We'll Get Married on the Moon Like Astronauts

Chapter Two

March 6, 2015

Sam quickly became friends with Tucker and Danny that last semester of sixth grade, and remained so all through the summer. She'd left for two weeks at the end of the summer to go visit some crazy aunt that lived on the other side of the country, and wouldn't be getting back until the night before school started. Tucker was convinced he was going to die if he didn't see her for that long.

But those two weeks, though they dragged for a small eternity, eventually ended and he was officially a seventh-grader. He trotted into the middle school nervously, shifting the backpack on his shoulders to sit more comfortably on his back, and ignored his heart hammering against his ribcage. The hallways were much bigger here than they were at the elementary school, lined with pale brown lockers and currently swarming with seventh and eighth graders. Tucker paused as two squealing girls rushed by him, glanced down at his locker number scribbled on the inside of his hand, and counted the lockers along the wall next to him.

His locker was just two doors down from his home room, which would definitely come in handy, and two minutes into unloading some of his newly purchased school supplies, he discovered it was just one locker down from Danny's.

Danny had grown a foot over the summer, which he needed desperately. He was one of the last guys in the sixth grade to get his growth spurt, spending the majority of the last half of sixth grade several inches shorter than everyone else, but now he was right about where Tucker was.

"Hey, are you excited?" Danny asked as he began shoveling ratty notebooks into his own locker. Tucker's gaze lingered on one that was stained green and ripped a few places, but then he glanced up at Danny and found his blue eyes sparkling with excitement and his own heart skipped a beat.

"I'm nervous, man," he said as he closed his locker and leaned against it.

Danny's brow furrowed. "Dude, just do it," he said. "You've been planning this for so long, she's bound to say yes."

Tucker huffed, starting to say that there was probably no way Sam would ever say yes to being his girlfriend, when he noticed that Danny's gaze was no longer on him. Tucker looked around and spotted Paulina holding hands with some tall blond guy he'd never seen before. He bit his lip as he glanced back at Danny, whose gaze had grown considerably darker. "Sorry, bro," he said, reaching out and thumping Danny's shoulder.

"Doesn't matter," he said, faking bravado. Tucker frowned, but let him pretend he was okay. "Let's not talk about that right now. Do you have a plan?"

"Of course I have a plan, it's all we've been talking about for the last two weeks." Tucker grumbled.

"Hey, guys," a familiar voice drew both of their attention back toward the hallway. Tucker felt his heart freeze.

It was Sam, but she looked absolutely nothing like herself. Her pants were army green and baggy, tucked into thick, chunky black army boots. Her shirt was black and long-sleeved and a thin black choker sat a few inches below her jaw. But the weird thing was that her clothes weren't even the most shocking part. Her hair, the last time he'd seen it, was platinum blonde and hung down to her elbows. Now it was pitch black, shaved almost to her scalp on one side, and cut to her chin on the other. She grinned smugly at Tucker's gob smacked expression.

"Do you like it?" She asked, fingering the silken tips of hair on the longer side. Tucker tried to speak, but all that escaped his dry throat was an airy hiss. Sam's smile faltered as she gazed between Tucker and Danny. "Too much?"

"Just…just a little," Danny said. Tucker glanced to his right and saw that Danny looked just as winded as he felt. He was leaning back against the lockers, gripping the door of his for support. "That's…wow,"

"Bad?" She asked nervously.

"No, no, not bad," Danny said, shaking his head vigorously. "It's just a little shocking. When did you do that?"

"My aunt did it for me last week," she said, her previous excitement back in full force. "She thought I'd look good with a punk haircut, so she cut my hair and then dyed it black. Then we went and got a bunch of really cool clothes from this awesome store by her house."

"It looks good on you," Danny said seriously. Sam smiled shyly and glanced down at her feet. "Really, it does. Hey, what does your schedule look like?"

Tucker remained rooted to the spot as the two compared schedules. "We have science and social studies together, and we all have the same English class," Danny said excitedly.

"Tucker, are you okay?" Sam asked.

Tucker snapped his jaw shut, forced a smile, and said, "Great! I'm just, uh, nervous. You know, about my computer class."

Sam hummed and he couldn't stop staring at the shaved side of her head. "Well, let me know how it goes in English later," she said. She traded Danny's schedule with him for hers, checked the room number of her home room, and then smiled at them both confidently. "Good luck, guys," she said as she slipped into the flow of students.

