Author's Notes: (sigh) Too much work, not enough hours in the day.

A Musical Interlude

Chapter 3- Painkiller

Sam was seriously questioning her sanity. First of all, it was surreal enough that a hot guy seemed romantically interested in her despite having met her only once, and dedicated a song to her on the spot. But seeing said hot guy take off into the night sky like his stage persona's namesake was just beyond weird. Sam liked to think she had an open mind, but even for her this was a hard pill to swallow. It's a good thing she covered it up from Monica, or she never would have gotten a moment's peace.

Which brought Sam to today. It being a Saturday, she had nothing to do. She had all her projects done, and was free to spend the whole weekend trying to figure out just what the hell it was she had really seen. Sam grabbed her cell phone in case Danny decided to give her a call and decided to begin her search for the mysterious singer by doing a quick sweep of likely hangouts for a musician. She got as far as the rehearsal spaces in Woolencroft Hall when her phone went off to the tune of the Happy Tree Friends. "Hello?" she asked curiously as she flipped the phone open.

"Sam?" That voice.

"Danny?" Talk about convenient.

"The one and only," Danny replied, his voice sounding very cheerful. "Hey, uh... the band and I were going out to eat at the Mandarin Garden for lunch in an hour. You want to come with?"

Well, Sam had been hoping to corner him and go straight for the jugular, but with the others around she would need to use a more subtle approach. At least this gave her a chance to find out whether or not she really was crazy before confronting Danny about what she thought she saw. "Sure. Where do you want to meet?"

An hour later and Sam found herself waiting outside of Radcliffe Hall by the gazebo. She slipped her sunglasses on as the sun came out from behind the fluffy white clouds and bathed the hilly campus in warming light. Two squirrels darted along the grass, chasing after one another straight up into a towering oak tree as a soft spring breeze gently stirred the foliage and created a soothing whisper in the air that mingled with the conversations of other passing students who were out enjoying the day with friends or significant others. Did it always have to be so fucking cheerful out? They hadn't had a nice thunderstorm in weeks. Maybe she'd get lucky and there would be a solar eclipse.

The sound of approaching voices alerted Sam to a group intruding on her grouching over the weather and she turned to look over her shoulder. There they were. Danny, Technomancer, Jack, Bram, and Poltergeist... or whatever the hell their real names were. At first, Sam was a little surprised to see Danny. He looked much different in street clothes. Of course, the Edguy T-shirt was kind of a give-away. But perhaps what was more shocking were the physical changes. For one thing, his skin looked much fairer, but that could just be because of the lighting last night. His eyes were now a sparkling blue and his hair was pitch black as if someone had dumped ink all over his head. The haircut and facial features were about the only things that allowed her to recognize him.

Danny's blue eyes locked on her and his smile widened as he waved over to her. Sam smiled back and got up to meet them all half way. "Hey, Sam!" Danny greeted enthusiastically. "Glad you could make it." There was something unusual about his demeanor. It was a change from last night, but it was difficult to place. It was like he was testing the waters or something. "I want you to meet the rest of the guys. This is Tucker Foley," he said, pointing to the boy she had up until now known as Technomancer.

"Hey, how's it goin'?" Tucker beamed to which Sam nodded and smiled in reply.

Danny then gestured to the guitarist and bassist. "These two are Jack and Bram Panek."

"Oh, you guys are brothers or something?" Sam asked conversationally.

"Yeah," Jack answered. "Believe it or not, Bram is my little brother by one year."

Sam arched a brow at that. "Little" is not a word she would have used to describe Bram.

"I get this a lot," Bram bemusedly remarked and folded his arms over his chest.

"And of course Paul Burns," Danny finished, gesturing toward the blonde drummer.

"Dave's told us a lot about you," Paul said in a very friendly voice.

Sam smiled embarrassedly at all the attention being placed on her and looked at Danny. "So... what restaurant did you say we were going to, again?"

-x-

Danny's mind was going about a mile minute. He had wanted to meet Sam ever since Dave had first told them all about her. The picture he had shown them from last year's freshmen orientation didn't do her justice. She was gorgeous! But she didn't have that attitude about her like she was aware of it. Danny had figured out that the whole reason he had felt so awkward around pretty girls growing up is because, more often than not, they knew they were good looking and held everyone else to... rather unfair standards. It was that feeling of being judged that always made him feel so unsure. But with Sam, he didn't feel judged in the least. That made things a little easier, at least.

