'isn't right now?' It seemed that everyone, young and old, sick and well, suffered the same pangs of doubt, the same throes of insecurity and the same questions that still went unanswered. But now Jazz felt her own emotions spill over into the sticky mess currently making up their lives, and suddenly the one who always had the answers couldn't even figure out something as simple as her heart.

The jacket smelled of cedars and snow, true representatives of the season, and it held a warmth in it as it hugged her shoulders with a pleasant, euphoric feeling. Taking a sip of coco from the beat up Styrofoam cup, and tossing her auburn locks over her shoulder, she swilled it and closed her eyes, listening to the methodical beep of heart machines and the occasional tear hitting the tile. Steam rose from within the cup, allowing her to feel warmth in the cold confusion tying her up in pleasant agony and heart wrenching uncertainty; hearing her brothers tears fall left Jazz with a feeling of helplessness uncommon to someone with such a definite grasp on life and nothing, it seemed, could overcome it.

As a little girl, Jazz believed that closing your eyes and counting to ten made everything okay again, it made the monsters become dirty clothes and the ghosts turn into tree branches outside her window. When tears were not soothed and fears left to stew, sometimes all a lonely little girl could have was a belief in the magic that made those horrors transform. Now, more then any other time, That scared little girl wished it would make the upside down world right itself and make her warped emotions settle into sanity.

No one had ever cared to know what she felt; no one asked the teacher if she wanted to learn, no one asked the helper if she needed help, and no one asked Jazz what kind of pain she held in her heart. It was her job to soothe everyone else's' souls, to make sense of their unsure lives even if it meant sacrificing a part of herself; Jazz loved being able to aide the heart ached, relieve the overburdened, save the lost. But no one had come to her when she ached, when the burden crushed her, when she was lost in her own tears, left in the dark to cry alone. No one, until him.

When did you know something was right, that it was okay to take a risk? Perhaps when the world collapsed and right became wrong, light dark, reality fantasy…was this a fairy tale or just the musing of a confused and broken heart? Life would be easier if it offered instructions on how to play, where to move when answers were just beyond sight and your heart had you lost inside itself, within a maze that showed no signs of life. Jazz lost herself inside a single thought entertained by a weary heart, the one the beat within her breast; he gave her hope, something so lacking in these times.

Tucker, the odd one whose grasp on reality seemed estranged from the common order, or perhaps cut to close to the shape of reality, Jazz could never tell. Like her, his heart buried itself beneath a thousand walls and locks to keep the soft fleshy part from feeling the wounds to sharply, taking the pain to acutely. Watching him rage in Sam's room had been heartbreaking, like watching a strong mountain crumble not from weight but from unsteady ground, unearthed pain spewing from misery's very core; it was heartrendingly beautiful. Jazz understood why the keys of a broken palm pilot clinked together in the boys pocket, even knowing what masking emotions did to a soul it was impossible to surrender ones own mask. She knew this all too well.

Perhaps the similarity of their singularity drew them to each other that evening, drew two broken hearts together in a bubble of humanity where they might together heal. They were both alone in their sorrows, each persons closets companions lost in their own sufferings, yet now Jazz felt pensive rather then depressed. He was Danny's best friend, the best friend of the girl that lead them to all this, what was he to her? Certainly not a passing stranger, another charity case, one more human to analyze in a mad quest to classify the world…if not that, then what?

It seemed an eternity had passed watching the two lovers wrap themselves silently around the others world, yet it had only been enough to time to allow the coco to cool to a gummy mess on the inside of the shoddy cup. Gazing at it with heavy aquamarine eyes, she pushed herself from the door jam and tossed the yuck into the nearest garbage pail.

If only all messes were so easily cleanable.

No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me

Memories flitted through the wake and dreaming, some riddled with the wracking pain of emotion scorned, others full of times more flavorful and gentle then those they faced now. Four children teetering on the edge of a cliff leading into the unknown expanse of adulthood remembered an innocence lost to them in one violent wrench, allowing, for at least three of them, a look back into their beginnings as a team, two in undecided emotions, the other in desperation to seek a gently place within a deadly briar. The fourth could not remember the pleasantness of youth, seeking warmth in the cold and finding nothing but records of her person failings.

Life, to them, once seemed so simple; to a child what else could a scheduled, carefree existence be? At least that was how it used to be, for three friends it was an endless paradise to find each other in a cold world where nothing, not even their dreams wielded to their cried and hurts. To the outsider it was pleasant reminiscence of something denied to her, yet a thing she thought one day might be within her grasp.

Jazz lay across four uncomfortable waiting room chairs, Tuckers jacket a comfort and a light giving her hope even when all seemed hopeless. It was inevitable she would have to return it but for now it served to hug her shoulders and warm her in the drafty corridors filled with winter chill; in her mind it was Christmas again, eight or nine year prior to this night, and thoughts of snow and vacation replaced anxious waiting and terrible silences. Eyes closing around a smile, she held the jacket closed and snuggled down into it, feeling sleep haze about her, not taking her into the land of nod but allowing her to lightly doze in her memories.

They jingled in his pocket, exactly fifty tiny buttons tossing about as a reminder of the past and the future. It had been gift, his handheld, after the other three cracked under the pressure of serving an overactive halfa; Tuckers parents were all to willing to occupy their boys mind with a screen, it saved them from answering any pressing questions their son might lay at their feet. It avoided a conflict all too easily and now he knew himself the fool for letting it slip beneath his net. Yet, despite its negative connotation, the memories surrounding it were rather pleasant in some aspects, not so much the object itself as the reason he had gotten it, the people who had destroyed his last three were the very people that saved him over and over again, in more ways then one. Hero's in so many ways to him, even as a child he looked up to the two onyx haired children and flaming red head. A small smile crossed his lips, the first allowed in three or four days. They were the strength behind his pillar, keeping him in line when he strayed and saving his ass when he screwed up. One by one he took each key from his pocket and dumped it into the snow bank, watching them pass through the condensation of his breath just to break the ice capped snow and sink to a frozen grave. 'For Sam' he thought 'For Danny, for Jazz' he paused as the last key weighed in his hand, considering it before stuffing it back into his pocket. Not all things should be forgotten. 'For me.'

