Wow, how long has it been... 7 months? I've got ~13,000 words written for this next arc, so I hope you all can forgive me for the long hiatus. Life, as you know, gets in the way sometimes.

I really appreciate all the favorites and reviews that I've gotten during my time away. It really helps keep me motivated, and everyone is usually so nice about Gothica. You guys are my most loyal reader base and I'm so excited to continue this story for you and for myself! Shout out to Hellborne95 for all the checking in and asking when the next chapter was coming out. This arc is for you, friend!

-Song

THURSDAY

Valerie Gray sat in front of Tucker during Thursday's first-hour calculus in the third seat from the whiteboard. Why he had decided to take calculus in the first hour of school, Tucker still didn't know.

From the fourth seat, behind her dark curly hair, Tucker couldn't see very well, and it had bothered him at first when he had been determined to get a decent grade. Now, what with the ghost hunting, the uncertainty that he even wanted to study software engineering anymore, and the smell of Valerie's shampoo wafting back at him, his focus was completely elsewhere.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and felt his cheeks warm as his thoughts wandered back and forth between the smell of Valerie's hair and his late nights with Danny and Sam.

Sam, in particular, had been on his mind.

After the homecoming dance the weekend before, Tucker had finally started admitting to himself that he was crushing on Sam. Hard. Watching her undergo a literal ghost possession had shaken him - had shown him what it would be like to see her suffer, and it made him feel helpless and fragile. Not to mention that taking her on that fake date to the dance had meant more to him than it did to her. Seeing her in that dress, feeling her hands on his chest as she pinned the rose to his jacket…

Yeah, Tucker was in trouble, and he knew exactly how bad it was because he had absolutely no shot.

Just because Danny was a total idiot when it came to girls didn't mean Tucker was. He saw how Sam looked at Danny; how she pulled her hand away when they accidentally touched. How her eyes would drop down to the cafeteria table when she got too nervous. She was in love, and Tucker had to watch it all happen from the sidelines.

How had things gotten so complicated?

Tucker thought back as far as he could to when his feelings had changed. It had only been a few months, but of course, it all came back to that day.

The summer day when Danny half-died.

When he and Sam sat together in that hospital waiting room, they were there for each other unlike any other time before. Tucker was forced to face the possibility that she was going to be all he had left. That they would have to shoulder the unbelievable tragedy of Danny's death together. He realized how badly he would need her, and that he would do whatever it took to be there for her no matter what. When Danny came out the other side, mostly unscathed, that possibility faded away, and everything was alright again. His relief had overshadowed everything else, numbing him to what was happening between him and Sam until it was too late.

Somewhere along the way, he'd fallen for her.

And now I'm stuck, he thought to himself. Tucker leaned back in the chair and put his arms behind his head, stretching his spine. Mrs. Shelley's back was to the class as she scribbled numbers on the board, and Valerie's shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh in front of him.

She wasn't paying attention either, he bet. Like Tucker, he imagined that her mind wandered.

He gazed around the room instead of at the board. Halloween decorations patterned the walls. Little pumpkins and bats hung from strings on the ceiling tiles. Halloween was only a week and a half away, and he thought about how Sam had started wearing more purple than black. She'd even worn pumpkin dangle earrings the other day, much to Tucker's delight. It was always cute when Sam wore something other than black, even if he'd never dare to admit it to her.

His thoughts strayed like that for the better part of the class, and only when he realized Valerie Gray had turned around and asked him something, did Tucker pull himself out of his stupor.

"Uh, what?" he asked.

"A pen? You got one?"

Tucker, surprised, nodded. He turned to reach into his bag and pulled out a new fountain pen from the corner store that his mom had bought the other night.

"Just give it back, it's brand new," he said without thinking.

Maybe it came off a little rude because Valerie rolled her eyes at him and snapped it from between his outstretched fingers.

"I'll try to remember," she hissed and turned back around in her seat.

Tucker then realized that the board was fully covered in numerical problems that he hadn't been paying attention to, and he had no idea where to start.

"As you can see here..." Mrs. Shelley was saying, and Tucker scrambled to catch up.

...

