I liked writing this chapter. Sam is fun to write.

When Phantom said he would send someone to take Edward shopping, he didn't expect Sam Manson. She was waiting for him outside the shopping mall, tapping her combat boot on the ground impatiently.

"Good you're finally here." She said. "You were supposed to be ten minutes ago. Come on."

Edward could do nothing but follow her as she stomped her way through the mall, elbowing small children as she went. He was glad he wasn't on the receiving end of those elbows.

"Phantom said you needed to get some more shirts, but do you need anything else? I can pay – I know you have a rubbish salary." She glanced at him as they thundered past the various shops in the mall, questioning but still managing to look intimidating. Edward didn't like being intimidated by a sixteen year old who didn't even come up to his shoulders. "Well?" she demanded, and he realised he must have zoned out.

"Trousers." He said. "I need trousers."

"Great. Okay, come on. We're nearly there."

They came to a sudden stop outside a store that, when he went inside, sold T-shirts and only T-shirts. For Edward, who was used to getting his shirts in a target, it was a new experience. He scoured the racks at Sam's direction and reluctantly picked out a couple of shirts. Black, because Sam may well have killed him otherwise, an orange for his ghost form (he had a ghost form! He still wasn't used to that) so it would be blue when he changed, a green for everyday wear and a couple of pairs of jeans from a stack of them at the back of the store. He had tried to protest, because he wasn't twenty anymore and he didn't need jeans, but miss Manson was not a person you wanted to cross.

He didn't even look at the price tags until they got to the checkout, but he blanched when he saw them. "Sam, these are really expensive." He exclaimed. "I cant let you pay for these!"

She looked down at her feet and scowled. "You will. My family's loaded and I have more than enough on my card. Just shut up and let me do it so we can get this over with. Still don't know why Danny asked me to do this." She shot the woman at the till a sharp toothy grin... and was it him, or did she have fake vampire teeth in?

Sam insisted that they go to some sort of goth store after getting Edward's clothes, and he spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes waiting while she discussed everything from chokers to music to politics with the kid at the desk. Apparently she was a regular.

"How do you know Phantom?" Edward asked the question that had been bugging him all day when they were safely sat in a café far away from any teenage angst.

"I help him out sometimes." She shrugged. "Danny gets him Fenton tech, and it only seemed natural for me and Tuck to help. I'd still like to know how the hell you ended up as a half ghost. And you should also know how weird this is."

"Thank you, miss Manson." Edward grumbled.

"It's Sam. If you're gonna be with phantom, you call me Sam. Never Samantha, got it?"

He gulped. "Got it."

"How did you become a halfa?" She asked. Ignoring the fact that she really shouldn't know that, he explained with much nodding and humming on Sam's part. When he had finished, she shrugged, picked up her coffee and took a long sip. "You've got a big storm coming."

"Sam, is that a meme?"

"Might be." She shrugged. "Might not be. You'll never know."

As Phantom had promised, he and Edward met again on Saturday, and he seemed to be completely ignoring the argument they had had. This time, Phantom taught him how to go invisible and to control the ectoblasts that, by now, had destroyed a large portion of his house. It was all about concentration and intent, Edward discovered. If you were angry, then your blasts would be much stronger and if you were calm and collected, then they would be more controlled themselves. He thought back to the Fenton's hypothesis that ghosts were ruled by their emotions and thought it seemed more and more likely to be true.

He wasn't sure if the same went for halfas, but he certainly found himself being more irritable with the likes of Danny Fenton and Tucker Foley (who would not come off his stupid PDA) at school. He caught Sam whispering something to the two of them with a grin on her face and Daniel turning to stare at him and giggle. If he wasn't so afraid of both Sam (especially now that he knew she hunted ghosts) and her parents, he would have given her detention. When he went back two days after his accident, he was subject to extreme questioning form principal Ishiyama who was suspicious, if not incredulous at his absence the day before. He managed to shrug her off and wandered to his classroom. It was there he realised he had absolutely no lesson plans for the day and he ran about the room in a panic trying to think of something to teach. This panic resulted in him falling through the floor of the classroom and it took him three tries to float up and out.

Edward decided that he hated intangibility. And flying. No matter how amazing Phantom thought it was, he preferred to have his feet firmly on the ground, thank you very much.

