Hello, and welcome to chapter two! To all the DxS 'shippers out there, fear not, this chapter is for you! I am one myself, but, as I mentioned in the introduction to the first chapter, I wanted to focus on the less pleasant aspects of falling in love, particularly pain and confusion, meaning the DxV instances are of high importance.

A big thank you to all my reviewers for quelling my concerns regarding the material.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Danny Phantom, nor do I own any of Paula Abdul's work.

Sam felt her pulse quicken as Tucker opened his front door, letting Danny inside and putting his things in the den. When Danny made eye contact with Sam, she blushed and looked away.

"I see you made it after all," she commented, finally looking at him again as he smiled at her.

"Well, I got home at 10:30, so I thought, Hey, why not?" he explained, sitting on the sofa.

Sam excused herself to the restroom just as Tucker came back from the den, giving him a chance to talk to Danny in private, even if only for a few minutes.

"So what exactly did Sam tell you earlier?" Danny asked. "About her arm, that is."

"She just said that when she was in art class, she had a 'little accident with the scissors.' I sensed she was hiding something from me, but she got mad at me when I mentioned her getting a Tetanus shot, so I felt it best not to prod her. I trust that she did indeed hurt herself, because why would she walk around wearing a bandage otherwise? However, I don't believe for a second that she injured herself with scissors. What do you think, man?"

"I honestly don't know what to think anymore. What bothers me is that she keeps saying something about having coughing attacks every morning, but she refuses to go to the doctor. Instead, she relies on cough syrup that makes her drowsy."

"Listen, man, I know how much her parents dislike us and her lifestyle, but maybe we can talk to her grandma. Perhaps she can talk Sam into going to the doctor. If it doesn't work, I don't know what we're going to do, but it's certainly worth a try."

"Great idea, Tuck. We can talk to her about it tomorrow. But for now, what are we going to do about Sam's problem? We don't even know what it is yet. We just know that something is very wrong."

"True. I suppose all we can really do for now is try to carry on normal conversation, and hope she'll let slip at least a little hint as to what's bothering her so much."

Sam bit her lip as she pulled off the bandage, then cringed as she looked at the wound. It had been bugging her so much that she decided to clean it again and put on a fresh bandage. As she completed the tasks, she thought back to what she'd done to herself that caused the wound. She could hardly believe that she'd injured herself on purpose, but had to admit that the release that came with it had been a major stress reducer.

Unfortunately, those somewhat-placid moments were fleeting, for she found herself stressing over Danny again. The song from earlier played in her head, painfully reminding her yet again of her one-sided romance with him and causing hot tears to sting her eyes.

Sam dried her tears with tissues and washed her face. Taking deep breaths, she felt another attack coming, brought on by her crying. Although her tears this time around hadn't lasted as long as earlier, she had full-on cried, as opposed to just sobbing.

Sam started to cough and pushed hard with her abs, trying to force it all out so that it would pass much quicker, all the while hoping that no one else could hear her gagging. When she finally calmed down, she grabbed her bottle of cough syrup and took it to the kitchen. She took a dose, downed an entire glass of water, and put the medicine away before sitting in a recliner for a moment to rest.

Danny and Tucker had heard Sam gagging and went looking for her, at last finding her in the den, her face still flushed from crying and coughing.

"You okay, Sam?" Tucker inquired as she fanned her face with her hand.

"Don't worry, guys, I'll be fine," she insisted, prompting Tucker and Danny to exchange worried glances.

"Sam, you need to go to the doctor on Monday!" the two young men said simultaneously.

"Yeah, whatever," she rolled her eyes, shrugging them off again.

"Enough of the bullshit, Sam," Danny told her angrily. "If you won't go on your own, we'll tell your parents about your behavior as of late."

Sam looked up at Danny, her violet eyes glazed over with fury. "You wouldn't," she sneered, surprised at her tone of voice.

"Yes, we would," Tucker spoke up, both he and Danny standing their ground.

"You have no place telling them something that's none of your business!" she shouted, hurriedly getting up from the recliner. Pushing past them, she quickly gathered her things. "I don't need this crap. I get enough of it from my parents. I'm going home, where at least I can be myself. And don't you dare even think about trying to stop me. Good riddance."

Danny and Tucker watched in stunned silence as Sam ran out the front door and into the darkness of the night. Tucker was first to shake off the shock and immediately ran upstairs to get help from his parents, while Danny morphed into his ghost form and turned invisible to furtively pursue Sam, despite her angry comments to him and Tucker mere seconds before that.

Danny followed her from a distance, not wanting to get too close and risk betraying his presence with a sudden temperature drop. Sam ran all the way home, not even pausing to catch her breath. She unlocked the door quickly and made her way upstairs; a yellow glow emanating from some second-story window alerted Danny that she'd reached her bedroom.

And then the coughing started again.

Sam was seized by another attack, but was fortunate that the cough syrup had kicked in, keeping her from gagging for the most part. A very worried Danny disregarded what she'd said earlier and phased through her bedroom wall, just in time to see her collapse onto her bed, exhausted and out of breath.

"You alright, Sam?" Danny inquired, reverting back to his human form and walking over to her bed.

"I thought I told you not to follow me!" she managed to hiss, refusing to look at him.

"But I was too worried about you to just let you just go running off into the night like that. I don't know what I did to make you so angry with me, but whatever it was, I'm truly sorry. I just need to know you're okay."