The nurses had dimmed the blinding florescent lights, though it did not matter much to her, as she lay unmoving on the thin mattress, staring with deadened lavender eyes at the ceiling, zombie-like in her countance. She had made no complaint of the lights, her only sign of distaste a narrowing of dark eyes against the intense glow; now she was left with her darkness, staring at the pale beige, slightly stucco ceiling in remembrance of exactly what had brought her to this point. Sense told her to feel remorseful of her action, it had everyone sleepless in the waiting room and at her bedside when the fever refused to cool, when her eyes would not reveal themselves from beneath heavy lids. Yet, Sam steadfastly refused to do so. They could not see the brilliance of her death, a fading star merely blinking out into nothingness; it was what she wanted and the longing in her to feel the bite of a blade twisted like a tightly would coil in her stomach, part of it tightening around her heart and slowly killing her. Memories of a blooming rose, copper colored seas, and soothing lavender filled her senses and lulled her, the shadow deceiving her mind in its brambles to see the story play out on the nights' stage.

Dreams were medicine for any ail, if only for an hour or two, even if it had required drugging and a few hospital threats to get a person to that point, the baring of a overwhelming burden in exchange for rest was a beautiful trade for any man. Danny found this out as he snoozed peacefully under the watchful eyes of any who came to smooth out the wrinkles in the last untainted place left to him. Memories dance like nymphs before his slumbering mind, waiting for him to reach out and pick from the line the perfect recollection to return strength to his weary psyche and give him the ability to carry on the next day. From the open window came a breeze carrying on its wings the breath of a snowy winters' eve, inducing in Danny a thousand sights, and sounds, and memories long since forgotten, stashed away in a file drawer at the back of his conscious, dredged up in its owners time of need to be the medicine to cure the ache nothing else seemed to ease.

Together, unknowingly, the revisited places and times that gave them assurance of a better tomorrow, or perhaps no tomorrow.

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around

Flashback 2: Eight or nine years previous

Jack Frost passed in the night, breathing a snowy morn onto the occupants of Amity and leaving them to wake to a beautiful winter paradise, untouched by mortal man in its exquisiteness. At the early hours of the morning, announcements for delays and cancellations left tiny ears waiting anxious and eager to hear their schools name before donning winter wear and stumbling in exhilaration out to the playground Mother Nature so generously supplied them.

Only one boy, it seemed, did not summersault at the opportunity for a free day out of the clutches of Mrs. Bates, the horrid fifth grade witch who somehow had a masters in education, though what college would be so cruel was beyond his knowledge yet there she was, molding young minds safe in the confines of Casper Elementary. She was far different then Ms. Laurels who had hugged him farewell three weeks ago when his family packed up and moved only to settle down in a horror of a town.

Tucker hated Amity, and he especially hated the school and his peers. Daily it seemed, he returned home with gum on his pants, spit wads hardening in his hair, and more tape on the bridge of his glasses. Try as he might to make friends he was just weird, he was the 'new kid', the one no one in their right mind risked their social status to hang out with.

So, thus, he was miserable on the first snow day of the year. In his old town Tucker and his friends would be out building snow forts and snowmen, seeing who could win a sledding race and engaging the girls in a boys against girls snowball fight. Now he was just shuffling through the snow, freezing, lonely, and wet when…

Smack! Something cold, wet, and drippy smacked into the back of his head causing him to shudder as part of the slushy snowball dripped down his jacket, into his shirt. Thinking it was some of the boys from school come to pick on him he looked at the ground and started to shuffle off, thoroughly beaten down.

"Daniel Fenton look what you made me do! Are you alright?" A gentle, gloved hand landed on his shoulder and he turned to meet a concerned pair of aqua eyes.

---

Danny was such a pest! Truly, there was no denying the true irritation caused by a little brother, especially when aided by his partner in crime and best friend. Supposedly, it was an every-man-for-himself snowball fight but Jazz had the sneaking suspicion she was being plotted against by the other two, not the she really minded. What better way to spend a free day then legally beating up two pesky children and going home to a steaming mug of coco?

Rolling a particularly sopping handful of snow into a sphere, Jazz approached, stalking as best as a ten-year-old not yet adapted to her body can. The target of her mock anger dashed by, shooting her a fearful yet mischievous look as he passed and she aimed, watching the boy pass through one eye before tossing the projectile as hard as she could at her anticipated target. Unfortunately, moments before, the boy dodged in front of another young boy and it hit him squarely in the head rather then her pest of a brother. Sometimes she doubted she could share any genes with that boy.

"Daniel Fenton" she shrieked, her voice high pitched and child-like "Look what you made me do! Are you alright?" she put her hand on the boys shoulder, concerned that he seemed to act like a dog who had been beaten by his master and was now slinking away with his tail between his legs. When he turned to face her, Jazz offered an apologetic smile and studied his face, trying to frown as he did. Was this the boy Danny had told her about? The one Dash always beat up on? The tape on his glasses and the remains of a two week old black eye gave him away and, in the spirit of the unscheduled school holiday, held out her hand to shake his.

"My Brother is a dufus, I'm Jasmine Fenton, Jazz for short and am unfortunately related to that little toad over there." From behind a tree, Danny Fenton grinned sheepishly and tugged on something to his left, causing an amused Sam Manson to poke a bright red nose out from her hideout. Slipping and sliding down the hill, they stumblingly approached the two, Sam first followed by Danny who, about halfway down lost his footing and fell on Sam who landed hard in the snow with her best friend on top of her, and together they rolled the rest of the way, landing in a tangled heap in a wet snow bank

"Danny Fenton you are SO Dead" Jazz heard Sam muffled growl and stifled an laugh, glancing over at the boy she saw a sad look pass over his features before he gave an amused smile.

"Its not my fault you can't keep your balance!"

"I had 100 pounds of dead weight falling on me, what do you expect!" The bickering continued on until the irritated friend managed to, with little incident (except ice down Sam's shirt and some snow in Danny's boxers) reach the pair waiting on the unshoveled cobblestone walkway.

"Hi, I'm Sam, you're the new guy aren't you?" she asked, looking the boy up and down "That coat better be synthetic fur, killing animals is wrong and-" Danny's hand shot out to cover her mouth while he and Jazz simultaneously rolled their eyes.

"I apologize on her behalf for the fool she's making of herself"

---

"I apologize on her behalf for the fool she's making of herself" Danny gave the boy an amused smile, making quite a show of ignoring the lavender eyes giving him a death glare. "Ouch! She bit me!" he cried, drawing his hand back sharply and smacking the girls arm "You bit me!"