They all decided to walk to the Mandarin Garden since the weather was nice. That, and the car wouldn't be able to hold six people. Comfortably, anyway. And Danny was still feeling the after-effects of last night's fight following the concert. And the van was only a two-seater. He ended up so lost in thought over it that before he realized it he had wandered off the curb just as a car was coming at him. He felt a hand grab his own and pull him back as the driver swerved slightly and flipped him off with a few shouted obscenities.

"You okay?" Sam asked, and Danny realized it was her who had pulled him back. His hand was still in hers, and he felt his face turn warm.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just kind of a klutz," he admitted.

"So I've heard," Sam replied bemusedly. She didn't let go of his hand as she stepped out into the street, now devoid of cars, and they all crossed to the opposite side.

Jack smirked and whistled at the two. "Damn man, you're getting over your shyness fast," he teased, pointing to their linked hands. "At least your taste has improved since Paullina."

Danny shot Jack a glare, wondering if they would ever let him live that down, as Sam let go of his hand and gave him a quizzical look. Uh oh. He knew that look on women. Figuring out how a girl's mind worked was less psychology, and more tactics and strategy. It was an art and science that required keen observation, nerves of steel, quick verbal skills, and a lot of luck. That particular look could only mean one thing: awkward moment, incoming. Impact in 3, 2, 1...

"Who's Paullina?" Sam asked with a mixture of curiosity and accusation. Detonation imminent. Impending threat level to the prospects of a potential relationship. Battle stations.

"Danny's first crush in high school." Thanks a fuckin' lot, Bram. Threat level escalating.

"He got over it in sophomore year, though," Tucker added. Threat contained, damage minimized. "Good timing, too. That woman was a bitch." Containment compromised. Yellow alert!

"Total tramp," Paul added in agreement. Threat multiplying.

"Skank," Jack quipped. Damage control. Plotting course of action to argue in self-defense.

"Slut." Bram again. Scrapping course of action. Regroup and set up for Plan B.

"That bad, huh?" Sam asked dryly.

"Let me put it this way," Tucker said with a smirk. "She was so shallow, a puddle of her wouldn't be enough to drown a flea."

Sam snorted slightly with amusement and glanced over the rim of her shades at Danny. Initiate Plan B: Admit to wrongs and have the dignity to look embarrassed about it.

"Not my finest moment," Danny conceded with an abashed sigh. Rule number one of interacting with the opposite sex: Women are always right, men are always wrong. Corollary A: The ability of a man to admit his wrongs is considered by some women a mark of quality as a prospective romantic partner.

"We all make mistakes," Sam off-handedly remarked with a shrug. Mission accomplished. Threat neutralized.

"Look on the upshot," Tucker helpfully piped in, draping an arm over Danny's shoulder, "you could have ended up like Dash."

"That's true." Danny glanced over at Sam again and smirked. "Dash Baxter was the jock who tormented everyone lower on the social ladder. He knocked Paullina up and dropped out of school in senior year."

"Sounds like a real winner," Sam muttered sarcastically. "Where are you guys from, anyway?"

"Amity Park," Danny casually answered.

"Really?" Sam slipped her shades down the bridge of her nose. He had never seen violet eyes like hers. They were hypnotic. "That's where I was born. My parents moved us to Sleepy Hollow when I was little."

"Looks like Jack and I are the odd ones out," Bram muttered with a small grin.

"How so?" Sam asked.

Jack tossed his hair over his shoulder as he answered. "We were actually born in Hungary. Moved to the States shortly after Bram was born."

The rest of the walk to the restaurant involved the long story on how they had all met. From Danny and Tucker becoming friends in elementary school, to the music lessons they took for fun in middle school. Then meeting Paul in sophomore year and deciding to get a band together, which promptly led to them meeting Jack and Bram. And taking a year off after high school so that Bram could graduate and they could all go to the same school and keep making music together. Splitting the storytelling between five young men might have been a mistake however. Especially with their varying personalities. Tucker and Jack occasionally got into (ironically) unspoken contests to see who could talk the most about nothing, which got old really fast.

The Mandarin Garden was a family-run Chinese bistro a few blocks from the campus. Best Far Eastern food in town. The band had only been here for a little over a semester and they already were on a first-name basis with the owners. Speaking of whom, no sooner had they entered the sparsely furnished but charming restaurant than the head of the family immediately greeted them.

