When Sam shrank back into herself she was knelt on the ground on her hands and knees. She squinted up at Phantom and sat back on her heels, dazed.
Remarkably, there was no damage to her dress. Not a single rip in the cloth, not even a wrinkle. Nor a strand out of place in her weird spidery up-do. Her mascara was running, but she might have been crying before she'd morphed into a giant ghost dragon.
Phantom had no way of knowing. He wasn't there.
Not for the first time he wished he had a cellphone or something. If he could have gotten here sooner, if he'd known, then maybe he could have prevented this whole mess.
Or at least saved the football field's stadium lights.
He wasn't sure if he should lift her up. Maybe fly her home? Was she aware of what had just happened? The damage around them would speak for itself if she wasn't.
Kneeling down in front of her, he extended his hand forward, slowly, as if she were a stray cat he was trying to feed.
She slapped his hand away, spinning away from him. Phantom winced at the reaction and might have stood to back away, but then she puked. She held her own hair out of her face as she retched, she even bunched up the skirt of her dress and held it safely against her chest. Phantom inched closer with his hands awkwardly raised, hovering, looking for a task.
Before he could figure out what that task might be she was done. Then she stood on her own and faced him with her chin in the air. Defiant. Phantom chuckled.
"I know, I know," he said. "You never needed me."
At his words her face crumpled and she bit her lip. "Th-that's not. That's…" She sighed. "I don't want your pity."
"You think I wanted yours?" Phantom countered.
She actually stomped her foot. "That isn't fair!" Sam made as if to swipe her bangs out of her face and growled in frustration when she found that her hair was still gelled into place. "Th-this stupid hair," she said. Even after yanking out the hair ties that held her spiderweb pigtails in place, her hair still maintained its form. She groaned and raked her fingers through the strands, violently ruffling it out of shape.
Phantom stepped forward, his arms lifted. Hovering over her once again. She noticed this time and froze, allowing him to take her hands off her head. He held them in his own for a second before realizing how that must look.
Then he dropped them like he had been burned. "S-sorry, I-"
She grinned. "There he is," Sam said. "That awkwardness. It's a part of you."
He sputtered. "It's the stupidest part of me."
"Try the funniest," she said. "All a girl has to do," Sam leaned forward and ruffled his hair. "Is get a little close." If Phantom were human he would feel the heat on his face. For the first time it occurred to him that he could not blush.
She could read his thoughts. "I don't need to see you blush to know," Sam smirked. "It's written all over your face."
"Wh-what's written there?" he said. "Stop messing with me."
She released him. "I'm just being stupid," Sam said. She wiped at her face and frowned at the mascara on her fingers. "Just… just wanted to get that reaction from you again."
"I missed seeing that look on your face," she added. "Whenever you would talk to a pretty girl or whatever. N-not that I'm a pretty girl," she snorted. "I mean, you know."
"Wha- Sam you've always been a p-pretty girl," Phantom said. He tugged at the hairs at the back of his neck. "Gaaah, and I think Dash and his friends are looking for me. Let's get out of here?"
They were still in the center of the football field. He could see the football team struggling to climb over the broken metal bleachers, which had been flipped upside down and crumpled like tin foil then tossed aside by her Ghost Dragon alter ego. She was lucky she hadn't crushed anyone with them. Sam glanced over his shoulder and saw what he meant.
"Oh, you want to just, uh, fly away?" Sam said. Phantom was relieved that she chose not to follow up on his admittance that she was a pretty girl.
"Yeah, but let me take you home."
Now it was her turn to blush. "You mean carry me?"
He stared at his feet. "Th-that's the only way it would work?"
"Right," she said. "Of course."
Then they both stood there and stared at each other in silence.
Until they heard Dash shouting Inviso-bill in delight when he finally made it over the bleachers. Phantom quickly put his arms around Sam's waist and she put her arms around his neck. Her grip tightened as they began their ascent. If he were human she'd have choked him to death, he thought.
She was warm. He could hear her heartbeat.
"D-don't be nervous," Phantom said. He said it for himself as much as for her. He'd been slowly lifting them higher above the field, but now he hesitated. He could see Dash and his cronies directly below them now. Waving their arms trying to get his attention as they floated in place. Then Phantom looked out over the school. It looked like the rest of the student body was in the parking lot.
Someone was waving a hastily cobbled together poster that said We Love You Ghost Boy! With a red marker and little smiley face doodle. Phantom grinned and accidentally made eye contact with the girl holding it. It was Paulina.
He quickly looked away.
Sam put her head against his neck and breathed deeply to steady herself. He shivered as he felt a puff of air against his skin.
"Go ahead," she said. "Let's go home."
He spotted Fenton getting into Jazz's car and felt his muscles loosen. "Okay."
oOo
"Do you hate him?" Phantom said. They were sitting on her bed with the laptops, grinding on Doomed. Sam hadn't even bothered to change out of her dress.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said. She used her avatar to kick him.
He logged out of the game. "We can't play around all night."
He set the laptop aside on a nightstand. She shrugged and continued the game without him.
"Goodnight then," he said. He floated, just a little. Threatening to leave.
She grabbed his arm. "C'mon."
He waited.
Sam groaned. "I don't hate him!"
"You attacked him," Phantom said. He was still floating. He flipped himself over so he was hovering directly above her, facing towards her.
"I was possessed," she said. She was looking at the game, but her avatar stood still and got killed.
"No. The necklace gave you power," he said. "You controlled it."
She pushed her laptop off her lap. Phantom winced at the sound of the impact when it landed on the floor.
"Sam-"
"It was like being drunk!" she said. "Everything was… primal."
"Then you hate him on a primal level?" Phantom said. He resisted the urge to pick up her laptop.
