Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom – I never have and I never will, simple as that.

Author's note: Hmmm… I think I thought of a confrontation like this last night while I was bored and pondering my other story in the works. But yeah, I hope you like this, and it would mean a lot to me if you reviewed!

Um, this might have T/S undertones, but if you know me, I'm strictly D/S, thank you very much, and you can be rest assured that I'm not going to switch over to the dark side.

006 : Are Things What They Appear?

Rating : PG

Theme: 20. Take it in your stride ; Walk

March 27, 2006

He had her cornered and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it now. She had put off telling him for so long, and now, since he noticed her small "swoon," he demanded answers, and wouldn't leave her alone until she said something about it. She knew she couldn't lie, since the truth was a blatant smack in the face to anyone who actually knew her. She thought she hid it so well, but she projected it to the world. Lucky enough for her, be it as it may, that the person she was trying to hide her secret from the most was the most clueless person she knew. However, her other friend, a certain Techno Geek, knew her much better than that, and he wasn't going to let her dance around the subject (at least with him) anymore.

So, on one warm spring afternoon in the month of April, he decided to catch up with her on her walk home, minus Danny it seemed, with the need to talk. He knew if she held in what she felt for too long that the time would pass and, while being clueless, Danny would move on, unless his feelings were as strongly felt for her as she felt for him.

"Sam? How do you really feel for Danny?" He felt her tense up next to him when he asked the question, but it had to be done. He loved his friends dearly (and platonically) and he wanted to see them happy. He knew for a fact that Danny was harboring some pretty intense feelings for their best friend, but he wanted to know where Sam was in this equation and needed to find out.

"Tuck… we're just friends," she said, forcing a smile onto her face. With recent events with Valerie, she had to push her feelings down; she didn't want to show weakness. "Besides…" she paused, "It's complicated. Very complicated."

"How so? Sam, we're been friends for a long time. There's nothing you can't tell me. And right here and right now, I swear I won't utter a single word you say to him." She looked like she was giving in, but rolled her eyes at his next words, "Unless you want me to, 'cause I can totally set something up."

"Tucker, really… we're just friends and he likes Valerie--"

He cut her off, "Liked Valerie."

"What?" she asked, finally turning to look at him in the eye. "What do you mean 'liked?'"

"I mean that he's now over her and has moved on… you know, to bigger and," he cleared his throat, "better… things."

"Oh," whatever hope she had deflated and her shoulders slumped. "You mean he has a new crush now."

"Yeah, but why are you so depressed about it? I mean, it's not like you love him or something like that," he said, giving her a pointed look, knowing that would strike a chord deep within her somewhere.

She stopped walking, and he stopped as well when he noticed she wasn't there beside him anymore. "Tucker, do I really have to say it?"

"No," he said calmly, and took a few steps back to be next to her again. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he gave her a sympathetic smile. "But, now I know for real. How bad do you have it?"

She let out a sad sigh, "You have no idea… I mean, it kills me whenever he comes back from a battle hurt. And, whenever he looks at another girl, it kills me even more that it's not me! I know I could be more upfront and forward with my emotions, but… for being headstrong about everything else in my life, I guess I'm lacking in the romance department. And… what I said to Valerie was true, even though I wasn't happy whatsoever about it… if being with another girl would make Danny happy, then…" she paused, giving him a pathetic smile, "let him be happy, with or without me. I'll always be there for him, even if we're not 'together.' Such titles don't matter to me… but," she paused again, looking into Tucker's eyes for the first time during her little speech, "just seeing him happy means the world to me more than anything else. I know it's not a very 'Goth' thing to say, but it's true."

"Man, you have it bad," he commented, now removing his hand from her shoulder and resumed walking alongside her. "Why do you think you're not telling him? Are you ever going to tell him?"

"I…" she started, the let the beginning of that sentence die in her throat.

"You weren't planning on telling him, were you?" he asked, an incredulous look on his face. "But why?"