"Danny!" a short, elderly Chinese woman shouted as she emerged from the swinging doors leading to the kitchen and enveloped Danny, Tucker, and Paul into a bear hug. Jack and Bram were spared because she couldn't reach them.

"Hey, Kim," Danny answered, returning the hug quickly before he and his friends were released.

"Oh, where have you lot been? We miss you. And look at you all! You're wasting away. Don't they feed you at that college? When was the last time you had a decent meal, Paul?" Danny couldn't help but chuckle at Kim's verbal deluge. She seemed to think that food fixed everything. And given the kind of stuff her family could whip up, Danny was slowly starting to come around to that philosophy. Still, Paul was the only one of the group who looked skinny. Tucker was of about a normal weight for his height and build, as was Jack. And Bram was a fitness nut with shoulders like a Cadillac. Though Danny noted with some amusement that Sam was a little on the thin side herself. Kim was bound to target her at any moment.

"And who's your skinny friend here?" Kim asked as she looked at Sam. Saw that coming a mile away. "My, my, my, my, my. Look at you. You're thinner than the rice paper in the kitchen."

Sam's eyes widened behind her shades. "I-"

"Ah-ah," Kim scolded. "No back talk. It's not healthy for a young lady like yourself to be looking like a skeleton."

"Hey, I-"

"Not another word," Kim interrupted, placing a finger over Sam's lips. "Let's get you all a table before a breeze comes along and sweeps your lady friend away."

Danny was trying very hard not to laugh as they were seated. He opened up his menu and chuckled under his breath with the rest of the band as Kim darted off to the kitchen with Sam staring after her in shock. "Kim's always like that," he explained. "She's like a grandmother to us."

Sam didn't say anything. She just removed her shades and looked at her menu. "Chicken... pork... beef... Isn't there anything on here that doesn't involve slaughter?"

Danny gave Sam a questioning look to which she just rolled her eyes. "I'm a vegetarian," he sighed in exasperation.

"Oh," Danny responded. "That explains why you look so- ow, crap!" Sam had crossed her legs rather quickly in a seemingly innocent movement and connected one of her combat boots with his shin in the process. For a tiny thing, she was surprisingly strong.

"You were saying?" Sam asked challengingly.

"I was gonna say 'slender,'" Danny grumbled. Actually, he was going to say "skinny," but he decided it would be better to feign otherwise. That kick hurt, damn it! Yes, he didn't want to ruin his chances of impressing her, but more importantly he liked having flesh on his bones.

Of course, his word choice took the wind out of her sails in a hurry. Sam blushed lightly and buried her face in the menu. He peered at her clandestinely and noticed that her eyes weren't moving. She mumbled a soft apology and tried very hard not to look at him.

Tucker winked, pointing his hand like a gun, and clicked his tongue through the side of his mouth twice. "Smooth, Casanova." His eyes suddenly widened as his body recoiled and he leaned into the table, his hands shooting down underneath the tablecloth. "Ow, son of a bitch! What the hell you got in those boots, woman? Bricks?"

Sam glared at Tucker over her menu. "You deserved that." She then went back to reading.

Danny flipped his menu over to the second page and leaned over to Sam. "The vegetables section is on the next page," he told her, gesturing toward his own as if to prove he was right.

She glanced at him in mild surprise then turned the page and nodded her thanks. Apparently, she was feeling a little awkward, since she initiated small talk as soon as they ordered their food, asking what kind of influences they had. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. Danny was able to keep himself in check, at least. Tobias Sammet of Edguy and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden were his biggest vocal and lyrical influences, Rudolph Schenker and Stevie Ray Vaughan were his main guitar influences. She didn't need to know about all of them. After all, it was a pretty big list. But the rest of the band... As soon as Danny was done speaking, none of them could contain their enthusiasm at getting to brag and started talking at once.

Tucker of course went on about how cool Tangerine Dream, Buckethead, Voodoo Glow Skulls, and Stratovarius were. Jack proceeded to verbalize his idol worshipping of Chuck Schuldiner, Michael Schenker, Charlie Hunter, and Glenn Tipton. Bram explained that Geezer Butler and Jack Bruce inspired him to take up the bass. Paul enthusiastically talked about his love of Rush, Genesis, Deep Purple, and The Police. Information overload.

Fortunately for Sam, the tsunami of musical geekitude was interrupted by the arrival of food. There were only three things in the world that Danny appreciated more than a hot plate of orange beef, white rice, and paper-wrapped chicken: music, beautiful women, and Sega Dreamcast. Not necessarily in that order.