Thanks to Phantom, he could fly, which was just a strange concept in itself. He didn't understand how it worked – surely his body was much too heavy to stay in the air without some sort of leverage – and Phantom's explanation involving space rockets and ectoplasm soon evolved into a starry eyed rant about the solar system. Phantom apparently had a borderline obsessive love for space, and Edward wasn't going to complain. It was nice to see the normally serious ghost act so childish and human.

They continued to meet up for a few weeks, having bi-weekly training sessions. These usually involved Phantom demonstrating something, Edward completely failing to do it and then the ghost laughing his head off, which Edward did not appreciate.

"You could at least try to be serious." He grumbled during a particularly amusing session. "I haven't exactly had the years of practice that you have. And you're young. I'm an old man, Phantom. Cut me some slack."

This only caused Phantom to burst out in a bout of fresh laughter, clutching his side and wheezing. "Old man! Ha! You're only like thirty years older than me!"

"I'd shut up if I were you."

"What you gonna do to a young whippersnapper like me?" phantom giggled. He gasped, "Oh no. Are you going to tell me stories about 'when you were a lad'? Spare me!"

"I might if you don't shut up." Edward warned. "Explain the shield to me again. And don't laugh."

"Cant make any promises." he wiped the tears out of his eyes and made his own shield.

Edward's grip on his powers did improve as time went on, and he began to have less accidents involving him and the floor. He had a newfound appreciation for all that Phantom did for the town, (even if he didn't quite agree with his methods of doing so) after actually taking notice of all the ghost fights that went on in the day while he was teaching.

Phantom also clued him in on one of his student's activities which he was more than worried about. He sat Valerie Gray down one day after class and told her that what she was doing was very dangerous and she should really stop. After all, its not like ghosts had ever done anything to her personally, right?

"Please, Mr Lancer." She had scoffed after the initial denial. "Danny Phantom ruined my life. I have no idea how you even found out about this, but im not going to stop. I got that suit almost a year ago and ive never been seriously injured."

"But you might be!" he pleaded. "Valerie, you're a smart girl. This is taking its toll on you and your grades. You can't keep running out of class to fight ghosts!"

"I can and I will." She growled. "You don't know ghosts like I do. They're all bad. They'll destroy the town if someone doesn't stop them."

"Phantom takes care of them." He argued. "And if he cant, then the guys in white will."

"Oh please, those guys are useless and we all know it. I've got all the tech I need, and I'm perfectly capable of taking down those ghosts by myself. I don't need your concern and I don't need you sounding like my dad! Ive already got enough to deal with."

"I won't be letting you out of class from now on, Valerie. You're sixteen – you should not be fighting ghosts."

"Then I'll go anyway. I have to fight ghosts." She turned on her heel and left, huffing as she did. Teenagers, honestly. If she thought she could take on all the ghosts in Amity Park with just a couple of blasters, and why she thought she could, Edward didn't understand. If he was her, he would want to stay as far away as possible from the fight. Didn't she have any sense of self preservation? Watching her hurtle about on her precarious hoverboard outside, once again chasing after Phantom, Edward thought that perhaps she didn't.

It was one thing cheering on the red huntress as she saved the day in a ghost fight; she was completely anonymous. It was another thing entirely knowing that it was one of his students in that suit, and that she put herself at risk every day. Edward hated knowing there was nothing he could do short of confiscating the suit completely, and, given that it seemed to be permanently part of her body at this point (how horrifying) he wasn't sure that he physically could do that.

His life had gotten way too complicated over the last few weeks.

That night, Edward and Phantom sat on the rusted roof of the warehouse just talking. Phantom's legs swung over the edge, but Edward, still uncertain about heights, stayed well away and sat further back. It had become a regular thing for them: train for a couple of hours, then sit on the roof. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they passed the time in companionable silence. Edward, who was not exactly the best at making friends, still had no idea how his closest and only one was a ghost.

"So." Phantom said, shifting his weight so he faced Edward. "Got any plans for the summer? Seeing anyone?"

Edward was caught off guard. "What? No. I'll probably just spend it reading. And training, assuming you're still up for it?"

Phantom didn't answer his question. Instead, his eyebrows rose and he said, "All alone? Just reading. No offense, but that sounds really boring, dude. Haven't you got any family to visit or anything?"

"I like reading!" Edward protested. "And my parents passed a while ago."

"Oh, sorry. But don't you have a sister?"

"No!" he said. "I sometimes tell the students I do to get them motivated, but its just a picture of me in a dress. How do you even know about that?"