When the final bell rang, Danny and Sam were already gone.

This wasn't a usual occurrence for them, and when Tucker texted them both, Sam explained that her parents had demanded she join them for an early dinner at a restaurant downtown. Danny, on the other hand, had to go home and help his parents move the living room furniture around.

T: Why?

D: I dunno, Mom insists. Feng shui or smth

T: Can't Jazz help?

D: She's with her moron boyfriend

T: Yikes

D: X(

T: Good luck, dude. Don't let them realize you got super strength.

D: Thx

Tucker closed the screen on his phone once more and sighed. He stood at the top of the stairs to Casper High and watched as students filed past him onto straggling buses and into their parents' cars. He considered calling his mom to come and get him, but then he decided to walk.

The whole way home, Tucker wished that he could fly. That he could snap his fingers, turn invisible, and take the whole route home in less than five minutes. Tucker kicked a stone as he walked, not meaning to think about how unfair it was that Danny had literal superpowers and that Danny was undoubtedly the cooler friend. It was unfair that Danny had had all of Sam's love for years and didn't even realize it. It was unfair that Tucker was everyone's favorite I.T. guy, but not good enough to be the hero in his own story.

Except Tucker knew - he really did - that none of that was Danny's fault. It was just the way things were now.

Though it didn't make him feel any less jealous.

As his house came into view, Tucker wrapped his arms around himself and felt a heavy weight burrow in his chest. He wished that he hadn't stewed in his own thoughts the whole way home and that instead, he had gotten that ride from his mom after all. He shuffled his feet over the front stoop of his family's place and unlocked the door.

His parents weren't there. His dad was always running late after work and his mom had probably taken the opportunity to go to the grocery store. Tucker turned on the hall light and stalked his way into the kitchen alone.

With a flourish, he pulled open the fridge.

Inside were last night's leftovers and a few mandarin oranges his mom liked to pack into her lunches for work. He was so hungry that he considered an orange, but instead pulled out an unopened pack of bacon and turned on the stove.

Maybe Tucker wasn't the most self-sufficient seventeen-year-old when it came to cooking, but he could fry up some bacon.

He checked his phone as the bacon sizzled and felt a little better. Sam and Danny were both texting him about their parent's differing shenanigans and he tried to be supportive.

S: Who cares - salad fork? dinner fork? I'm gonna go crazy.

T: You got this.

S: Stab me waiter plz im begging.

D: Moved couch 3x already, Mom not satisfied, Dad useless.

T: Go ghost. It'll distract them.

D: HA. HA. x(

Tucker smiled a little to himself, but he also felt bad. Once again the guilt of stewing in his jealousy against Danny left him feeling cheap and hollow.

Once again he promised himself that he would be better.

Tucker pulled the bacon from the pan and let it rest on a paper towel and plate so that it would be cool enough to eat in a few minutes. He turned off the stove, stored the rest of the raw bacon in the fridge, and left the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time up to his bedroom.

Waiting there was his gaming rig and triple monitor setup by the window. The curtains were drawn tight to keep out the glare, and Tucker settled in with his plate of bacon and put his headset on.

More than anything he just wanted to close off his mind.

Tucker booted up his PC and chanced a bite of bacon. It was hot on his tongue, but the satisfying crunch and juicy flavor made it all worth it. His eyes watered from the heat as he chewed and he watched his screen flash to life quickly.

"Hey, baby," he said to his computer absent-mindedly.

It wasn't even strange anymore for Tucker to speak to his tech - especially the ones he built himself.

"What're we doing today?"

Tucker tapped a few keys and reopened old tabs that he'd been looking at the night before. Tech forums and websites shed light on things he himself wasn't very good at yet. Tucker was constantly trying to learn to be better; especially today.

He had a job to do.

Tucker's gaming rig and chair had been painstakingly paid for from doing summer jobs and helping his dad retile the roof. Now he was ready to up his business ventures: fixing and upgrading other gamers' computers.

Mikey from school had begged Tucker to help him upgrade his own gaming rig. Mikey was the President of the eSports and League of Legends club at school, so Tucker had obliged. But building his own setup and fixing someone else's had turned out to be a little more challenging. He kept the forum tabs open and got up from his chair.