Sam grabbed a pillow and shoved it at her face. He thought she would scream, but she didn't. She just sat there, hiding her face.
He tentatively reached for the pillow. She didn't resist as he pulled it away.
"It's like… the fae have kidnapped my best friend," Sam said. "They replaced him with this changeling and I'm the only one who can see the difference!"
Phantom stared at her. "Huh?"
"It's a story. Folk tales," she said. "Ugh, would you stop hovering over me?"
She tugged him back into the bed. He landed too close, practically on top of her. She had reclined to be lying down.
They were both lying down. Up against each other. In a bed.
Phantom felt himself short circuiting with indecision. Move? Stay? It was comfortable, he wanted to stay.
"... are they fairies themselves or are they like zombies? I don't think a changeling is meant to be malicious," Sam was saying. "But I hadn't thought about them as characters in their own right. They were just… these little monsters."
He had no idea what she was saying. Should he tell her that or pretend he did? She'd be pissed if he got caught.
"But this isn't an old wives tale," Sam said with a sigh. She turned onto her side. Shit, now she was closer. And looking right at him. "That's what drives me crazy. I don't know what to make of him. Or of this crazy situation."
She dabbed at her eyes. Shit, she was crying. "Or how to help you."
"Hey, hey, hey," he said. "I keep telling you I'm fine."
Very slowly, so that she could punch him or something if she wanted, he put an arm around her. Sam rolled into him in response, her arms under his back and gripping his shoulders.
Swallowing, he hugged her with both arms and patted her as she continued to cry.
"You're not fine!" she said. "You're dead! You can't go to dances or college or, or-"
"Danny Fenton is alive," Phantom said. "I'm just a weird fluke. A clone."
That surprised her enough to stop the tears in their tracks. "Wh-what?"
"I met someone in Wisconsin,' Phantom said. "This creepy guy who had a similar experience."
"It's happened before?" Sam propped herself up to look at him. She winced, maybe noticing for the first time that they were embracing in her bed.
But she didn't get off of him.
"My parents had another ghost portal," Phantom said. "A prototype. It didn't work. It exploded in someone's face."
"In the face of the man you met," Sam said. She frowned at him. "You aren't lying to me?"
He gaped at her. "Why would I lie?" He draped an arm over his eyes, tilting his chin up in a dramatic show of hurt feelings. "I see how it is."
She giggled. "I'm serious!"
"That's the problem," he said. "Ever since the accident. You're too serious."
She rolled her eyes. Something in the way she held herself was different now. Not exactly relaxed, but getting there.
She was still gripping his shoulders, but her hold had loosened.
"What's his name then?" Sam murmured. She was smiling down at him. She pulled one of her arms back and Phantom thought she was about to get off him.
Instead she brushed his bangs out of his eyes.
"Who?" Phantom said. He was glad he couldn't blush.
"The guy," she said. He blinked.
"In Wisconsin?" She prompted.
"Oh! Right, uh, well." He searched for an excuse not to tell her and tried to imagine a scenario where she would accept the omission.
It was impossible. Sam Manson was not a girl to be left in the dark.
He gave up. "Vlad Masters."
Phantom found himself holding Sam a little tighter. Protective, as if saying the name would summon Vlad like some kind of demon.
"He had the same symptoms?" She looked thoughtful. Even with the running mascara and her hair in a frazzled mess- from her own fingers as well as the flight over here- she still managed to look like…
Like a girl on a mission. Phantom had seen this look on her face many times before. Whenever she found a new project, a new victim or injustice, this was how it started.
Not good.
"No!" he said.
"Then how did it affect him?"
"Wait, what?"
"The portal. Or prototype, whatever," Sam said. "If the symptoms weren't the same-"
"Oh! They were."
"But-"
"What I meant was, you can't look for him. Or contact him in any way."
"Ever," he added.
She narrowed her eyes. "You can't stop me."
"Sam, I'm serious!" Phantom said. "He's a dangerous man. He attacked me."
"Which of them?"
"Huh?"
"You said he was like you and Danny. That you were a clone. So did Vlad Masters attack you? Or his… ghost?"
"Oh," Phantom cleared his throat. "The ghost."
"Then why would it be dangerous to contact his," she paused. "...human counterpart. Hmm?"
"I don't trust him either," Phantom said. "Please Sam don't turn this into a crusade."
"I resent that," she said. "You think I see you as a frog that's about to be dissected? A rabbit tortured by some pharmaceutical company?"
She leaned forward. Sam's face hovered over him. Close enough for Phantom to feel her breath on his nose.
"You aren't a project," she said. She took a deep breath. "And you aren't a victim. Danny…"
"I-I'm also not Danny," he murmured.
"Phantom, then." She stared at him.
He stared at her.
They were frozen like that for a while. Just staring as she breathed on his face and he wondered if it were possible for a ghost to pop a-
No, that would be-
Then she leaned forward and kissed him. He closed his eyes and let it happen.
He didn't know how to kiss. Should he open his mouth? Keep it closed? What were you supposed to do with your lips? Pucker them?
She didn't really do anything besides touch his lips with hers. They both remained still and maybe she was waiting for him to take over? But he didn't know how.
Then she leaned back.
"Phantom?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Why are you invisible?"
He opened his eyes and looked down at himself. He just saw Sam. She looked like she was floating.
"Phantom?"
"I have to go," he said.
"What," she glared at her hands. He knew she wanted to aim it at him. She was close. "Where do you need to be right now?"
"F-Fenton," he said. "I need to-"
"You're joking."
"I'm sorry," Phantom activated his intangibility and moved out of the way as Sam was dropped onto the bed.
She quickly sat back up. "Wait, Phantom-"
"S-sorry!" As if repeating it enough times could make it better.
But it was true. He needed to talk to Fenton. He'd put it off for long enough.