Disclaimer: Still don't own Danny Phantom.

Author's Note: Oh. My. Gosh. I am SO incredibly sorry about not updating sooner, I know I'm way behind and I know have been stretching out this story for way too long. I've just been so busy, I can't even keep my school stuff straight, so my homework time is literally bleeding into my creative time. It's a mess.

Chapter Seven

"Sam, I'm really sorry about Kates." He reached a hand out, probably to touch me, but I shimmied away, scurrying back into my room.

I shook my head again and again. "No, no, no, don't say that!" I cried, forcing a hand over my mouth, as if I could stuff his words back in. If he said stuff like that, he didn't understand. There was so much death here, and they all said the same things. Sorry...really sorry...so sorry...so very sorry...shut up shut up shut up shut up! I wrenched back the door a few feet and stuffed myself back there, my back to the wall as I counted. One sorry...two sorry...three sorry...

"Danny? Aren't you with Sam?"

I could hear Angie's worry, even from my spot behind the door.

"I was, she...I think I did something to upset her. I said I was sor--"

"Shh," she said, "she's not deaf. She can hear you, from behind the door, and you don't want her to catch you saying that, it always worries her, since her grandmother..."

"Her grandmother?"

"Didn't she tell you?"

My grandmother. My grandmother, Ida. It had only been about four years ago, when I was ten, and I got a temporary leave. My grandma was sick, and by then she was the closest person to me by far, about a million galaxies closer than my parents. After the accident, it was like she was my only parent. Once the doctor said the illness was really bad, the aunts materialized out of nowhere; and the uncles, too. My cousins that I never saw. A random assortment of people, and people who weren't even related. Friends, teachers, neighbors, old coworkers. Some had never even stopped to say hello before, but now that she was sick, it was like they all cared.

I tried to escape from it all; there were so many voices. Each guest targeted a different relative, and I walked through the room trying to find someone to talk to, someone different from everyone else, someone to help me escape, to help me forget. But it was all the same. Sorry...so sorry...sorry for your loss...very sorry...it must be so hard, I'm so sorry...sorry...sorry...

They all spoke like that, saying sorry, as if she was dead. She wasn't, not yet. She had a few days left. She still had the spark in her eyes, it was just fainter than ever before.

The day of the funeral, I ran. I ran from my house, refusing to sit still and stiffly next to my cousins, leaping out of the car at the last second. I remember my uncle leaning over, my aunt's reprimand, "Don't." I don't know who she was talking to, but I took it as aimed to my uncle, and I ran. No one stopped me. They all remembered. They knew it was better that I jumped out then.

At the time, I still remembered what it felt like, how she went. I still remembered her face, like stone, and her hand going limp in mine. It had just been a few days before, and I didn't want to be consoled for that. That was my moment, who were they to take it from me? Who were they to take her from me? She'd gone peacefully in the end, so why was it sorry? I hid during the funeral, crouching behind a nearby tombstone. But I couldn't take the reception, not even from behind the couch. When no one was looking, the door opened, so softly, and I slid out. To the park. That was where I first saw him, where I first decided that I believed. I believed in ghosts.

And I remembered now, oh, I remembered. The silver and green, the eyes, so hauntingly beautiful. I watched him fight, beating back those clumsy ghosts so easily. I knew they were bad, and he was good. I could feel it. He had even seen me when he was all done, and about to fly away.

He looked at me and I wondered. He was so young, only my age, and here he was, defending the city, keeping us safe. How could that happen? I looked around in my life and saw so many worthless, so many nurses and doctors at the institution that were two or three or even four times older than he was, and they did so much less. Some of them had jobs that could save lives, but they didn't even try. How many times did they pass us in the halls, weeping and broken, and say nothing? They had degrees, but they couldn't figure us out. They didn't even try. And then there was this ghost boy.

That was why I loved him.

I had a sudden urge to tell all of this, to get off my pathetic butt and wipe away my stupid tears, to go find Danny and tell him (only maybe not the part about me loving the ghost boy). But when I stood up and looked into the hall, Danny was long gone.

--DP--

"Did he ask, Angie? Did he? He must think I'm such a freak now."

"It's alright to be sad, Sam. And he doesn't think you're a freak."

"Rosie?"

"Angie explained everything."

I slumped down against the bedpost, tears pooling in my eyes and draining out the sides. "So why'd he leave?"

"He said he'd give you space. He said he knew about death and he said that you'd understand that."

Right. I was such an idiot. Nadine, of course...Danny would've understood anyway. He just didn't get the sorrys, because it wasn't his relative. He was the one that was sorry for the relatives. Of course, like everything else, he was the one that would be sorry for me.

Tell me what you think. This chapter's pretty important (in terms of Sam's life), but expect a huge surprise in the next one.

Unless you're psychic, in which case it will be no surprise, but it was actually even a shocker to me. I just had this random idea, ran with it, and stuck it in on a whim, and I'm hoping it works out.

So review. Tell me the first thing that comes into your mind (EXCEPT for bashing me for being so late, because who wants to break a girl's heart with bashing, right?).

P.S. I'm also fixing my profile, for anyone who cares. A link to my blog's up. It's really boring, just info about updates and stuff, but you can check it out if you really want (just click on my homepage).