Dedicated to: the one I love who will never know and never feel the same.
1) Going Under
They'd been friends forever, the two of them. They shared everything and knew every secret the other had save one. Sam Manson, the goth geek of Casper High, was falling for her best friend Danny Fenton. She didn't quite know when it had happened. One day, they were simply friends then she noticed his growing feelings for the Hispanic princess Paulina and something snapped inside her. Every time the girl was mentioned, Sam had a heated comment to say about her.
Paulina was a clone; she cared about nothing save her looks and the cutest and most popular boys. When she wasn't able to say anything mean about the air-headed clone, Sam was trying to convince Danny about how fake she was. The poor, hormone-driven teen ignored her whenever Paulina was involved. After two years of the torment, Sam slipped into a depression. Tucker was the first to notice.
"Hey, there's Paulina," Danny said, as said person suddenly walked by. His sparkling blue eyes followed her gorgeous form as she walked to her locker. "She's so beautiful."
Sam brushed her raven hair behind her ear, lilac eyes glancing at the boy beside her before returning to her locker. Her wity and angry comments had long died. It wasn't worth it anymore, and Danny didn't notice anyway. Tucker raised an eyebrow as Sam sighed, continuing to look through her locker for her necessary books.
"Are you feeling okay, Sam?" he asked after Danny practically floated after the Hispanic princess.
"What?" She looked up at her other best friend, Casper High's techno geek. "Of course I am. Why?"
"This is like the sixteen-hundredth time Paulina's been mentioned this year, and you haven't come up with a single angry comment."
Sam shrugged before heading to class with Tucker. "We're juniors now. I guess I just got over it."
"Aw, don't tell me you're giving up!"
She blushed, staring at her friend in surprise. "Wh-what do you mean? I'm not giving anything up."
"Danny may be too dense to notice, but I know how you feel about him. You're just going to let Paulina steal him right from under your nose?"
"He doesn't feel the same, Tuck'." She hugged her books to her chest. "I may as well just accept that and get over him."
It didn't help that Danny had done a lot of growing up over the summer. He was at least a foot taller, putting him at 5'11", and his beautiful eyes had only gotten more mischievous. Two years of ghost hunting had given him a nice athletic body, which actually started getting him noticed by the girls. They'd all done some growing. Tucker was taller too and helping with Danny's ghost hunting and working out at the gym had given him his own nice body. He and Valerie Gray were actually dating now.
Sam had let her hair grow out and stopped putting it up in her usual ponytail. It now reached the middle of her back. Her usual black v-neck was still part of her signature wardrobe, but she'd ditched the usual black plaid skirt with green stitching for black hip huggers with purple stitching around the pockets and seams. Her usually bright lilac eyes had dimmed as she watched the object of her secret affection drool over another girl. Her sophomore notebooks still bore witness to her broken heart with "Samantha Fenton" doodled on a few pages.
She and Tucker joined Danny in homeroom, slipping into their usual seats. They still had five minutes before class. "Hey, guys, I was thinking we could have a movie night this weekend at my place," Sam said.
She was the heiress to a huge fortune, and the mansion she lived in was only a piece of what she would receive. In the basement she had her own theatre and hidden bowling alley. Tucker and Danny hadn't found out until a few months into their freshman year. She didn't want to be popular so she kept her wealth a secret.
"Sweet!" Tucker said. "Can we play a couple of rounds on the alley afterward?"
Sam nodded then turned to Danny to see what he would say. "That sounds like fun," Danny said. "What's playing?" he teased.
She stuck her tongue out just as the bell rang. After homeroom, the trio was split into their respective classes and didn't see each other until lunch. Even then, Sam had taken to going to the library during lunch to avoid the swooning over Paulina she'd have to endure. She spent her time in the library quietly, reading depressing books about women that pined away because the ones they loved, loved someone else. They were always sappy and ended up in the woman committing suicide in one way or another.
"Interesting choice of reading," a voice suddenly said near her ear.