Sam curled up in a ball, not even bothering to crawl under the bed linens.

"Please, Sam, don't ignore me. I'm just trying to look out for you."

Sam finally turned towards Danny, making eye contact with him. "I appreciate your concern, but I need to take care of myself."

"But you haven't been, Sam. That's what scares me and Tuck."

"You're right," she finally admitted, lying on her back and stretching out with her hands under her head, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm just so scared, Danny."

"Scared of what?"

"Of finding out I have some sort of illness that's causing this awful cough."

"I'm sure it's nothing major, Sam. Jazz used to cough like that every time school would get even a little crazy," Danny consoled her, referring to his older sister. "My parents took her to tons of specialists that tested her for all these obscure diseases, only to discover that it had been caused by stress all along."

Instinctively, Danny sat on the bed next to Sam and grazed her arms with his fingertips, producing a tickling sensation that caused her to giggle.

"There, now, that's the Sam I want to see," Danny grinned. She looks so pretty when she laughs, he suddenly observed, wondering why he never seemed to notice it before. Or did he?

Danny stopped tickling her, causing her laughter to subside. He looked down at her, gazing into her amethyst eyes, which promptly locked onto his. They just laid there on Sam's bed, needing not speak a word between them, for their eye contact said it all.

"You'd better get going," Sam finally broke their silence. "I'm sure Tuck's worried about you, and I don't want Valerie to get the wrong impression about how her new boyfriend spends his free time."

"What are you talking about, Sam?" Danny sighed. "We're not exclusive. She and I did go on a date, but so what? Sure, I like her a lot, but ultimately I'm just another fickle teenager," he added with a grin, suddenly inching closer to Sam's face.

Sam laid there with bated breath as her best friend/love interest moved his face ever closer to hers, stopping just a couple inches above it to gaze into her eyes once again. And then what she'd been waiting for and wanting so desperately from him finally happened. His kissed her, a sweet, innocent touch of his lips to hers that lasted hardly a second. Yet it was just enough that both of them nearly forgot how to breathe.

"Danny..." Sam murmured dreamily. "This isn't right."

"Why not?" he asked, his face still lingering just a couple inches above hers.

"Because you like Valerie, and I'm sure she likes you, too. And even if you two aren't boyfriend and girlfriend, I can't kiss you knowing that your heart's yearning for another girl."

"You're right," Danny agreed, breaking eye contact with her to shift into a sitting position.

Sam stared up at the ceiling, contemplating what to do next. It was tearing her up inside-she wanted to be with Danny so badly, to feel his lips on hers and his hands on her skin. But she couldn't let that happen knowing that Valerie was still in the picture. As much as she loved him, she had to let go of any romantic feelings conveyed through their kiss, to avoid destroying their friendship.

"Danny?" she finally said, turning her attention back to him.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"Still friends?"

"The best," he grinned. "But I have a request for you. It may seem like a lot to ask, but it's very meaningful to me."

"What is it, Danny?"

Danny took Sam's hands in his and looked deep into her eyes. "Promise me that if things don't work out between me and Valerie, then you'll give this little thing between you and me a chance."

"You're right, Danny, that is a lot to ask," Sam commented, looking away from him.

"I know it sounds a lot like I want you to be some sort of back-up girlfriend-"

"That's EXACTLY what it sounds like Danny."

"But I just want you to know that you'll be there for me," Danny continued as if she hadn't interrupted him.

"Then why do you want me to promise you something like dating you?"

"Okay, okay, so I put it the wrong way. What I meant is that if anything romantic is meant to happen between us, it's not meant to happen right now. But I can truthfully say that I am not willing to accept that it could never happen. And I want you to promise me that you won't give up on the possibility of us being together, either. Because if the both of us are willing to stay just friends for now, maybe it will be right for us to date in the future, after we've both had more experience with other people, first.

"But for now, Valerie and are too interested in each other for me to just drop everything with her. I know I said we aren't exclusive, but I don't want to date both you and her at the same time and have to make a decision between the two of you. In other words, I want you to promise me that if Valerie and I lose interest in each other, you would be willing to reconsider the whole 'just friends' thing, at least for the sake of finding out whether this attraction between you and me could ever turn into something more."

Sam was at an absolute loss for words. She didn't know whether she should grant his request or not. Was he genuinely interested in her? Or did he simply see her as a last resort?

"I'll have to sleep on it," she answered at last.

"Then I'll let you do just that."

Danny squeezed Sam's hands before letting go of them Then he leaned over her and bid her good night, kissing her lightly on the cheek. He then turned back into Danny Phantom and phased back through her bedroom wall

And, as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone.

Sam was genuinely confused as to what to do about Danny. As she laid on her bed, she thought back on what Danny had said. She still couldn't believe that he wanted to try to have a romantic relationship with her, if things fell through between him and Valerie.

IF. The word echoed into the furthest reaches of Sam's mind. To her, "if" was by far the worst word in the English language. That little two-letter word could cause such drastic changes to people's lives, which is precisely what it was doing to hers right now.

A large yawn alerted Sam to how exhausted she was. After dragging herself sleepily off the bed, she went into the bathroom to ready herself. She then crawled under the covers after turning off the light. Sam yawned once more before finding a comfortable position. Her conversation with Danny fresh in her mind, she slipped into a restless sleep.

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