Small American town, big American dreams and the overt possibility of SOMETHING. Sam pondered the prospects of her future at Nasty Burger in a faded booth to the sound of terrible indie pop.

Sam's manicured purple nails rapped against the side of an enormous can of Monster Zero. Her thumb scraped the logo. In her other hand, she held her envelope. It contained everything she expected. Ripping it open was tradition, not that she even got to do it. Mum opened it before it ever made it into her daughter's hands. It didn't matter, because no one was surprised by the result. Sam's intelligence was native to her being. Lacking conformity had hindered her for so many years in highschool ededucation. Now it was a hard and fast ticket to a brilliant college application letter. She nailed the interview-In a black blazer and violet blouse, no less, with eyes winged like birds.

Sam's own fate was not the reason for her nerves.

When Tucker arrived, she was pleasantly surprised to see what he was wearing.

Sam arched a delicate eyebrow.

"Shut up," he said.

"I didn't say a word."

"I'm at the bottom of my washing pile."

Sam had informed Tucker in a passive-aggressive Christmas card that his taste in fashion didn't match his intelligence. The yellow turtleneck was the problem, she believed. Along with the backwards cap, it made him look like a jaundiced tortoise, liable to pull into his shell at any given fright.

So, in her gift, she included two button down shirts: yellow, in recognition of his taste, and black, in recognition of hers.

He was wearing the yellow button down.

"The bottom of your washing pile is very handsome," she said kindly.

Tucker ordered a burger, paying an extra 1.50 for every additional patty of meat, and bacon on top. At the cashier's confusion, Tucker grinned with lidded eyes, "You must be new here."

Back at the table, Tucker slid onto the old vinyl seat. A million butts had smoothed it before his got there, but the cheap upholstery still tugged on his cargo pants. He had to wiggle to get comfy. Sam opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind.

Tucker said it instead. "He will have other options."

"He deserves more than those other options," she replied miserably, "He deserves the best."

"If colleges cared about who deserved to get in, Dash wouldn't be making it on a football scholarship. Alas. Danny Fenton wasted his youth saving everybody's butts, thanklessly, and now he's going to pay for it."

"There should be a superhero scholarship. Or some diversity initiative for half ghost children. Adjusted GPA on the basis of corporeality." Sam leaned back on the cheap seats.

Tucker's burger arrived, stacked to the high heavens with BEEF.

Sam's face twisted in disgust.

"I would love to tell you that I'm too upset to eat," he said, wrapping his hands around the burger. He squashed it down and could still barely nudge it between his teeth. "But that's plain not true!" Sauce and bits of onion sprayed onto his plate.

Sam closed her eyes. "I'm so excited for the vegetarian options at college."

The door banged open, shocking Sam into opening her eyes. Wind howled about the diner. White napkins spiralled. Danny marched inside, blue eyes flashing green, his face twisted into a very particular rage. The temperature plummeted.

Accustomed to the fluctuating local climate of Amity Park, Sam shrugged on a leather jacket. "And I was worried about climate change..."

Unlike Tucker, Danny didn't have to wiggle into the booth. He flopped onto it, through the table, dark hair falling into his face.

"How are college applications going?" Tucker asked brightly, still munching away.

"Swell," Danny groaned. He leaned forward, stretching out his long arms, and buried his face between them. Like this, he nearly swallowed the table with his gangly limbs.

Sam found herself wondering when Tucker and Danny got so tall. Didn't she used to march around, bigger and badder, rivalling them in presence? Now Danny was so tall. 6'2, and limber.

Even Tucker had converted burgers into inches, growing to a decent 5'11.

Sam was lagging behind, lacing up her combat boots and darkening her eyes to maintain some sort of edge. She was starting to feel SMALL beside them, in size and sometimes, in private fits of anxiety, small in character.

"What happened?" She asked him.

Danny sat up. He rapped his knuckles on the table, clenching his eyes shut. "I got in."

"What?" Her heart leapt. "That's amazing!"

"No, it's bullshit!" He opened his eyes, dangerously green again.

"Hey, big guy, you're looking a little green around the gills," Sam warned him between her teeth, jerking her head at the nervous new cashier.

Danny blinked. The green and the anger went.

"I didn't get in on merit," he clarified, "Vlad pulled some strings." Danny slapped a letter down on the table. "He sent me a letter, informing it had all been taken care of! Along with an official letter of acceptance. 'Good luck at college' he said!" Wringing his hands, he ranted, "It's all I've ever wanted! And I can't take it! It's dangling in front of me bit I didn't EARN it! And there can only be one reason Vlad wants me out of town. I can't endanger everyone, I can't endanger my FAMILY. I'm going to die alone in this town!"

Tucker shook his head. "I'm so sorry man." He smiled weakly. "You can inherit the family business. It's kind of your calling!"

In a burst of moral outrage that Sam was so well-known for, she shouted, "Of course you earned this!"

Tucker and Danny's mouths shut with a click.

Sam cleared her throat. More quietly, she clarified, "Danny, you've been fighting ghosts since you were fourteen. You've given them four years of your life. Nobody deserves more than that. You're not stupid. You didn't fail because you can't make it, or because you're not smart enough for college. You failed because your teachers hated you, because ghosts burned your homework and you stayed out late keeping everyone safe." She swallowed. "Take it."

