And chapter two is here. And funnier and longer.

FOR THOSE OF YOU JUST JOINING US: Please know that if chapters three and four aren't edited yet and seem a bit different than the first two chapters, I am going to be changing those too as soon as I get to them. If anything, I request that you do not read ahead because it will probably just confuse you. The two plotlines are similar but this newer version has more to it than the original. If you are reading this chapter but have not seen the brand new chapter one, I highly suggest you go back to read it so that the body of this chapter makes sense!

Thanks to my lovely readers and reviewers – you are most appreciated, even after all these years.


04092015

2

Femme Fatale

April Ninth 2015

Danny let out a strangled sound as he fell hard onto the carpeting and barely missed smacking his head on the bedside table. The alarm clock, however, dropped onto his chest, since he'd reached out to grab something and had ended up tangling his hand into the clock's plug-in cord. It lost power for a second and then came back on, blinking the numbers 12:00 back at him.

"Danny, are you okay?"

He looked up to see this older Sam peering over the edge of the bed at him, her pretty lilac eyes full of confusion and concern. She reached over and flicked a switch and light flooded the room. He glanced around and saw that the walls were a deep hue of blue like the midnight sky. The carpet beneath his fingertips was a gray color. There was a tv set hooked on the wall directly across from the king-size bed she was still sitting on. A walk-in closet and a second dresser were in the far corner and another door led to what looked like a small bathroom. On the dresser was an assortment of every day "getting ready" things like cologne, a hairbrush, and black fingernail polish. A series of photos in silver frames were arranged artfully across the opposite wall, each filled with a picture of him and Sam.

But they were pictures he'd never seen before and places he'd swore he'd never been – some carnival with a Ferris-wheel in the background; an aquarium where he and Sam were standing before a shark tank and making mock-scared faces; a Halloween party where he'd been dressed as a vampire and Sam was a zombie. The only one he recognized was a picture of the two of them and Tucker huddled together in a friendly photo-op. He remembered taking the picture a couple months back.

"Danny?"

"Hmm?" He shoved the alarm clock off him and let it fall to the floor.

"You okay?"

"Umm…" Define okay, he wanted to ask her. Besides being in a weird room with no real idea of how he'd got there and how he was there, or why – or why Sam looked the way she did. And that he had no clue what was happening. He supposed if you took that whole thing out of the question, he was okay.

"I uh…umm…" he stammered, not quite sure how to respond. He supposed there was only one way to find out what kind of situation he'd landed himself in. "Where am I?"

"You're at home…" Sam's eyes seemed to narrow in an almost suspicious way as she stared at him questioningly.

He slowly climbed to his feet and suddenly realized he was taller by maybe a foot at the most, making him six-foot even. He examined his hands and arms and realized the muscles rippling across his body were firmer and more toned. He was wearing long black sweat pants and a t-shirt and was barefoot. There was a small cut on his left forearm that looked a couple days old and a silver watch on his right wrist. And on his left ring finger was…

"Oh my gosh…" The band was thick on his finger and engraved with golden lettering in a language he couldn't read. It was beautiful to look at even if he didn't recognize it.

He never saw Sam move. He just knew that suddenly he was pinned on the floor as she tackled him roughly and grabbed his arms so that he couldn't break their fall. Breath whooshed from his lungs as he hit the floor hard again. Shocked, he opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing when a high-pitched noise cut him off. He stared down the barrel of an energy gun and froze instantly.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her knee pressing into his chest.

"It's me, Sam. I'm Danny!" he shouted.

"Oh, really?" She loaded up the gun and her finger tightened on the trigger. "Yet you have no idea where you are?"

A part of him should have seen this coming. Of course she'd think there was something wrong. But he hadn't expected her attack. Now he was at her mercy and had no idea what to say to make things better. If that was even an option.

"Wait," he pleaded. "I am Danny. Listen – five minutes ago I was standing in my parents' lab and you were there. So was Tucker. We found this portal thing and I stepped into it. I ended up here."

A dry laugh escaped her throat. "Is that so?"

"Yeah…it must have been a teleporter or something and I - "

She put her elbow to his throat and leaned forward, shoving the weapon to his temple in warning. "Don't think I won't pull this trigger."