"You deserved it" came the dry retort. Rolling his eyes, Danny turned back to the boy and held out his hand. If memory served, the boy was Dash's newest punching bag and the popular kids newest throw rug replacing Danny as biggest loser on campus; the boy had seemed nice enough but very reclusive, he never seemed to be anywhere the populars weren't and, being the intelligent child he was, Danny didn't dare interfere with them.

"I'm Danny Fenton, this little nuisance ("Hey!") is my best Friend Sam Manson, who are you?" The boy shifted nervously and the threesome gave him an encouraging smile, Danny thought that if he could only get the boy to open up perhaps the threesome could become a foursome, they did need another for snowball war and sled racing.

"Tucker Foley" came the squeaky reply, an unsure smile revealing his anxiousness about this situation. Sad as the situation was, Danny presumed they were the first to truly act welcoming to the newbie.

"Come play with us! We need another boy so that Jazz and I can beat Danny's butt in a snowball fight!" Sam said, giggling and tugging her gloves up, waggling her eyebrow's challengingly at the new boy. Though at best the lavender eyed girl irritated everyone around her, including her best friend, Danny knew no one better at making a lonely child feel welcome when no one else would or could. After all who had been the one to include him a year ago? Grinning merrily, the noire-haired boy clapped his hand on their new friends' shoulder, taking Sam's bait and thinking the odds of thoroughly thrashing his sister and best friend were considerably heightened with this happy turn of events.

"I think Tucker and I can more then take a couple of girls! What do you think Tuck?" Suddenly it was as though someone had filled the new boy with life, he was like a deflated balloon suddenly allowed air. The three friends were thoroughly pleased with the reaction, yet it was short lived much to everyone's distaste.

"Definit -"

"Hey Noob! Or should I say boob! I thought you were a loser before Fenton, but hanging out with four eyes here, I didn't think you could sink any lower!" Harsh jeers rang across the snowy park, the words colder then the frosty snow below them; as fast as Tuckers face had brightened did it fall. Jazz could be seen gripping Sam's shoulders in an attempt to keep her from launching

herself at the overstuffed peacock, Danny himself hardly managed to restrain the fury coursing through him as he saw his new friends countance sag. When he started to shuffle away to wallow in his melancholy, an unexpected voice rang out over the frost.

"At least my brother gave up Tellytubby pajamas Dash," Jazz said, glowering at the boy evenly beneath heavy lashes, baring to everyone a notoriously sharp tongue and quick wit. "No, wait, it was Barney pajamas I saw you sleeping in when I babysat you last week, that's right! It went real well with your dinosaur sheets and the plastic liner, oh, and those oh-so-adorable puppy slippers." The other three gaped at her, unable to comprehend the words spilling out from her thinly drawn mouth. Dash! Barney pajama's?

Mouth opening and closing like a fishes might, Dash had the good grace to blush right to the roots of his perfectly conditioned blond hair. Unable to retort, the words seemingly drying up on his tongue, he strode menacingly forward showing his brawn (he certainly never showed any brains) and grabbing the mouthy redhead by the collar, eyes glaring down from the face of a boy scorned in his element. The other three sprang forward in alarm when they saw Dash raise a fist, meaning to strike the girl. None knew what to do and passed glances between each other anxiously, each wracking their brain for a solution, something to make Dash leave Jazz be.

"Jazz!" Danny cried out desperately, unsure of how to help his sister, but his fears were assailed when the calm reply to this violence came.

"Do it and I'm sure your mother would love to hear about your after school activities" the large boy visibly paled, dropping Jazz and backing down to recede to the safety of his pack, burned by the red-heads' scathing reply. Jerking his head up, the pack began to migrate away, each giving the group a disgusted glare as they passed "Oh and Dash!" he looked back warily "If I ever hear of you bothering these three again you'll have more then me to worry about! I have a list a mile long I could give to your mother already…I presume I can leave you mind to imagine the punishment." By the way he quickly scuttled off, group in toe, it seemed he could. Jazz smiled, brushed herself of Dash's filth and turned to the three, more specifically Tucker. Danny could almost feel the unbridled hope crackling off the boy's body, it was as though he thoroughly expected the three to abandon him when Dash came crashing in, though from his experience with their school in the past mother or so, Danny couldn't say he blamed him.

"He won't bother you anymore…and if he does you tell me and I'll be all to glad to handle it." Grinning again, Danny locked eyes with his sister for a moment and mouthed

'Thanks Sis!' receiving but a nod of acknowledgement in return, Danny had a feeling she knew exactly how much good had been done in only five minutes and exactly what those actions meant to one of their number.

"Enough of this idiocy" Sam cocked her head toward the passing group "I for one am not about to let that overstuffed thanksgiving turkey Dash Baxter ruin my snow day! Let's kick some butt!" Grabbing a handful of snow, she aimed and hit Danny squarely in the face, giggling insanely at the glare directed her way by an agitated nine-year-old boy. Growling, Danny scooped up some snow and started packing it in his hands, striding meanacingly toward the raven-haired sprite; Sam squeaked and stumbled away as fast as her little legs would go in search of some sort of cover to protect her from the mischievous boys' wrath. Watching them go for a moment, a pensive look on his face, Tucker reached down and cupped a handful of snow in one hand, contemplating something before smacking Jazz in the side of head. The girls head spun toward him so fast, he was sure she must developed whiplash.

"Paybacks are heck" was the impish explanation. Jazz, like her brother before her, growled and scooped some snow, packing it in before launching it at the boy, hitting him in the chest with a cry of

"This means war!"

To be on the edge of breaking down
With no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

Flashback 3: eight or nine years after the snow day….

Loneliness was hell, it relied on the companionship of others to make well and could rarely be undone by ones own hand, though she had certainly tried. No matter how deep she allow the knife to slice into the soft flesh of her arm, how much warm blood flowed and mingled with fallen tears, how many times a day she contemplated the end, Sam could not rid herself of the loneliness.

Today the boys spoke with her a total of three and half minutes, each rendezvous interrupted by an Aztec goddess cursed to live in a dim mortal girls body; hard as she tried to ignore it, feelings of inferiority surfaced in the popular girls presence. Paulina could not know how lucky she was to have the love and attention of a certain dark haired, azure-eyed boy. Sam never stood to be the jealous type but seeing Him fawning after a girl who saw in him nothing more then a plaything to toy with and rid herself of at will…. It was a position Sam would not admit to wanting but she did, even if it met giving up everything that mattered, so long as she had him within reach of her heart.