"Vlad could destroy this place."

"Vlad has never been a black and white man," Sam said, then added, "You know, in a metaphorical sense. When he's a ghost, he's kind of black and white. But personality wise, he has always-in his own way... looked out for you."

"When he wasn't trying to kill you, or clone you, or sleep with your mum," Tucker chimed in, "And I'm pretty sure he's going to kill everyone. Don't do it Danny."

Locking eyes, Sam and Tucker continued to argue. Danny watched them in silence, turning it over. As he pondered the moral implications of either choice, he began to slide down, into the seat, disappearing into the nether place ghosts went to when they slipped out of this reality's physical boundaries.

Tucker caught his still solid shoulder and pulled him up. "If there's a way you can come," Tucker said, "Let's find it. Can we take Vlad out? Put him in a box? Convince your mum to adopt him as a third in her marriage?"

Danny's nose wrinkled up. "I'd prefer Armageddon."

"You might get it," Tucker replied.

Tucker left early for an orientation meeting over Skype. He and the other early adopters of online learning were clamouring for new ways to share information without ever being in the same room as another person.

So Sam and Danny left the Nasty Burger together, bonded by a strange awkwardness. The sky was layered in clouds of different colours, turned an ominous red by a season of Californian bushfires. Sam's blue-black hair looked violet.

"Clockwork gave me a warning, Sam. About the kind of person I could be if I take a free ride." Danny scuffed his sneaker on the pavement.

"It isn't free," Sam said, "I don't think you've gotten anything in your life for free. I got everything for free, and I might be obnoxious, but I don't think I'm evil."

Danny let his head fall back, gazing up at the red sky. Blue light crackled, and it wasn't Danny Fenton anymore. A young man with glowing green eyes stood on the pavement beside her. Sam reached out, touching the white D on his chest with her fingertips. "You deserve happiness."

"Your hair is getting long," he said, watching her face, ignoring her closeness.

"You're getting greys," she teased, dropping her hand. "Where are you flying off to now?"

Danny disappeared. "I've got to figure out what Vlad's planning," his disembodied voice replied, "Get home safely, Sam."

Then Sam's skin prickled with warmth again in the low afternoon heat. Danny was gone.

At Vlad's mansion, Danny landed on the front lawn, unsure of what he saw. Gorgeous Danielle Phantom, his petite ghost fighting cousin, was perched lightly on the mailbox, studying the grand locale. She had a note in her fist.

"Hi Danny." She didn't look at him. "He's not here."

Danny floated around her, landing neatly beside her. He looked at the mansion, too. "He didn't get you into and pay for college, did he?"

Dani's green eyes were full of pearly, glowing green tears. They dribbled like ectoplasm down her cheeks. "He gave me it all, Danny." She handed him the envelope.

It included the deed to Vlad's mansion, a list of accounts and passwords, yet another list of properties dotting the United States, and the name and number of an accountant who held all of Vlad's stock and business information.

"It's a trick," Danny said, "It's got to be."

"Maybe."

Dani's imperfect cloned heart thudded in her chest. All she'd ever wanted was to be somebody's daughter, sister, loved one.

"Dani, dont-"

"He's not here. He's gone. If this is all a big trick, what's the game?"

"To get me out of town," Danny sighed, "To run rampant without anyone to stop him!"

"Then why would be bring me here?" Dani finally looked at him, searching his eyes for an argument good enough to change her mind. "Why not leave Amity Park unguarded?"

Danny didn't precisely know the answer.

"I'm starting school here, next year, you know. I won't live in the mansion, I don't trust him not to have trapped it, but... I'll buy my own place. Set up shop. Beat some baddies. Kick some ghostly ass."

"He's got a plan, Danielle, he always has a plan!" Danny rose into the air. Phasing through the mansions walls, he flitted from one side to the other, through rooms of Gothic greatness, gilded halls and laboratories of disaster. Empty. All empty. The laboratories were dust covered and defunct. A rat scrabbled down an endless hallway.

Landing softly in the great green centre of the mansion, Danny whirled in a circle. What does it mean? What's the plan?

"What do you want from us?" He screamed, his hands in fists. Danny's voice left his body in an explosive wail.

Dani phased through the mansion's walls. "Go

to college, Danny," she told him. "I'm here. I'm strong enough now. I can keep your family safe." As if to prove it, Dani threw her head back and screamed. The mansion trembled, windows rattling in their sills.

In a giddy moment, Danny joined her, screaming, wailing like banshees.

The windows shattered and glass rained down, phasing through their ghostly bodies to clatter on the floor.

In the silence that reigned afterwards, Danny looked down at his other half. She was small, thin, frail to his eyes. But he knew better than to judge by the packaging she came in.

"Alright. But if a single ghost gets out of hand, I'm dropping out. I'll come back here and spend the rest of my days in my family's business. It'll be Fenton Ghostbusters. Who ya gonna call? Danny Phantom, that's who. Do you understand me?"

Dani nodded once, sharply.