In an instinctive motion, he wrenched his hand from her grip and knocked the gun away from her. She gasped and lunged for it, giving him the opportunity to gain the advantage. In a move he couldn't remember learning he flipped her completely over so that he was hovering over her instead of vice versa. But then her knee came up and smacked into his most sensitive area and suddenly he was flat on his stomach, groaning in pain.

She wrapped her arm around his neck and he sucked in a haggard breath as she dragged him upward, determined not to let her win, but not hurt her at the same time. "Nice try." Her head was right behind his, her free hand holding onto his right wrist – the one he would have surely fought back with while his other hand kept her from choking him.

"I'm telling the truth. I don't know how I got here. It was something my dad created, it had to be," he tried.

"You must be so desperate to tell me such a tale," she whispered against his ear.

"It's the truth!" he shouted, right before she grabbed his chin roughly with her hand.

"I think you can do better with the right persuasion." Her threat was made a promise when her other hand came up with the energized weapon that glowed dangerously in the darkness.

"Do you want me to beg?" he asked, running out of options. "I will – I don't have that much dignity."

This time, her laugh was sincere as she heard his answer. "Oh, you're oh-so suave," she muttered, squeezing her grip on his neck. "But I'll give you credit for that one."

"Your name is Samantha Emily Manson. Your birthday is December twenty-first on the first day of winter, your favorite time of the year. You're an ultro-recyclo vegetarian and an active animal-rights spokesperson and environmentalist. We met in grade school when you kicked me off the monkey bars! You're the reason I have ghost powers…"

Her grip seemed to loosen almost instantly at his words. He dared to turn his head to look at her but could only see her arm still. "What?" she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"Please, believe me. Believe that I have no idea what's going on…"

"How do you know all that?"

"I'm Danny, I swear. I'm fourteen years old and -"

She released him completely and gasped. "Fourteen?"

"Yeah…"

"Fourteen?"

"Yeah…"

Sam flopped down on the carpet next to him and put a hand to her head as if she couldn't believe it. "How is that possible?"

"This is the future…isn't it?" he realized. "What year is it?"

"It's 2015," she replied after a moment.

Danny swallowed hard as he recalled the numbers that had been on the box above the portal. 04092015. "April ninth?"

She nodded and brushed a strand of her hair from her face. "Ten years…"

"The thing I walked into wasn't a teleporter. It was a portal for time-travelling."

"Time machines were invented by humans two years ago. We've been using ghost portals to travel back and forth through time for years before that though," she said. She sighed heavily and leaned her head on her knee for a moment. "This can't be happening."

"I really didn't know this would happen, I swear."

"I really don't know if I can trust what you're saying is true," she countered, bringing her head back up to glare at him. "But the fact is, you know things about me that most people don't, so that goes to say something."

"I feel like this is a really bad dream…"

She stood on her feet and began to pace across the room, her face heavy with concentration. Danny noticed she too had become taller but not by much. He also noticed her nightgown was a bit shorter than he initially assumed and he shifted his eyes to the tv, trying not to stare. "Who invented the machine you used?" she finally asked, breaking him from his wistfulness.

"I don't know. My parents never showed it to me. The three of us just found it in the lab while we were down there. It looked new."

"Your parents never showed it to you?"

He shook his head. "Which is kind of weird."

"Exactly." But she didn't explain what she meant. Instead, she stopped pacing and glanced down at him where he was, still on the floor. "Say that I trust you. Say this is some kind of fluke and all you have to do is get to a time-portal to be sent back. What happens then? My Danny comes back?"

He tried to ignore the way she'd said "my Danny" and focused on the question she'd posed. "I'm not sure. I guess so."

"Come with me."

She darted out of the room and he scrambled to his feet to chase after her. He appeared in a short hallway with three doors, one of which was open to a bathroom. At the other end of the hall was a stairwell that Sam trundled down two at a time. He followed and at the base of the stairs he ended up in a kitchen; the scent of Italian spices still lingered in the air and a few dirty dishes were in the sink. The refrigerator hummed and an old-fashioned cuckoo clock rested on the far wall. Sam kept going and led him through a wide archway into a living room with black couches and a loveseat Danny recognized from his own house of his time period. The whole room had a very retro feel to it and old cds were plastered shiny-side out on the ceiling. Moonlight poured down from a wide bay window and cast shadows across the furniture and carpet. Sam finally stopped as she reached a closet just beyond the entertainment center. She threw open the door, dug inside for a moment, and then came back out and thrust a black gym bag at his chest.