She jumped, letting out a yelp, and Danny laughed. She smiled in spite of herself and slapped him with the book. "Someone you pining over?" he asked, sliding into the seat across from her.
"Yeah, Tucker," she sarcastically teased. "This book ends in death. It's on the gothic reading list."
"Well, it's definitely got to be more interesting than the latest book Mr. Lancer assigned." Danny leaned back, his arms crossed behind his head.
No matter how many times they tried to escape him, Mr. Lancer ended up being the English teacher for every grade. Tucker swore he kept going up a grade too to keep an eye on them. He believed Mr. Lancer was suspicious of something going on between the three of them.
Sam shrugged. "I didn't even bother looking at it yet." She glanced over her page toward her grinning friend. "Something else you wanted to say?"
"Actually, yeah. You'll never guess what happened today at lunch." He leaned forward, still grinning.
She rolled her eyes and set her book down, copying his movement. "Paulina actually noticed you and asked you out?"
"Wow, on the first try and everything."
Her eyes widened. "Sh-she actually asked you out?"
"Yeah, why?"
"N-nothing." She pulled away, stuffing her things in her backpack as fast as she could. "I-I suddenly feel sick. I think I'll go home."
now i will tell you what I've done for you
50 thousand tears i've cried
screaming deceiving and bleeding for you
and you still won't hear me
Although Danny was known as being the densest of the three, Sam could tell by the look on his face that he'd seen straight through her lie. She didn't want to sit there and discuss her hidden crush with him now though. Instead, she threw her backpack into her locker and ran sobbing all the way home. Things had gone from bad to worse in only a few hours. She gave some lame excuse to her parents and called Tucker and Danny to tell them she'd cancelled Friday because she was feeling sick.
don't want your hand this time i'll save myself
maybe I'll wake up for once
not tormented daily defeated by you
just when i thought i'd reached the bottom
i'm dying again
Sam stayed at home that entire week. She sat on her bed staring at the black curtains on her windows with her knees pulled up to her chest. She barely spoke to her parents; Tucker and Danny called almost every day to see if she was okay. She never answered the phone except once when Tucker insisted. She refused to tell him anything, and when he asked why she cancelled the Friday thing she simply said she was going to do something else instead. And she was.
i'm going under
drowning in you
i'm falling forever
i've got to break through
i'm going under
The broken-hearted teen stood slowly and moved across her room to where a wooden chest sat on her floor. She knelt in front of it and carefully opened it. Pictures of she and Danny decorated the top, and every silly thing she'd written or doodled in her notebooks about him or her secret crush was safely tucked away. She slowly pulled each picture down and gathered up each piece of paper before heading for the fireplace in the basement. Her parents weren't home; she was alone. She sent Tucker a quick email to let him know what she was doing.
blurring and stirring the truth and the lies
so i don't know what's real and what's not
always confusing the thoughts in my head
so i can't trust myself anymore
i'm dying again
She gazed into the fire, slowly throwing in each picture and paper. The fire crackled merrily, devouring every piece of evidence to her broken heart. Beside her rested a notebook and a razor. She couldn't live like this; she would end it now. Once everything was destroyed, she wrote one last letter to Danny. She released all her anger, love, pain, and sorrow into that single note before setting it aside. Her parents would find her eventually and give him the note, she was sure. She gazed at the blade, holding it before her face. She smiled sadly before dragging it across each wrist.
i'm going under
drowning in you
i'm falling forever
i've got to break through
Two hours before that, Danny was telling Tucker how badly his date with Paulina had gone. For some reason, he hadn't felt anything toward the girl as she giggled and flirted the entire time they were at dinner. He felt like he was talking to a wall. Tucker had laughed.
so go on and scream
scream at me i'm so far away
i won't be broken again
i've got to breathe i can't keep going under
"Dude, I always knew you two would end up together!" he said once Danny was finished.
Danny cocked his head in confusion. "Us two…?"