Phantom's face had contorted, eyes wide and mouth open. "That was you? In a dress? Oh my god! Beautiful!" he was screeching with laughter, and Edward frowned.

"Shut up, young man. How do you know about that picture? Have you been spying on me?"

"No?" it was more of a question than anything else. "So you're really all alone?"

"Yes. I'm happy with just me and my books." Phantom looked sympathetic. Edward thought that was really unnecessary. "It can get a little lonely, yes, but I am fine, Phantom." He tried to reassure.

"This summer, you're not going to stay alone." The ghost decided instead. "You're gonna train with me, and i'm going to take you flying, like on a trip. Not just around Amity. We're going all over. Wherever you want – as long as its not Wisconsin. Im not going anywhere near Wisconsin."

"Phantom, you really don't have to do that."

"Yes I do." He said. "No one deserves to be lonely."

The following week, training was particularly vigorous and Edward was exhausted afterwards. He had finally managed to get a ghost shield up, albeit a flickering and weak one, and he had pretty much mastered 'flying'. He still refused to go more than ten metres off the ground.

They sat on the roof afterwards watching the sunset over the town. Bright Scarlets and deep oranges and light teals ribboned across the sky in a beautiful dance. Edward would never get tired of watching it.

Phantom's fingers drummed on the iron roof and his face was stretched into a content smile.

"What's got you so happy?" Edward asked him.

"I just love looking at the sky at this time of night." He replied. "Y'know, when the sun's still setting but you can see the stars and the moon coming up. Look – there's the big dipper and Orion! And it's a waning moon tonight." He leaned back on one hand, the other still tapping. "You can just imagine what it's like to be up there, seeing the earth just a speck in the distance. I'd love to go to space."

"I can tell." Laughed Edward. "Is that your ghostly obsession? I heard the Fenton's talking about them."

"Nah. At least, I don't think so. My obsession is protection. Protecting my friends, protecting Amity. I've always loved space. I wanted to be an astronaut before… you know."

"What's it like?" Edward asked. "being fully dead?"

Phantom didn't answer for a while, his fingers continuing to tap tap tap away. When he did, his face was thoughtful, as if pondering a question of his own. "I lied to you." He said finally.

"What?"

"I lied. About being a full ghost. I'm not."

"You're not a ghost?"

"No. I'm a halfa. Like you. I'm sorry for lying."

Edward's mind turned upside down from that moment on. Phantom had lied? He was just like him and he didn't even tell him? Did that mean he had a human form like Edward? He had somehow known about the 'sister' thing, and he still sometimes called him 'Mr Lancer' – did that mean Phantom was one of his students? There he was complaining about Valerie putting her life at risk when Phantom was doing the same and had actually died! Well, not died, if he hadn't lied about that too. It was too much to handle.

"You're not saying anything." Phantom's worried voice said. "Please say something. Did I mess up? I'm sorry!"

God, he sounded so much like a scared teenager. That's exactly what he was. "No, its fine." He said. "Just processing. Why did you lie?"

He could see just how human Phantom looked when his eyes screwed up and he grimaced. His fingers tapped even faster now. "it just happened. I was trying to protect my identity, and I wasn't sure exactly what had happened to you until later. It seemed natural to pretend that I was a full ghost and didn't know about halfas firsthand. Maybe I thought you would trust me more if you didn't see me as some human kid."

Edward tried to make his voice gentle as he placed a hand on Phantom's. "I'm not angry, Phantom. I understand. I wouldn't want anyone to know either." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Especially if it was your teacher. Is that right?"

A pause, then, "How did you know?"

"The picture. You knew about it."

"Oh." he said. "Oh. I –"

"I am the box ghost!" Sure enough, the box ghost hovered just over the edge, hands in the air. "I am here to interrupt your bonding time!" he shouted.

"Ughh." Phantom groaned, rising to his feet. "Let me take care of this. Chuck me that thermos, will you?"

"Beware!"

"Shut up!" The two halfas yelled. Phantom sucked him up into the thermos quickly before landing on the roof again.

Edward ignored him as he sat back down; he was deep in thought. Who was Phantom? Dash? No. That didn't make any sense. Mikey? Definitely not. Danny? Didn't have the motivation, even if he had the name. And the build. And the hair and the voice. Earlier on in the week, Sam Manson, Danny Fenton's best friend, had called Phantom 'Danny'. Pride and prejudice, He really was Phantom, wasn't he.

Lancer is a smart guy. I'm honestly surprised he didn't figure it out in the show.