"He could never feel that way for me, Tucker," she said sullenly, shuffling her combat boots along the ground while she walked. "I'm not pretty nor am I popular, two requirements of Danny's heart…"

"Okay, stop right there," he said, literally stopping where he was walking. "One, you're beautiful, so shut the hell up. You may not be conventionally pretty with blonde hair, blue eyes, and red lips, but you're still very pretty and don't think for a second you're not. Secondly, you're athletic and skinny, you have no problems there in that department. You have curves, and it's not like neither one of us (yes, Danny has noticed) haven't taken that to thought. And finally, neither one of us give a shit whether or not you're popular. And when I say that, I say that as both of us."

She smiled, feeling tears stinging her eyes and she hugged Tucker uncharacteristically, but hugged him nonetheless. "Thanks, Tuck. That means a lot. Now if only Danny said that to me…"

"Does it mean any less that I said it?" he asked, his tone slightly hurt.

"No, no," she said, pulling back from the hug. "I didn't mean that at all! I meant that… it would clear up a few things if I heard the words come from his mouth."

"Thanks Tuck, I can take it from here," a disembodied voice said, making Sam's heart drop to the pit of her stomach.

"Tell me I'm hallucinating," she glared at Tucker, getting ready to pummel him into next year. "Tell me I did not just get tricked!"

"Sam, please don't get mad," Tucker visibly shuddered, backing up as Danny materialized out of thin air. "I'm just… going to go now. But, please, don't hate me." And with those final words, Tucker walked away in the opposite direction with a sly grin on his face. That plan worked perfectly, he thought.

Sam felt completely and thoroughly mortified that she had admitted her feelings in front of Danny unbeknownst to herself. She didn't want him to know, she didn't want their friendship to taper away after the awkwardness would settle in… he would never look at her the same way again now.

"Sam?" a voice rang out, shaking her from her thoughts of rejection. With an overwhelming feeling of dread, she turned to meet his, now blue, eyes. He had managed to transform back to his human self while she was lost in her thoughts.

"I'm sorry I made him do that, but I wanted to see… where we stood," he said, absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck, a nervous habit he had. "After the whole ecto-acne mishap with Vlad, I started to get a bit suspicious… you know, when you were about to tell Jazz to tell me something if you didn't make it that day? I pushed it back for a while, thinking you were just acting a bit crazy since you were sick. I thought you were just going to say something else, but Jazz said she thought you were being serious. I laughed it off and just… the thought stuck with me and struck me hard. I thought about it long and hard for a while and… I realized… my own feelings. Recently, Tucker told me he had noticed something different in how you looked at me and that I was too clueless to notice myself. Now I understand the nickname," he chuckled nervously, lowering his hand from the back of his head and tentatively reached out for her hand. "Is it true? What you said to him before? That… you really do like me? Like that? And… that you'd be happy if I was happy?" he met her violet eyes with his azure ones in a hopeful gaze, feeling as if his heart was on the line.

"I wouldn't be emotionally happy, but I would enjoy, somewhere in me, that you were happy with your life and that things would finally be coming together. I'd feel selfish and want you all to myself, but…yeah, that's how I feel." She smiled and squeezed his hand, blushing slightly. "Whose idea was this?"

"Mine, but I had never seen Tucker so eager to go along with an idea," he said with a smile. "I think he knew something I didn't."

"I… told him I might have had a crush on you a while back, and he would forever tease me about it. But, I never really told him how much it had escalated. You know, to… loving you."

"I know what you mean," he said with a soft smile, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. "But, hey, let's walk down to my house so we can grab something to eat. My mom has been making cookies for the past week and she needs people to eat them so my dad won't."

When he kissed her cheek, she thought her head would explode from the amount of blood that rushed to it, "Okay. That sounds good to me."

"Good," he tugged on her hand to begin to walk, then paused, turning to look at her. "Want to fly there?"

She giggled softly when he tentatively kissed her lips, "I'm flying now."

End Note: Well, what did you think? Let me know:) Reviews make me a happy authoress and a happy authoress equals more enthusiastic writing!

-A