As they were eating, Danny noticed Sam continually staring at him from the corner of her eye. Was she checking him out? Hot damn! It was strange, though. He'd had crushes on girls before. And he'd gotten them a lot faster than this on several occasions. But this one... this one was different somehow. This one just felt... important. Like this was one that he really couldn't afford to screw up. Danny still couldn't believe he had the balls to dedicate that song to her last night. He'd have to make a move soon if he wanted to...

His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he felt Sam's boot touch his leg again. Only this time, she wasn't kicking him. The side of her boot slowly shifted up his leg then down it again before she uncrossed her legs and continued eating as if nothing had happened. Did that really just happen?

Regardless of whether or not it did, something else happened that hadn't in over a year. He felt that familiar faint, soothing chill in his arm and his chopsticks passed right through his now-invisible hand onto his plate. Tucker saw it and his eyes went wide. Shit! Shit, shit, shit!

Danny focused quickly on restoring his arm and it went solid again as he picked up his chopsticks. He glanced over at Sam to see her staring at him with her eyebrows trying to climb up into her scalp. "Uh..."

Before he could stutter out an excuse, Sam reached out and grabbed his arm. She studied it carefully a moment with her brow furrowed in confusion. Again, shit! She saw! Time to stall and do some fast-talking. "Sam, what are you-"

Talking didn't seem to do much good as she gave his arm a sharp pinch. Which, with her long lacquered nails, stung more than you'd think it would have. "Ow! Sam, seriously, what did I do?"

Sam fixed him with a glare, the entire table now focusing their attention on the two of them. Thank god that the restaurant was empty right now. "Danny, don't insult my intelligence. I know what I saw."

Uh oh. Stick to your story. Keep faking it. Danny looked over at his bandmates and arched a brow. "Does anybody have any idea what the hell she's talking about?"

Before any of them could answer, Sam cut in. "I saw you flying last night."

No amount of self-control could have helped here. She saw him fly. She saw him fly! His breath abruptly caught in his throat at the revelation that his cover had just been blown.

"Holy shit, dude," Jack deadpanned. Yeah, "holy shit" was right.

-x-

Sam sat on Danny's bed and mulled over all of this new information in her head. Fortunately, it was a single room in a suite and the other roommates were out so no one would interrupt. The band was out in the common room standing guard anyway. "Okay... Let me see if I got this straight. Your parents are parapsychologists with an obsession for ghost hunting, and over six years ago they made a gateway to Purgatory."

"Actually, we like to refer to it as the Ghost Zone," Danny corrected.

"Same difference." Sam rubbed her temples slightly. "When they first tried it out, it didn't work. So you decided to be a good son and see if you could help. In trying to fix it, you ended up in an accident that bonded your DNA with ectoplasm. You could transform from a human into a ghost at will and got superpowers to boot."

Danny nodded slightly and dropped his head onto his forearms, which rested on the back of the desk chair he was straddling the seat of.

"Over the next six years, you decided to be a superhero, but kept a low profile to avoid publicity, even avoiding telling your family up until the second year. In the process, you ended up with an arch-nemesis in your dad's old college buddy, Vlad Masters, who is also half-ghost and has had superpowers for over twenty years. And this brings us to today where you're using your Danny Phantom persona to have a little fun with your band while still fighting ghosts."

Danny glanced at the ceiling in thought and nodded. "That's about the size of it."

Sam watched him for a moment. "And how can I be sure you're not just telling me a bogus story to cover up something else?"

"Sam... think about it," Danny flatly droned. "If I wanted to lie to you, don't you think I could have come up with something better than that?"

"Touché." Sam crossed her legs and leaned back on the heels of her palms.

"By the way," Danny mumbled, "what was with the, uh... I mean, after you kicked me, when you were... I mean, were you trying to..."

It took a moment, but Sam finally figured out what he was getting at. "No!" she answered quickly. A little too quickly. "I was trying to see if your legs were solid. I saw them turn into smoke last night, so I wanted to know if I was losing my mind."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed. Was he hoping that she really was flirting with him? She felt herself blush at the thought.

"I do appreciate you being honest with me," Sam admitted after an awkward silence. "Any chance you could show me these ghost powers of yours sometime?"

Danny looked up at her in mild surprise, brow furrowed in confusion. "So this doesn't creep you out?"

