Blah wanted to get chapter eighteen out of the way.

Yess.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny, Sam, Tucker, or Vlad. The three belong to Butch Hartman.
I do not own the band AFI; I do not own the band MCR; I do not own the band Linkin Park; I do not own the band Blaqk Audio; I do not own the band the Used; I do not own the band Rise Against.
Some ideas in this story were taken from Glamorous(insertunderscorehere)death, a member of the website from her story "Will You Cry for me?...or Will you cry with me?"
I do, however, own most of the plot to this fanfiction. IF SOMEONE STEALS IT I WILL EAT THEM.

Warning (so you guys don't eat my brain): DANNY FENTON AND SAM MANSON ARE ALTERED IN THIS FANFICTION. SAM IS TWO YEARS YOUNGER THAN DANNY; DANNY GOT HIS POWERS AT AGE TEN. If you do not want to read a fanfiction that is not "true" to the series, then please, do not read this. I'm sorry, but in order to make the fanfiction work, they had to be seperate ages. Once again...Danny and Sam are different ages; this fanfiction does not correspond whatsoever with the actual series.

This fanfiction is a work of fiction that came from the screwed up hole I call a brain. It is flufftastical, romantic, terribly tragic, and using the characters and most of their family history/backgrounds as bases. Thank you for understanding!

Pie! Oh, and please don't kill me for this. -.-

-Danny's POV-

The months inched by, until it was my sixteenth birthday. I had visited Sam like hell during the first few months of being away from her. But after a while, a lot of things had gotten to me.

Like, how Vlad beat me every day for being "the good guy." And you know, the worst part of it was…

I believed him.

What was the point?

Fighting against the ghosts, never winning, just beating them to a pulp, releasing them to the ghost zone again, only to have them escape and come attack me again…

Seriously, what was the point? It was all so stupid. Why had I subjected myself to it? Fighting an endless battle…to what, exactly? Make myself feel better about the fact that I had, literally, no "beating" heart?

I sat down on my bed, looking out the window, my heart a jagged hole in my chest. Its maw was red with blood, stained crimson with the many times it had been ripped open over the past year. I missed her…I missed her…

And somehow, I doubted that if she knew the thoughts I was thinking at that moment, she would approve. I was almost positive she'd turn away from me in disgust, murmuring words of disapproval and anger at me. "I had faith in you, Danny," she'd scowl as she stormed away from me.

I didn't need that.

I rejected the thought of visiting her that night. It was impossible to face her when I was feeling like this; I just couldn't do it. Because there was a small part of me, that was growing slightly more everyday, that called out to me that love was stupid. That I shouldn't feel it; that it would only get into the way as I lived life. That if I let love consume even a morsel of my being, I'd be some poor, defenseless fool that couldn't handle his own emotions. I made a face of revulsion and turned my face into my pillow.

Her shirt still smelled like her, somehow: I knew it was physically impossible, but it smelled like her. Oh, God, I missed her…

But I couldn't go visit her. No! I couldn't. I just couldn't. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I went to visit her. Seeing her face, seeing her eyes alight with sadness that still burned for me, and knowing that a part of me wanted to kill the love?

Uh, yeah. I couldn't handle her at that moment.

Vlad came in, despite the late hour. He smirked at my disheveled state, sat down on the bed with a moaning creak, and stared at me intensely.

"Thinking?" he whispered.

I turned my head slightly and shot him a glare. I ran my fingers through my thick onyx hair, let out an exasperated gasp of breath, and gave a short nod. "Yeah."

A moment of silence, in which case he stared at me and I stared away. Then, a hand on my hand. I looked over at him, startled out of my hate momentarily.

"I know how hard it is to be half ghost." A short pause, then he began talking again. "If you're thinking…that you can't handle what you are anymore…come see me." The smallest of smiles. "I can help you."

He stood up to leave. "Vlad, wait," I called out, as his hand was on the doorknob.

He turned around, puzzled. "What is it, Daniel?"

I furrowed my eyebrows together. "Why do you care?"

Resting against the door, he placed his palm against the cold metal of the doorknob. "Because, Daniel, I went through the same thing. A stage of denial, a stage of trying to be something your not. Then, of course, the stage of accepting what you are, and accepting that you are, indeed, a ghost."

"But I'm half human, too," I said weakly. "Doesn't that count for anything?"

Vlad pursed his lips, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small photo. "I carry this around with me for personal reasons. Look at it."

I did. It was a picture of a molecular structure, stained an ectoplasmic green about halfway down, stained red the other half. I looked at it and then looked up again. "DNA?"

"Look at it carefully," he instructed. So I did.

The green was more dominated than the red, I noticed that pretty quickly. Not by much; maybe the ratio was 60 to 40. But it was more, definitely more.

I handed the picture back to him and hung my head slightly. "What does this have to do with me?"

A bitter smile arose from Vlad's lips. "I took the DNA from your hair when you were in your human mode; you see, it's not my DNA…it's yours. And it's quite obvious that the green section—representing your ghost half—dominates the red section."

I looked up, but he was gone.