"You and Sam!"
"Me and Sam!" Despite claiming to have no feelings for his goth friend, he blushed.
"Yes, you and Sam," Tucker said, taking that blush as a sign that Danny had feelings for the girl too. "You do know why we haven't seen her all week, don't you?"
"She said she wasn't feeling good…"
"No! Man, you really are dense, aren't you?"
"Hey!"
"Didn't you even notice she wasn't ragging on Paulina anymore?"
Danny was silent for a moment. "Yeah, I guess…"
"I'll take that as a 'no.' Dude, she's depressed. You never even noticed her. You went after some air headed clone instead." Tucker's PDA beeped, telling him he had a new email. He glanced at it. "Hey, it's from Sam." He opened it then his eyes widened. It didn't have any particulars. It simply said, "goodbye."
Danny looked over his shoulder. "Wait, she's not… Is she?"
"I don't know, man."
Danny didn't wait to try and figure it out. He went ghost and flew out of Tucker's house at top speed. His heart had seemed to stop beating as he realized how much it would mean to him if Sam were gone. He flew into her house and down into her basement when he didn't find her in her room. She was lying on the floor before a fire, her eyes closed. A notebook lay beside her, but Danny ignored it as he knelt beside her. A pool of blood was slowly spreading around her, and her chest was slowly rising and falling and becoming slower as each minute passed.
"Sam?" he whispered. The girl didn't answer.
He pulled her into his arms, carrying her bridal style as he flew toward the hospital as fast as he could. He could sense her slowly diminishing heartbeat, and tears fell unchecked down his cheeks. He landed before the hospital and entered as Danny Phantom; he didn't care as long as Sam would be okay. A few nurses and a doctor took the unconscious girl from him and raced her into intensive care. Before they could ask, he disappeared. He returned about an hour later as Danny Fenton, bringing Tucker with him, and asked about her.
"She's still in surgery, but the doctor said she'd survive," the receptionist told him.
He swallowed and nodded before going to sit down. Tucker sat beside him, glancing around him as if someone was going to suddenly come up and attack him. He still didn't like hospitals. Exhausted by the events, Danny fell asleep. Tucker took that moment to escape to the safety of his house.
"Are there any friends or relatives of Samantha Manson in the room?" Danny groaned as the voice called again. "Are their any friends or relatives of Samantha Manson?"
Wait, Sam! He suddenly shot straight up, wide awake. He ran up to the desk where the receptionist impatiently waited. "Is she okay?"
"She's fine. She's resting right now in room 201. The doctor said she could have visitors." Danny thanked her before running down the hallway to her room.
A rhythmic beeping woke Sam slowly. Her first realization was that she wasn't dead. Damn, she thought to herself. Someone or something near her stirred and squeezed her hand tighter. Her eyes flew open, and she found Danny with his head resting on his arm on her bed. His free hand was clutching hers tightly in his own. What happened to Paulina? She felt confusion rising in her. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be with Paulina so she could die in peace…or what little peace she could muster.
He stirred then opened his eyes, blinking a little. When he found lilac eyes staring into his, he sat up in surprise. "Uh, hi," he said nervously.
"What are you doing here?" she asked. Everything had gone wrong. Why was he here?
"I…I found you… I was at Tucker's when he got your email, and I panicked."
She turned her head away from him, pulling her hand from his to lay it across her stomach. "You should've left me there," she said flatly. "I wanted to die for a reason."
"I know," he said sadly. "Tucker told me."
She looked toward him, surprised to find tears in his beautiful eyes. "Why?" she whispered, "why did you save me?"
"I couldn't stand to loose you, Sam, because I realized I loved you too."
A/N: And there I will leave you, dear reader. You can let yourself imagine: did she believe him, or did she refuse him? I prefer the first, but the choice is yours alone. If life gets hard, don't give up. Nothing is worth premature death. Sometimes you get down, but don't let yourself fall. There's always someone that's going to miss you.