Sam smiled softly. "I'll admit it's a little weird, but I'm not one to talk. In fact, it sounds like you've got a pretty sweet deal."

Danny scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, going out every night to kick around ghosts, having to dodge the cameras so nobody figures out it's me, dealing with a rival with the hots for your mother along with twenty years of experience and a multi-million dollar fortune on you..."

"Getting to be a hero," Sam interrupted, "being able to rest easy knowing you're doing the right thing, having a rare gift that sets you apart." She smiled at him again, amused by the look on his face. "Sounds like you've got it better than you think."

Danny smiled back and shrugged as he blushed. "I guess. You realize though that you still can't tell anybody about this. The only other people in the world who know besides the guys are my sister, my parents, and Plasmius."

Sam rolled her eyes and straightened her back haughtily. "I'm a Goth. Secrecy is in my genes." She relaxed again and chuckled lightly with Danny. "Now, about showing me those powers?"

Danny's eyes lit up with a very mischievous glint. Sam had to wonder just what was going through his mind. "Well, I can't exactly go showing off. So we'll make it a trade-off. You know, make it worth my while."

Where was he going with this? Sam arched a brow and gave him a somewhat critical look. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, nothing big," he answered dismissively. "Just do me a favor to even things out. Maybe just... dinner and a movie?"

It was the weirdest damn thing. Sam was typically pretty subdued, but right at that moment, she swore she could have danced. Why was she getting so worked up about this? She'd known Danny for less than 24 hours and somehow she seemed to have convinced herself she had a crush on him like a little schoolgirl. And what's more, Danny's face was the strangest mixture of emotions. All at once, he looked smug, surprised at himself, hopeful, and nervous.

A few moments passed as Sam tried to digest all of this, and the hope in Danny's face began fading. "I-it's cool," he stuttered. "Just a shot in the dark."

"I'd love to." Did she really just say that out loud?

Danny did a small double take, which Sam found herself thinking was absolutely adorable. "Really?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow good for you?" She smiled softly and once more crossed her legs and canted her head in what she hoped was a tantalizing pose. Sam wasn't exactly used to "showing off the goods" as Monica had once put it.

It must have worked though, because Danny went mute and was doing a very bad job of trying to keep his eyes on her face. As twisted as it sounded, Sam was kind of enjoying this. She was never overly concerned about her appearance, but the fact that she was pretty enough to hold a guy's attention like this made her feel kind of... sexy, empowered, in control. That wasn't to say she wanted to go around flaunting her sexuality. It was just kind of a newly discovered guilty pleasure.

"Uh... y-yeah, tomorrow's great," Danny answered, suddenly snapping out of his trance. "I'll pick you up at five?"

"At the gazebo," Sam added with a nod. "Do you think you could show me one or two powers as a down-payment?" she asked slyly.

Danny returned her question with an equally sly smile. He stood up and crossed his legs at the ankles as he leaned one hand on his desk and put the other at his hip. A ring of soft blue emerged from his waist and split into two moving up and down. As the light passed, his body transformed into the Danny Phantom she had seen on stage last night. The rings dissipated once they reached the ends of his body. His clothes had changed into a black and white jumpsuit with boots and gloves, and his eyes did indeed glow of their own light.

"Nice," Sam muttered appreciatively. "Very impressive on its own."

Danny allowed a cocky smirk to grace his lips. "It's nothing special." He narrowed one eye, and his jumpsuit morphed into the combat boots, blue jeans, and black tank top from last night. "Figured that out three years ago." He took his hand from his hip, blew on the knuckles, and made a show of brushing them off on his chest. Again, there seemed to be a change in his demeanor. When he was Danny Fenton, he was neurotic but easy-going. As Danny Phantom, he seemed much more bold and charismatic. Perhaps his ghost half was some sort of totemistic key to helping him get over his fears? Feh, this was exactly why Sam decided to major in art and not psychology.

"Your male ego is showing," Sam teased. "What else can you do?"

Danny looked up at the ceiling in thought and began ticking off powers on his right hand. "Let's see, there's flight, invisibility, intangibility, ectoplasmic blasts, ectoplasmic weapons and shields, overshadowing, cloning..."

Before Danny could continue, voices came from the common room. His eyes widened and he quickly transformed back to his human form. He and Sam stared at the door a moment, unable to make out just what the conversation out there was like. A minute later, music started playing. "Oh no," Danny grumbled.

