Twelve Days of Christmas

Thursday, December 14th

(Eleven days until Christmas)

The flowers were a bother. Not that they were lovely or unappreciated, though part of Sam deplored the waste of their lives. But she had no idea who sent them. She investigated, of course, but by the next afternoon still had no answers. Even Danny and Tucker had been no help, despite their own special abilities. Tucker had promised her that he couldn't find any trace of an actual payment using electronic means, which meant that the flowers had been bought and paid for in person with cash, and Danny had remained surprisingly silent. In fact, he'd barely spoken to her since she's shown them the flowers.

The problem was far more intriguing than the trig equation she was supposed to be working on.

Sam had half thought that Danny might have sent the flowers, but now she wasn't so sure. If he had, then surely he would have given something away. Danny Fenton wasn't one to lie well; he was caught more often than not, and the only time he managed a successful lie was when he was too tired or beat up to be bothered to turn red at the untruth.

Danny hadn't so much as flinched, just turned his face to a stony glare that made the lower classmen avoid him in the halls.

And Tucker had the nerve to laugh and tease. Smug bastard, Sam thought without rancor. Tucker always liked to tease her, especially when it came to Danny and her lack of a significant other. Or of any other, really since Sam had decided vetoing the dating scene was safer after the Gregor/Elliot incident. Now if Danny asked… But she was far from convinced that he was harboring 'secret longings' for her like Tucker constantly suggested.

"Five minutes, class."

Sam glanced up at the teacher and then back down at her paper. "I hate sines and cosines," she muttered, as she glanced at the half finished pop quiz. It was only ten questions long, but she really wasn't prepared to deal with a pop quiz a week before finals.

She guessed at two of the equations as she thought about the flowers on her nightstand. Who could have sent them to her? Her first instinct was someone she knew, except that the people she knew who might send her flowers were Tucker and Danny. Neither one of them was a prime candidate at this point, much to her dismay, which meant that it was either someone her parents wanted her to see, or she really and truly did have a secret admirer.

The thought wasn't as unpleasant as she'd believed it might be, but it hurt more than Sam wanted to admit. There was a part of her that desperately wanted it to be Danny, but the more rational part knew that the odds weren't with her. She'd known him for far too long to believe he magically fell in love with her and decided to woo her with pretty flowers like any other girl.

To be fair, Danny didn't romance any girls at all. Not that there weren't many who wouldn't mind. Even before the ghost fighting he'd been attractive. Very cute, sweet, and funny once a girl got past the nerd label. But the ghost fighting had definitely changed that. Almost four years later and Danny was riding the mysterious bad boy vibe. Tall, dark and handsome. Sam almost laughed at herself as she thought that.

She wondered if he would ever realize how attractive he really was. Even without the aura that made most of the female population in Casper High swoon, he was still so handsome that sometimes Sam had to think to breathe when she looked at him. And his eyes. Oh, his eyes; those piercing blue eyes that she loved.

The snapping of her pencil lead as she ground it into the quiz sheet brought Sam back to the classroom and the hell of an unfinished quiz, a broken pencil, and the timer going off. Oh, this was a fail.

She had to bite her tongue on the urge to crumple the quiz and stuff it into her backpack. She wouldn't be allowed to retake it if Mr. Blake thought it was lost—policy would force her to eat a zero into her average—but the idea was fairly attractive when she contemplated how badly the quiz was going to reflect on her scholastic aptitude. She let the paper go with all the rest, resigned to the crappy grade and the mystery of the flowers. And even worse? The quizzes were being graded now. There was nothing that could make her soon-to-be humiliation better.

Then the classroom door opened and a blue clad, snow decorated courier strolled in, a visitor sticker on his jacket.

If it was possible to hide behind her desk, Sam would have, because she had a very strange sense of foreboding building in her stomach as the man walked over to Mr. Blake and exchanged a very quiet series of sentences. She could feel her classmates' eyes on her, her face warming as she blushed. No doubt every single one of them knew about the flowers from yesterday morning. Damn Star and her big mouth. It wasn't like Sam hadn't hidden them in her locker all day, and no one had asked. Of course, that could be easily attributed to Danny's patented Glare 'O Doom that he'd wandered around with, and she had been in his company most of the day.

"Fuck," she muttered quietly as the man headed unerringly for her, Mr. Blake's paternal smile an annoying contrast to the cheery one on the courier's snow-rosy face.

The box that was placed on her desk was small, black and nondescript. There were no markings, just a small white envelope taped to the bottom, and Sam's fingers trembled as she reached out to pick it up. The lid came off easily, and black velvet greeted her. It was a simple task to upend the box and let the velvet box slide out into her palm, but it was much harder to steel her nerves to open it.

Too small to be a bomb, whether manmade or ghostly creation. Somehow, Sam almost wished it were rather than another gift from a faceless admirer. But she opened it anyway.

It was startling to look at. Silver, white and blue, and the delicate way the gems were set. Balanced, well cut; Sam didn't wear much jewelry, but what she did was tasteful, elegant, and extremely well made, which made it expensive. This, was all of them, from the diamond stud to the sapphire drop suspended by two lengths of white gold, one straight and the other an elegant S. Beautiful in it's simplicity, and she nearly dropped the velvet box in her haste to tear the envelope from the other box, hoping for a hint, a clue, anything that would tell her who the gift-giver was.

The slip of paper inside was thin, almost see through, and heavy black ink was embossed on the top in the shape of two birds huddled together. Turtledoves, Sam realized, one with its head protectively over the others back. For the first time since she received the flowers and the mystery they gave her, Sam smiled. She had the feeling that if she waited till tomorrow, she'd be getting another piece of the puzzle.