But looking in the mirror now she wondered how Danny could NOT choose the raven haired beauty. Everything she was, Sam was not. Mirrors could not lie, only reflect the truth of the vain or ugly, and the Goth certainly saw both in herself; she didn't see the good the world saw , or aspects that concerned those who cared and worried, only the flaws that left her mud next to solid gold. Mud, a disgusting bacteria ridden substance so easily scrubbed away and washed down the sink, and beside the rich value of gold the feelings of disgust in herself could only intensify.

The gloomy attire that once hugged Sammy's' every curve hung loose over a malnourished body; the boys didn't care if she joined the table at lunch, and there was nothing at home to force food down her gullet so why eat? Obesity was ugly, that was all she could see, the fat sagging from her stomach and thighs, disgusted her to the point of starvation and physical exertion to the point of collapse. To be beautiful one had to suffer and sacrifice, was that not what her mother always told her?

The less she ate, and the more she exercised the fatter and uglier she felt and at the end of the day it grew overwhelming when all anyone could say to her was whispered jeers of "Freak" and "Disgusting", most coming from the High School angel herself.

Trapped in her own mind, the bathroom door closed to keep out every reminder of a discarded creature, a beggar following behind the coat tails of those who saw in her nothing but a woman not worthy of cleaning the filth from their soles, the beast to Danny's beauty. A knife sat gleaming in the low lamp light on the edge of a steaming lavender bath. Each drop that filled the ivory basin was one tear left unshed at some cruel joke, harsh laughter, ignored cry, and the next liquid to flow would be the last step to freedom.

It had taken the last dregs of her remaining soul to write the letter now stashed innocently in the left pocket of Danny's bag, the second stashed in the breast pocket of Tuckers jacket. It could be weeks before either remembered their missing friend, noticed the suspiciousness of her absence, and eventually found the letters, a last memorial to her soon to end pain. By that point no one would miss the strange Goth except to wonder where their target for verbal assaults had vanished to. Only Danny and Tucker would miss her…and she even doubted that.

Silently, Sam slipped the wrinkled, black attire from her pale body and let it slide to the floor in a puddle at her feet, her pale-skinned body revealed to the mirrors critical eye. The Goth allowed sunken eyes to roam over the form in the glass, skin far to pale to be anything but sickly and ashen, hair limp and greasy, sporting a style popular in the third grade, an almost flat chest (at least compared to Paulina's) and fat hanging from the most obvious places. After a simple once over, her deep violet eyes drew toward the puffy red welts on her body; Cuts in every shape and direction scarred the usually unexposed flesh. Legs, stomach, arms, chest, all covered in crisscrosses and slashes, many deep, many infected and irritated, some forming the insults echoing through her mind in waking and sleeping nightmares.

Anger gnawed through her heart, her soul, leaving in its path a burnt and twisted mess. 'Look at the freak' her mind taunted as voices screamed at her to destroy the image, kill the freak who had destroyed her life. Getting rid of her would feel good; breaking her would mean one less broken piece of her already shattered heart. Eyes glaring in pure hatred she attacked the glass, bile blazing in her throat and liquid burning beneath her eyes, she landed on the tile floor slamming her fists again and again into the glass, not feeling the sharp sting of glass piercing her knuckled and palms, only the relief destroying the disgusting image brought to her ransacked mind. When the passion drained through her feet to the floor, Sam looked into the largest remaining piece of glass and saw streaks of black trailing down her face; she knew it was only mascara but it appealed to her. A black heart crying black tears, it was only fitting.

After several minutes of carefully cleaning the glass, the reminder of her shortcomings, from the floor and her hands, she closed her eyes and took the knife into her hands, testing its weight with a wicked smile. It was perfect. Stepping into the scalding wander bath, Sam inhaled a breath of lavender for the last time, letting the smell calm her senses and relax the knot growing in her chest. It was sick, it was twisted and yet none of this came to mind as she lowered herself into the water, letting the heat turn her skin red.

The knife gleamed, smiling sickly at her as though it already knew its purpose, the purposed given to it by a lonely heart. Pressing it to the fleshy underskin of her forearm she did three test cuts, watching a small red flower blossom on the surface of the water, its tendrils floating to the edges of the tub. Pain was delicious and suddenly she found herself tearing at her skin, each cut a little more relief the former and when at last a weakness, a sleepiness began to take from her the drive that brought her so far, she switched hands and made one final cut on her second wrist.

Red bloomed from the cuts, each drip another dark spot in her vision. The previously scorching water did nothing to warm her against the sudden cold sweeping through her body; a momentary doubt was all the regret she felt as the world blurred and darkened. Danny's smiling face passed in her mind as fleeting as a breath and she found a weak smile touch her lips.

'What more' thought she 'can the world ask of me now.'

No one ever lied straight to your face
No one ever stabbed you in the back

"What more can the world ask of me" the words were dry and brittle like that of a small tree denied water, drained of the chance at a full life, a happy life. Trees grew to touch the cerulean skies, but anyone watching the shaking form beneath starched sheets could see a proud oak cut down to early in life. And one particular chocolate eyed boy felt the shredding of his heart at the sight.

This was no angel, not like Jazz, this was a proud creature destroyed by cruelty and misconception; Nothing else could explain the feeling of fury boiling beneath Tuckers calm façade at those who had led her to this, himself included. Some things in the world are perfect as they were born, growing in a way so exact to perfection it terrified those who strayed from their own right to exist. Danny and Tucker could guiltily include themselves among the conforming masses and place themselves as the top purveyors of the wounded creatures' pain. If not for them the jeers would have been like water off a ducks back, they told her to change, how weird she was, they gawked over the bitch Paulina and tossed their goth friend aside. They led her to this, and the guilt of having done so ate away at them.