Tucker had Mikey's desktop tower up on his dresser alongside a few screwdrivers and a small flashlight which were laid next to it. He sighed and remembered why the project had been so frustrating: Mikey's setup had been more of a mess inside than he thought.

"Who wires their tower like this? Haven't you heard of cable management?"

Tucker tsked and fiddled and then decided that cable control would have to wait. Instead, he turned on the flashlight, popped it between his teeth, and started dismantling the setup, getting the old parts out of the way to make room for the new ones that Tucker had instructed Mikey to buy.

If Tucker's upgrades to Mikey's desktop weren't the best that anyone in the eSports club had ever seen, he would eat his own shoes.

Once he had assembled the new parts he booted up the PC and hooked it up to one of his old monitors. Everything seemed to be working fine, so now all that he needed to do was install the drivers and other software that would help Mikey's gaming computer go from good to fantastic.

Tucker had already made some improvements with software files he had saved for himself, but he really wanted to impress Mikey and the eSports club. If he did, he'd be raking in computer upgrade jobs left and right. Twelve club members wasn't a lot, but twelve computer upgrades was a lot of money in Tucker's pocket.

Recently, while perusing the forums, Tucker had heard of a new software developer that was supplying gamers with free upgrades, software tutorials, and even access to some of the newest games online in exchange for nothing but notoriety. It seemed too good to be true, but reviews and mentions of the new indie developer were so high in praise, Tucker felt like he could trust the guy.

Tucker wondered if he should go into software engineering instead of hardware. He had always wanted to build computers, create gadgets, and invent something that people would use all the time, but then he considered all the money that was to be made in software development; to be known for making the programs and games that he loved to play every single day? How cool would that be?

He clicked around the forum looking for the old thread he'd read before. But after ten minutes of searching, he was starting to think it had vanished off the web.

Why hadn't he bookmarked it?

He was about to give up and go with a paid software upgrade when he decided to write a quick inquiry to the community. He asked about the developer, where he could find the file, and whether or not it was still available.

Knowing that he probably wouldn't get a response right away, Tucker texted Mikey that it was going to be another day before he could finish the upgrades, and then he decided to game all night.

Danny and Sam were busy anyway.

...

When his parents came home two hours later, Tucker was already so engrossed in a Discord debate with a few guys from the eSports club about how to properly set up the rules for an 11-person game of "Among Us," that he didn't hear them enter the house.

It was only after his mother sternly knocked on the door and told him he had to eat something other than bacon and have a "real-life conversation" with his parents over dinner, that Tucker officially logged off for the night.

After long talks about his parent's day, and placating his mother by eating a few vegetables, Tucker went back upstairs and checked on his inquiry in the forum.

No response.

By then it was nearing nine in the evening and he was feeling weirdly tired. He hadn't even touched his homework, and he wasn't planning on it.

Tucker sighed in his chair and turned off the desktop. He stripped off his shirt and crawled into bed wearing only a pair of soft sweatpants. He sprawled like that for a while, his head fuzzy with the stress of the school day, of staring at a screen for hours, and thoughts of Danny and Sam.

He checked his phone for the first time in a while and saw that neither of them had texted, save for a Snapchat from Danny showing off his living room which, after hours of mindless reorganizing, hadn't really changed all that much.

Tucker smiled to himself at Danny's exasperated reaction and rolled over in bed, debating on whether or not he wanted to text Sam or just ignore the compulsion and go to bed.

But he wanted to know about her day. He wanted her to talk to him or even just to spend a few minutes thinking about him. In the end, he couldn't help himself.

T: Did you survive the night?

Tucker waited for her to text back. Sam was always up late like he was, so he had expected it to be quick, but it took nearly a half-hour and he was dozing off in bed by the time his phone pinged at him.

S: Think so? The Stepford Parents actually weren't horrible. Not feeling good tho…

T: You ok?

S: Idk yet. Will keep u updated

T: What kind of 'not feeling good?'

Tucker waited for a reply, this time sitting up in bed, his eyebrows knit together in a frown of concern, but she didn't text again.