"Emergency clothes and stuff," she explained as he glanced down at it curiously. "We come prepared these days."

"Sounds like a good idea," he told her.

"Yes, well it was mine." And for the first time since he'd gotten there, she smiled and it reminded him of how pretty she really was.

He reached out and took her hand. "I'm sorry about all this," he said, thinking that the apology didn't really do any justice. He'd creeped her out and made her suspicious. If the future version of himself returned, she would still be wary of him.

She leaned up and pressed her lips against hers in a kiss so sweet, everything else seemed to fall away. It wasn't a long kiss, just one that made him realize how much she was laying on the line to believe his story and try to help him out.

"Fourteen," she said, licking her lips. "Does that mean we're together?"

"Two weeks ago we did," he said, entwining his fingers around hers.

"Oh, good. No spoilers then." She smiled and picked up her own bag, trotting off towards a doorway. He followed like an eager puppy and came to stand in a small foyer with a door that led outside. She threw on a long, dark coat that fell to her knees and tossed him a soft denim jacket. "Chilly night," she said, looking like she wanted to say something that broke the silence. She waited for him to get the jacket on and then opened the door and walked out.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

But before he'd breached the doorway, he ran straight into an invisible wall and almost fell over in surprise. Rubbing his forehead, he blinked to get the stars out of his eyes.

Sam laughed, a rich sound that hadn't changed much. "I forgot about that. Shields down."

"Acknowledged," came a robotic voice from a speaker rooted into the upper corner of the porch. There was quiet noise and Danny reached out tentatively to find the wall had disappeared.

"Ghost shield?"

Sam nodded. "Necessary when you live with a superhero with lots of enemies. Funny when I get to watch you smack your face on them almost every time. Ever see those funny videos where people run into the sliding doors made out of glass? Yeah, that's still funny every time too."

"Glad you think so," he grumbled.

"Come on," she said, motioning to the driveway with her head. Again, he followed in her footsteps and found himself face to face with a flying car parked in the driveway.

"Holy cow, pinch me…"

It was a black Ford Mustang with sleek curves and wings that stretched out to either side. Silver ghost flames were painted on the doors and the license plate read PHANTOM. His mouth fell open in shock. This was his car.

Sam's fist came out of nowhere and landed a punch on his cheek. He stumbled backwards and cried out. "Ouch! What was that for? I said pinch me, not punch me!"

"Eh," she said, grinning. "Pinching's not my style."

"I see you haven't changed much," he commented, running his hand along his jaw.

Her smile widened and she dangled keys from her fingers. "Guess this means I get to drive since you don't even have a license technically."

"Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to drive a flying car…"

She opened the driver's side door and stared at him as he stood next to the passenger side. "Well, guess you've got a lot of catching up to do."

Understatement of the century, he thought, gazing down at the wedding ring on his finger.


Intense. I like it. It lost some of the banter from the original, but I like this version better. It seems more real but still keeps it Danny Phantom style. The next chapter has some better humor since it follows the original chapter more closely than any of the others will. There's still a quote or two from the former version as well if any of you remember it or notice it.

Well, here's your sneak peek!

Chapter Three: Curiouser & Curiouser

Here was a four-story building made out of nothing but steel. It looked more like a technology company than an actual house. There were security cameras set up everywhere that had key pad controls beneath them all. Holographic lights lit a pathway up to the porch. A small unmanned machine noiselessly cut the grass. Danny instantly knew: this was definitely Tucker's house.

He quickly followed Sam up the silver stairs that clunked every time Sam lay her boot down. She walked up to the door and towards a key pad, hitting four numbers. An alarm sounded suddenly and Danny started as the loud noise reached an ear-splitting pitch.

Sam merely shrugged. "It'll wake him up faster."

Please read and review!

Raina Wolfe