It had been instinct that led him to stand in the doorframe, staring at his best friends figure in the darkness. For years, Tucker passed responsibility like a hot coal, letting others cool the flames so he need never risk a thing in the process of healing the world; Danny chased ghosts while Tucker watched, Sam saved their grades while he sat back, Jazz kept their sanity while he joined them for the ride. Now it was the savior who needed saving and the hero had been laid up in his own stubbornness and guilt. For once in his life, Tucker had been called upon to take responsibility and standing at the edge of a darkness he could not comprehend, the confused young man realized he did not know how to handle this. Sam had more then a deprogram able virus, a glitch that came with a simple keystroke solution, she wasn't an emotionless screen. She was his best friend and the one person he was terrified to talk to, especially about this.

Sam and Tucker never really got along, for years it had taken and large amount of aide from Danny to keep them speaking with each other; he was a strong meat eater, she was an Ultra Recylo Vegetarian (he thought that was what it was called). Though, some how, even without Danny's help the two were best friends that stuck together for more reasons then to just appease their mutual best-friend. In some strange cosmic joke none of them would ever understand, they cared deeply for each other and Tucker knew there were some things that needed to be said that would not mean the same thing coming from Danny, or Jazz, or anyone else but him. It needed to come from the best friend, the boy who argued endlessly with her, the person who judged her harshly for the entirety of their friendship, and who cared about her like the sister he always wished he had.

Beads of cold sweat slid down his forehead, one wrong word would destroy what little sanity Sam had left. If he screwed up now they might never be able to get their friend back, to save her from the lonely grave she dug; Tucker wanted to run, wait out the storm within the safety of a lighted screen but such an escape was no option. For years his peers labeled him, his parents ignored him, and the adults sent to guide him could say nothing but "Grow up". Screens were a child's escape from a lonely world and when the time came to change it was to late to go back, to open up to the world which forsook him in its own maze of ladders and politics. Innocence, the word stretched across the expanses of time, a message that seemed to hold a barley conceivable meaning. What was it to him now? Their innocence passed away in the night, it abandoned them in search of a more suitable home and left them to scuttle into a place which provided the safety it took with it.

Clutching a small item in the palm of his hand, Tucker stepped into the room and flicked a switch, illuminating the gaunt, tear-stained visage of the girl who had taught him compassion and responsibility. As he watched her stare blankly at the wall opposite him, Tucker drew a deep breath and steeled himself for the plunge; It was finally time for him to grow up.

"To live?" He answered her question, knowing that at this moment, this time, that was all any of them could ask of her. To lose something so precious…Tucker did not want to imagine that scenario, it entailed too much pain and heartbreak, to many tears. Obviously, she did not see things quite through his eyes and curled tighter around herself as though the words had caused physical pain in her. Crossing the room, he spun a chair around and straddled it, leaning his chin on the back of it and watching her do everything possible to avoid meeting his gaze, to avoid the conversation he could only imagine was playing through her mind. Maybe she thought he would yell? Oh, Tucker had certainly considered it. Irrationality was not part of Sam's personality and suicide, well suicide was as irrational as one could go. He wanted to yell and scream to her how stupid she had been, how much pain they were all in because of her idiotic decision, to describe in excruciating detail each painful event that had transpired since her little pity party, but he would not.

Sam obviously felt some sort of guilt, whether she would admit it to him or not, because she could not seem to meet his eyes, and if he yelled at her she would only alienate herself from everyone set out to help. Tucker was her friend and, however stupid she was, he had to help her.

"I'm glad your awake, it's been really dull without you…some how jerky just doesn't taste the same without having to argue about the benefits of consuming an animal product," He watched her carefully, the comment would have caused indignation in the past but now all he could see was the same hollow stare. Glancing up at the ceiling in search of an answer for how to approach this, he felt the object in his hand; it could very well be the key to opening up the wound she was intent on hiding from them. Scooting close to the bed, Tucker opened his cupped hand and began playing with a silver bracelet covered in jangling, shiny little charms; it had taken some persuading and a hell of a lot of begging but at last he had been allowed to hold the little trinket until the time came that Sam could be trusted around it. Apparently, doctors confiscated it when she was brought in; it had been the only thing on her person at the time of Danny's discovery and, in his mind, Tucker had no reason to doubt why. Even now, it seemed to be the only thing that could draw his dark friends' eyes toward him, a little recognition filling them upon viewing the simple piece of jewelry.

"I took me three weeks to find this, I swear every one wanted one that week…I knew you weren't a conformist, even then, but, even though they were popular at the time, I knew it was something you could make your own. Danny and I split the cost of it that year, it still stands as the most expensive birthday present I have ever purchased. It took me three months to save enough allowance to buy it, and Danny four months to buy the charm." Said charm rolled beneath his finger, worn with age and wear. The original sheen had long since worn down to a dull, rustic look but it was obviously still donned with care. It meant much to the girl, otherwise it would not have been the only thing she wore to die in.

"A raven" the reply was hoarse, but full of emotion Tucker was relieved to hear. It was a start, not the cure but a start. Giving her an easy smile, he continued the story as though the listener had not heard it a thousand times; Jazz once said during a mental health debate, that thinking positively could, in reality, bring the esteem of some one through the roof. No better time to test the theory had ever come.

"It was your favorite animal at the time, though the pictures you showed up of them gave me nightmares we knew you like them. Danny, in his lovable stupidity, suggested buying you one…then of course we had to locate one and the only ones for sale had to be imported! Needless to say that idea was trashed" a small smirk touched his lips, his eyes glazing over in remembrance "It was his idea to get that particular charm, I don't think I've heard a better idea come out of his mouth since but that's Danny for you." Soon, Tucker knew, they would have to bring up the last seventy-two hours but as he watched the girl sob silently into the unyielding linen sheets, he postponed that time until the very end. Besides, Tucker needed time to draw strength and composure from the memories if he was to succeed in doing this.

"You opened every other gift before ours, looking back I think we should have been offended but I do believe the suspense was well worth the wait, not to mention the money. The smile on your face could have rivaled the light of the sun…so could have Danny's cheeks when you kissed them" a short, barking laugh escaped him; sometimes he wondered where exactly their friendship became romantic. Danny had said it had been during the kiss when Ember enchanted him but Tucker wasn't so sure; those two were meant to be one, fate brought them together for a purpose and sometimes even he was moved by the deep love each had for the other. A long silence interrupted the story, the unbroken nothingness beginning to strain his already stretched out nerves.

"Why did you do it Sam?" the room when silent as a church, nothing moved and Tucker found it hard to even breathe. It had been unexpected, the words spilled from his heart, each one laced with the pain and anxiety riddling each passing hour of the last three days; though he had not meant for it to come out when it did Tucker desperately needed the answer. "Answer me Sam."