He walked over to the door and swung it open, stepping out into the hall and towards the common room with Sam following behind him. Amidst three of Danny's roommates were the Phantasmic Four, jamming on air instruments to some metal song that was playing on a jambox that was currently hooked up to an mp3 player.

"Wild Child, Scorpions cover?" Danny asked with a raised brow.

The three roomies all turned around at Danny's voice. A girl with blonde hair down to her butt and a lot of Celtic jewelry pointed a thumb back at the four musicians. "These guys are in your band?" she asked skeptically.

"Danny Phantom and the Phantasmic Four," Danny answered with a nod.

"Right," a boy with short red hair said flatly as he watched the four musicians continue uninterrupted. "So... you got a mullet-eer, a technophile, a psychopath, and an Abrams tank." He then looked over at Sam who smiled nervously. "And now a Goth. She's part of the band now, I assume?"

Danny half-frowned and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, this is Countess Bathory on the kazoo," he grumbled with the sarcasm practically dripping from his voice. "I find it just a little disconcerting that you guys immediately leap to the conclusion that a girl I'm with is one of those lunatics." Speaking of whom, they were really getting into it. Jack had jumped up on the coffee table and was "picking" his air guitar with his teeth. "Didn't it ever occur to you that I managed to get a date?"

The blonde girl shook her head with a wry smile. "Danny, you're a nice guy, but honestly... You're also a social retard, and shy guys aren't known for burning up the dating scene."

Sam smirked and draped an arm around Danny's shoulders. "Actually," she drawled in a rather smug voice, "I am his date for tomorrow night." That got their attention.

The three roommates and the band stopped and stared at the two. Danny looked at Sam with a light blush, then grinned and put an arm around her waist. Though his light build wouldn't have suggested it, he was actually pretty strong.

"Yes!" Jack shouted after a moment and pointed at Tucker. "You owe us five bucks!" He then turned to Bram and the two did a fist pound handshake.

"I hope you guys and Mr. Lincoln are very happy together," Tucker grumbled as he fished a pair of fives out of his wallet.

"I hate you all," Danny muttered.

"Come on, Danny!" Bram waved. "Jam with us! We gotta party."

The band restarted the song from the beginning and resumed playing air instruments and singing along to the song. Danny rolled his eyes once more with a lopsided grin and after a brief moment of internal conflict joined them.

The guy with short red hair and the other guy, this one with an emo sweep, just left the room while the blonde girl walked up to Sam. "I'm Jesse, by the way."

"Sam." The two of them then looked back to the band as they continued jamming. "I'm guessing you didn't see the concert last night."

"Nope," Jesse answered. "They always like this?"

"I can only assume," Sam replied. "I just met them twenty-four hours ago."

Jesse raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sam from the corner of her eyes. "One day, and you're already dating Danny?"

Sam felt her face flush and gave Jesse a small glare. "I'm not that kind of girl," she growled.

Jesse held up her hands defensively and shook her head in resignation. "Not my business, anyway."

Damn right it wasn't her business. Then again, why was Sam feeling so defensive about this? Ugh. What a day.

Author's Notes: Fortunately, I've managed to clear all of my work for this week, so I have the whole weekend to sit around and write whatever I feel like. This one was supposed to be longer, but I figured there's enough to it already for one chapter. And the other scenes I wanted to stick in here actually work better later in the story. So there.

Bonus points to anyone out there who can catch the relevance of the title of this chapter. And if you know who Countess Bathory was without having to look it up, go buy yourself a cookie.

Also, did anybody catch the new episode, Life Lessons? I actually thought it was a really great moment for characterization. Valerie shows positive development, Danny undergoes a little self-improvement while taking his lumps, we see Sam's softer sentimental side, and... well Tucker is kind of the exception. And when Sam referred to the flour-baby as Lillith, I found that particularly funny. Though I've gotta say, I miss Skulker's old voice. Anyway...

Fushigi Aoi Tenshi: And my musical crusade marches on.

Short 'n Simple: As I said, it's a pretty entertaining show. Possibly Butch Hartman's best so far.

LaBOBuren: Looks like it. My approach to writing is very often like Steven Spielberg's approach to making the Indiana Jones movies. Which is to say, I have a plot, a storyboard for about half of the plot, and then I start making shit up as I go.

Kkwy: I trust this chapter answers your question. Danny's the only ghost amongst them.

Vixxii: Gotta say I never quite had that comparison in mind.

Divine-Red-Crayon: More proof that the universe hinges itself on convenient timing and irony.