Danny rounded on Tucker, eyebrow raised knowingly. "Chicken," he said.

"Did you see her hair?" Tucker demanded. Danny rolled his eyes. "She looks like a freak!"

"Hey," Danny slammed his locker shut. "Who cares? It's her hair and she can do whatever she wants with it. Maybe she likes it like that. Actually, obviously she does like it like that. Let her wear her hair how she wants to wear it."

"But what about when Paulina sees?" Tucker whined.

"Sam will need us to be nice and supportive because people are jerks and they're gonna try to make her feel bad about it. We're her friends," Danny urged. "We should be the nicest people to her out of anyone."

Sam's hair grew out by the end of their first semester, but the magic was already long-dead for Tucker by then (not that it mattered, there were so many new hot girls from the other elementary schools for him to drool over now). She kept it black and chopped short, but continued experimenting with her clothing. He could tell by the bags beneath her eyes and the anger she sometimes carried with her that her parents didn't exactly support her new taste in style. So, even though it pained Tucker to no end, he was fully supportive of Sam whenever she asked him for his opinion. It only took a few shin-kicks from Danny for encouragement.

By the time high school rolled around, Tucker was fairly sure he would never find romance, but he was weirdly okay with that – he'd found his passion for technology, and that helped him fill otherwise boring, lonely hours. His father told him that he was lucky, because it wasn't very often that people his age found their life's passion. He could start taking all the technology classes the high school offered as well as a few special classes over the weekend at the local community college. He'd graduate high school with twelve college credit hours, which was more than anyone else in his graduating class. Of course, that all fell apart after Danny's accident. Tucker found that nearly all of his free time was dedicated to helping Danny however he could. It was good, then, he reasoned, that he didn't have a romance. It would have fallen to shit too, which would have been needlessly painful and messy on top of everything else.

Sam remained dutifully single as well, but Tucker realized it was because she was majorly crushing on Danny. Some tiny festering part of him that still clung to those feelings he'd harbored for her was hurt at how totally in love with him she was, but it was easy to ignore that part when they were being attacked or chased by some blood-thirsty ghost. He did like to poke fun at her for it, though, on those afternoons when ghost hunting pulled Danny away and left them by themselves. By the end of their freshman year, it didn't bother him at all anymore.

But, as clueless as Danny usually was, Tucker began to notice about half-way through their sophomore year that Danny was starting to return those feelings for Sam. Little things he did and said practically screamed it, and one day it got to be so annoying to Tucker that he broke.

"Would you just ask her out already?" He practically snarled over his PDA. Danny had just spent the last twenty minutes talking about how awesome Sam had been in their last battle. Danny's head jerked back and he spun his desk chair around quickly, eyes flashing in confusion. "You're both so obvious, and it's getting really annoying. Just ask her out."

"What…I don't know what you mean," Danny said slowly, carefully. Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Look, I know that you like her, and she's liked you for a long time. Why haven't you asked her out, yet?"

"I-I…uh…" his face was bright red. If he was ever in a situation where he was held hostage by people who wanted to know his feelings for Sam, he would be dead in an instant. He had absolutely no poker face. He sighed and slumped down in his chair in defeat. "I don't have time for a girlfriend right now," he said lamely.

"You spend practically every waking moment with her anyways, plus, you had no problem asking Valerie out a few months ago," Tucker said. Danny shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Next argument."

"It wouldn't be safe for her if she-"

"She and I both know the risks of being your friend, and really, it wouldn't change anything during your fights. It's not like she's super into PDA or anything. Next."

Danny looked up at his ceiling desperately. "I feel bad," he said.

"About what?"

"I just, I remember when you were gonna ask her out, and, I don't know, I feel like I'm betraying you somehow."

Tucker deflated on Danny's bed, letting his PDA slip from between his fingers. "Danny," he said slowly. "It was three years ago. I've moved on."

"Yeah, but, I dunno…"

"Dude, Sam and I are so painfully opposite it's funny," he said with a smirk. "I could never, ever date a vegan. Let alone an ultra-recyclo vegetarian."

Danny peered up at him through his shaggy bangs, and Tucker was surprised at the conviction he felt. "You guys are so obviously meant for each other. Just ask her out and fall in love and get married, dumbass."

And Danny did.