"Why should I?" Sam's tone was cold, the frigidness like knives through his heart; it was easy to imagine the pain you cause someone, not so easy to deal with it face to face but Tucker didn't wince or give. This was his fault and he would not hold the girl accountable for whatever words passed from her lips because he knew that no one deserved to be burned more then him.

"Because I'm your friend Sam, because I care about you and I'm…" he hesitated, should he put his heart in her line of fire? "I'm scared; I'm scared I'm going to lose you." He expected a biting remark, a painful comment sent to pierce his heart but he received neither; Sam gave a brittle laugh that chilled him to the core, it was so unlike her, so cold and hopeless that it nearly brought him to tears just listening.

"Liar" Now this he had expected, but still Tucker did not know how to handle the accusation …how could he prove that he wasn't a liar to the upset girl when he couldn't even prove it to himself? Instead, he took her hand in his, not allowing it to draw back into the nest she had built to hide beneath. Drawing a deep breath, he began to speak, pouring his soul out to her and hoping she would hear him even in her pain.

"I'm a bastard; I treated you like the years we had together were so easily dismissible…I guess I forgot everything that mattered to me, really mattered to me. There is no excuse for not being the friend I always expected you to be, I should have been there for you and Danny both, I shouldn't have let my fears get in the way of helping you when you most needed someone to count on." Tucker could not help it, a tear slid down his cheek from his closed eyes. This was hard, the most difficult thing anyone had ever asked of him and though it was like a knife through his heart he continued, knowing this was something she needed to hear. "I'm a bastard, a fink, and worse a horrible friend, but I am not a liar. I love you Sam, you are the sister I never had and part of the family that supported me through every trial and tribulation life could beat me with…please Sam, please tell me why you did this. We screwed up, Danny and I, and we know that now but…but why, why didn't you tell us like always? Why did you do this why?" his voice grew thick with emotions, the suppression of them coming out in his expression of guilt and self-disgust. Tucker was scared, no terrified that he would not get through, that he would lose the two best things life ever gave him in a single moment. Already they had come close to breaking, to destruction, a miserable climax, and it left Tucker helpless, feeling there was nothing he could do to stop it from reoccurring. It took all he had not to break down and cry, to let himself succumb to the emotions breaking through the dam he stored them behind for some many years but this was not about him anymore, it was about Sam and he was going to make sure it damn well stayed that way.

The silence was expected and he was glad for it, the pause gave to collect some composure and draw a calming breath; it would be hard to continue but he had to, she needed the answer to his question nearly as much as Tucker himself did. He prepared himself for the icy silence he was sure would follow the expression of remorse, which was why her reaction alarmed him. Instead of the forlorn, frosty Sam Manson one would expect, Tucker suddenly felt his arms full of a shivering sobbing Samantha, her walls down only long enough for her to cling to him for the support long overdue. Wrapping his arms tenderly around her, Tucker breathed deeply and easily for the first time since this ordeal had begun four months prior; Finally, it seemed, the dark girl could begin to heal and Tucker could be the friend he should have been from the start.

Smoothing her hair and whispering calming nonsense in her ear, he allowed her to shed all the tears she needed to. Somewhere in the back of his mind Tucker felt that he was infringing upon Danny's territory, yet, hearing the heart wrenching sobs being extracted from the young woman, he figured Danny would have an entirely new set of fears to battle with their Gothic friend later on.

"It hurts, It hurts so much" she whispered over and over, gasping it to the point of hyperventilation; All Tucker could do was embrace her and promise not to let go even when watching her made his heart break. Had they really caused so much pain in one person? After about ten minutes of attempting to soothe the emotionally distressed girl, she finally relaxed but he dared not pull away, not yet in any case. Sam muttered something into his shoulder that Tucker could not yet make out through his shirt; carefully prying her face from his body he took a good look at the tearstained skin and red puffy eyes before smiling sincerely.

"Last time I talked with my mouth full you hit me, then Danny for laughing about it, but I'll be nice today" He could have sworn her lips twitched upwards but it was to minuscule a movement to be noted. "Now repeat that without my shirt to muffle it." She averted her eyes and seemed to shrink back into the cocoon that separated her from the rest of the world; Tucker could not let that happen and touched her shoulder gently to keep her with him. After a hesitating silence she whisper croakily

"It hurt…not being…" Tucker did not press, letting it come out as she would allow it this was her war to fight and in some secret knowledge he didn't know he possessed until now, the African-American boy knew not to make her say something she couldn't say. After two minutes of silence, however, curiosity won over sense and he prompted her gently

"Not being what Sammy?" Tucker made sure to keep his tone soft and friendly, she looked so small he was afraid he would break her or something…he couldn't hurt her again or he would have Danny's knuckles to answer to as well as his own guilt. Sam hesitated before continued

"…good enough…" she trailed off for a moment, collecting her thoughts before continuing in a slow, halting fashion "everyone loved Paulina… I couldn't…I can' t be her and Danny…Danny loves her." Her voice cracked and a wave of sympathy passed over Tucker in conjunction with enormous relief; He couldn't handle that particular subject but Danny could, the boy had shown his love a thousand times over while she was sleeping and Tucker was sure he could do it again when the time came.

"Your right," he said slowly, considering his words carefully. This was defiantly Danny's turf he was invading but perhaps there was something he could do to help matters, "your not Paulina, you could never be Paulina." She hung her head and Tucker didn't want to attempt to imagine the dark thoughts crossing her mind when he spoke those words, she looked so…broken and damaged it was no wonder she sought death.

"And I, for one, would never want you to be. I can't answer for Danny, I'm not him after all, but I love you, strange veggie-head as you are your and I never want you to change…your you Sam and you have something more beautiful and precious then Paulina could ever hope to have…" Sam's lilac eyes met his, confusion scrawled across her features and a frown creasing her forehead. If not for the severity of the situation, Tucker would have rejoiced at having finally stumped the brain of the group.

"What's that?" What should he say? It would easy to explain it to her, to tell her every good feature she had…her spirit, her drive, her love, her commitment…but hearing the skepticism in her voice, Tucker knew that no matter how many ways he put it Sam wouldn't, couldn't believe it. To do to her body what she had, Sam would have to truly see nothing but a worthlessness when she looked in the mirror…it certainly seemed that way from the letter she wrote Danny, or perhaps he was reading to far into it. Either way, hearing it out of Tuckers, or Danny's, or anyone else's mouth would not be enough to convince her.

"I can't tell you that"

"Why not?" Tucker sighed softly and rose from the chair, heading toward the door. It was time to go and he knew it, this last statement would lead to questions he could not and should not answer; it was something she needed to think about before they met again. Pausing just before the door, his hand on the knob, Tucker locked eyes with his friend and felt every wall in him collapse.

"Until you can find it in yourself, you would never believe it even if I told you a thousand times," the door swung open and he passed through it, his strong countance starting to crumble until his brown eyes met with a blue pair overflowing with gratitude. Danny put a hand on Tuckers shoulder in silent thanks, an understanding passing between them in a way the needed no words; they bonded silently for a moment before Danny opened the door and disappeared behind the wood that separated two completely different relationships, two completely different lives drawn up in one friendship.

"Tucker, I have never been more proud of you." A soft voice to his left and a warm hand brought him back to the present and for the hundredth time that day, his chocolate eyes melted under the gaze of two aquamarine eyes.

You might think I'm happy but I'm not gonna be okay
Everybody always gave you what you wanted
Never had to work it was always there
You don't know what it's like what it's like

Having a half-ghost brother came in handy, especially when dealing with moments of group espionage in which they could not be caught or risk destroying something very fragile. A young girls' hope.

To think that the siblings would be trusting enough to allow Tucker to speak to a suicidal young woman alone would be the hugest lie either of them could ever tell so, to make sure nothing was done to further damage the brittle girls psyche, they did the only thing good friends can do. They spied on the entire conversation, beginning to end, and what was seen floored them both, even Jazz who had seen the more adult side of the young man few had the pleasure of seeing. What had become of the idiot teenager who said all the wrong things at all the wrong times? Where did the boy who argued constantly and whined at the worst times disappear? Surely, the emotional, considerate young man seated at Sam's bedside could not be the same boy. He spoke with such surety, such compassion, Jazz could only just hold back tears; she knew she could not have done better.

They walked out as he did, solidifying beside him allowing the two young men to share a silent understanding, something only they would ever understand. Jazz could almost see them mature before her eyes; even in his proud stature her brother looked every bit the man he was becoming and Tucker, despite the shaken emotional look crossing his face had done the bravest thing any man could do. She was proud of them, both of them.

The moment ended and it was finally Danny's turn, he would never say it but nervousness radiated from him. Like with Tucker, any wrong coin of phrase could be destructive and even deadly and it was easy to see how difficult it was for two carefree boys to grow up in only a few moments. Placing a hand on the slowly collapsing African American before her, she murmured the feelings the swelled in her chest.

"Tucker, I have never been more proud of you" Their eyes met and a strange heat rose in Jazz's cheeks when she saw the unbridled emotion twisting through his chocolate eyes; Taking his hand she tugged him along, saying nothing in the knowledge that if anything passed between the two friends one would break down in that moment. Tucker had shouldered a burden and now someone needed to let him break down under it; even the strongest men cracked and cried.

Jazz led him outside to the same bench where she was discovered earlier that day, lost in her web of sorrow, and sat him down in a place devoid of ice and snow. Night blanketed the small town of Amity and a few stars broke through the heavily pregnant clouds rolling over them, releasing their load little by little onto the town sleeping heads. A snowflake landed on her nose and the silence was broken by a soft giggle that lead to an amused look coming from her companion. She was truly surprised he had not start crying and storming about, but then he really had changed.

"When did you grow up squirt?" she asked teasingly, giving him a brilliant smile and putting her hands flat on the bench, stretching her neck to the stars with closed eyes. The sight was so beautiful it almost seemed wasteful to enjoy it in one moment. Cedar, the scent that had surrounded her thoughts the past few hours, hovered around her, emanating from the corduroy jacket zipped up to her chin, beneath a scarf that, strangely enough, had been a gift from him the Christmas right after the four friends had met. Jazz knew she should give the coat back but was reluctant; it was the first form of real comfort anyone had shown her and in a childish display, Jazz was afraid of letting it go.

"The same time you did" came the all too serious reply, Jazz frowned and opened her eyes, watching him watch the falling snow. "Do you remember that day?" he waved his hand in the general direction of a snow bank, she did not need to ask what day Tucker was referring to; Jazz had, in a hazy half sleep, remembered the beautiful day in painful clarity. That was really the last time the four did things together as a group, the next year the redhead moved up to Jr. High and everything changed.

"Everything was so simple then, it was just the four of us against the world…we were so, so different. I wish that nothing had changed, maybe then Danny could trust me to help him and support him…maybe Sam wouldn't be here." Snow crystals on the ground sparkled and reflected the lights of the hospital like a thousand tiny diamonds, they represented memories that were more precious then any stone, especially to Jazz, and she studied them sadly. Why was she so out of character? What happened to the sure Jazz, the comfortable Jazz…why couldn't she be sensible as she had always found it easy to be?

"Things aren't simple anymore Jazz and you shouldn't be expected to be the sensible one all the time, sometimes even you need to lean on someone…especially now when everything's going all to hell and there's nothing we can do to stop it." Startled, she looked up, unaware she had spoken her last thought out loud; upon meeting his gentle gaze she jerked her own away, tapping her fingers against the hard stone bench, her body shivering with more then cold. Although she had pondered the same thought many times it was different from hearing another person say so, it made the emotions, the anger, the loneliness, seem less whiny and more realistic. Electrical shocks went through her body when his hand pressed down on hers, stilling it and warming it in an action so gentle it almost broke Jazz's heart. Bringing her eyes back to his in uncharacteristic insecurity, Jazz found strength in his crumbling walls and warm eyes.

"If things hadn't changed then you wouldn't be the remarkable young woman you are and Danny, Sam, and I wouldn't have someone to bail us out during our royal screw ups" he smirked at her and squeezed her hand affectionately. "We are who we are Jazz, but that doesn't mean you have to hold it in…you think you're alone, but your not." He punctuated this with another gentle squeeze, "Everyone has the right to hurt Jasmine, and that includes you." A tear fell from her eye at his words, now she knew what it was about him the finally broke the emotional barrier Sam put up around herself; although an idiot, Tucker was the most beautifully honest person in the world and when he put his brain to good use he could make anyone's walls come crashing down.

Shaking the snow from her auburn locks, she laced her fingers with those covering her hand and wrapped her free arm around his shoulder, laying on his chest and listening to his heartbeat and feeling the rise and fall of his breaths beneath her head. Tucker seemed startled by her sudden act but fell into action quickly, returning the embrace hundred times over. The two friends sat in that embrace for sometime until Jazz pulled away; wiping her eyes she gave him a look so full of emotion, it seemed to startle the young man.

"Your acting so adult, so mature but Tucker, don't lose the youth everyone should envy you for. It's okay to act stupid, to laugh when you shouldn't, and to prank people who really don't deserve it…or maybe they do" a small smile crossed her lips as she squeezed his hand. "You can make any darkness disappear and I have feeling that in the coming months we're all going to need a little humor. Don't ever change Tucker, I don't know what I…what we would do if you did."

Part of what always made Tucker, well, Tucker, was his sense of humor and ability to make light of any situation. The comic relief so to speak; even from the first snowball fight they engaged in, he had a light heart and dazzling smile that never seemed to disappear…well unless he was angry, then it could just be considered a mocking smile, but either way it rare for the expression to disappear. Being serious all her life, the concept of being so carefree was strange and Jazz longed to understand, even at age ten, how someone could be that way even when everything in the world was against them.

A feeling exploded within her like a thousand firecrackers going off when the young man brushed a snowflake off her cheek with a boyish grin.

"You never have to worry about that Jazz. I promise." Feeling his smoothe fingertips against the soft skin of her cheek, Jazz leaned towards it, nuzzling gently before the realization of her action shocked her into jerking away abruptly. Three days ago the boy was barley an acquaintance and now she couldn't seem to keep her wits around him but, ever the levelheaded one, Jazz wasn't about to allow these crazy stirrings ruin the budding friendship she was beginning to enjoy having.

"You look…a little like a Christmas angel with snowflakes dusting your hair" nimble fingers reached up to knock some of the accumulated powder off the vibrant red locks. The compliment was sweet and endearing; a tender compliment Jazz had heard many young couples pass between each other in the halls. Determined not to blush, she countered him by brushing his short hair off and smirking

"I wish I could compliment you but it ages you by at least fifty years." Giving her a look of mock outrage he pushed off the bench and onto the snow covered hill but ever her brothers sister, she wouldn't go down alone and held his hand tight, tugging him with her into the powder and sending them both rolling to the bottom of the hill. For a single moment, the pain of the past few days lifted and the two young adults were allowed to act like children again. Some would say it was selfish to enjoy themselves when it was obvious their friends suffered and could not do the same but they had taken their own knocks that week, suffered their own hurts and now dealt with it in a way that made everything seem okay.

The two rolled together, landing in a heap at the foot of the hill, a deep crater formed on impact, cradling them in memories and a future so far from reach. Giddy laughter escaped the two until they were breathless and shivering, unconsciously drawing to each other for warmth; It was a few moments before either noticed their position, maybe because it was comfortable, maybe because it felt right. Tucker was pinned under Jazz, her head pillowed comfortably on his chest and his hands resting easily around her waist, the tender position was intensified when Jazz lifted her head to gaze into a pair chocolate eyes, pouring over with confusion and warmth. He had tried to catch her when she fell, not wanting to see her hurt and his hands just ended up there, as for her, Jazz could feel his muscles move under her fingers, contracting and relaxing in reaction to the unusual position. A ruby red blush crept up her face. Never had she been this close to a boy in her life (brothers didn't count) and it was suddenly to much to fast. Jerking away, she pushed back and coughed to break the suddenly awkward silence, unsure of what to say after the rather, suggestive position they had just landed in. Luckily enough, Tuckers boyishness and childishness saved them both as he tossed a snowball squarely into her chest and started scrambling up the Snow bank.

"Tucker Foley!" she cried in mock outrage, thus began the first snowball fight of the season. It ended and hour and half later when their fingers were stiff with cold and Tucker notice that Jazz's lips had turned and eerie shade of blue.

"You look like a freezer burned Popsicle" he announced in a matter-of-fact tone, receiving an irritated glare from the shivering girl "I swear I can hear your teeth chattering all the way from the other side of the lawn, come here. Why didn't you tell me you were cold?"

"Because you had just dumped snow down my shirt and I wanted revenge" she retorted through her chatters. Wrapping his arm around her, he tried to warm her up as best as he could and started walking her to the door

"Lets get you warmed up Jazz, Danny will kill me if I let you catch pneumonia or something out here." The walked back up the hill stumblingly, each helping the other so as not to slip back down into the frost, and trudged along through the now howling blizzard to the door, gripping each other tightly for body heat. At last, they reached the concrete steps and, while Tucker walked in the direction of warmth and comfort, Jazz hung back to watch at a star that had decided to shine for her through the icy storm. A hand fell on her shoulder, a startling shake from her reverie, and she turned to meet Tuckers concerned gaze

"Are you alright?" she could only nod mutely and follow him through the doors. The heat surrounding her was like sinking into a warm bath and the two went into separate rooms to change into some fresh clothes their parents had brought them. When she was sure she was out of earshot of everyone Jazz turned to gaze out a frost tinted window and recounted the winter memory that would give her hope for a long time to come.

"I lied" she whispered quietly, thinking of her brother, Sam, Tucker, and her own mixed up feelings "Everything is not alright…but" she ran her finger against the lines of the corduroy, a sad sort of smile upturning her lips "it will be."

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
With no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like, what it's like

Welcome to my life

End A/N: I hope you liked the little added twist of Jazz/ Tucker. It is an unusual pairing I just thought would be really…developmental in this story, plus it gave me an idea for later chapters! If I choose to continue it expect a lot of sweet J/T moments because I like writing that. I promise to have more Danny/ Sam in the next chapter but I needed to build a few relationships in this chapter, namely the one between tucker and the rest of the world. He's left out so much and I swear he has to be on of the best people to portray in a story, him and Jazz. Oh, btw, this story really doesn't have a set time line yet, it just kind of goes as its written so if your lost, just keep adding days lol. Anyway, I hope I didn't disappoint anyone in this chapter, I for one am very proud of the way it has come out and for all of you who liked the first chapter thank you for asking me to continue. Now, tell me what you think of my work! Review Review Review! Please and thank you.