All I know time is a valuable thing

Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings

Watch it count down to the end of the day

The clock ticks life away

-Linkin Park-

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Danny stood in a black empty room, his eyes tried to adjust to the light change, but he saw nothing. He was confused, moments ago he was with his mother and Sam. He hardly could feel the life he'd been holding onto before.

"Hello Danny."

"Clockwork!" Danny called to the disembodied voice.

"Calm down, nothings wrong but things aren't working out quite like expected."

"What do I do? Can you please just help me out."

"What do you think I'm doing. You over exhausted your body so I helped you regain energy."

"Over exhausted? Why because I went after Sam." The silence answered for him. "Fine, then when can I get back into action. Vlad escaped as you can obviously tell, way before you said. And now I gotta go after him."

"You really don't listen do you? You need to relax, and strategize, you can't keep springing into action. Now if you just do as I say, you'll see that I'm helping. And further more..."

"Danny?" Another voice spoke, and it over powered Clockwork's.

"No Clockwork wait!" Danny called as he ran forward towards where he'd been certain the ghost's voice had been coming from.

But the black room began to shake at the female's voice. And finally bit by bit Danny find himself alone as the walls shattered around him until he could see the brightness from light on the world outside.

"Danny?" The image became clear to him and it appeared to be Sam.

The goth girl had large frightened violet eyes that were brimming with tears. She was kneeling over him beside the couch. With a flinch of his fingers he felt someone else's entwined with his. She was holding his hand.

"Sam?" Danny asked blinking, there was no mistaking her with anyone else, but he had to be sure.

"It's me, it's just me." Sam replied stroking his hair. "Mrs. Fenton!" Sam called looking over her shoulder. "Danny's awake!"

And after that Maddie's nimble feet came down the stairs, she dropped the blanket as she entered the room and saw her son. "Oh my goodness I was so worried." She cried wrapping him into her arms as Sam moved to the side.

"Mom let go, I don't have time for this." He said immediately making Maddie let go. She stared at him oddly. "Mom I'm already behind because everything is happening all wrong."

"Wait, did you know that Vlad was going to get out?" Maddie questioned skeptically.

"Well...I uh..." Danny stammered.

"You did and you weren't going to tell us. Danny this is serious."

"Well it doesn't matter anymore. Things are going to repeat themselves and Vlad's going to destroy the whole town unless I do something."

"What are you going to do? Charge into battle? Cause last time we did that you didn't exactly win." Sam stated folding her arms across her chest as she sat on the other end of the couch.

"I'm not exactly sure Sam, but I do have to do something. I have to stop him before he gets that powerful, and that means I got to get to him now." Danny got up as he stood on his feet and paced. He looked from them both to the wall and at everything, as if somewhere in the room the answer was concealed.

"Ok call dad, Jazz, and Tucker. We're going to need all the help we can get." Danny began. "Sam, you're coming with me."

"Uh where are we going?" Sam asked confused.

"We, are going after Vlad. We don't necessarily need to stop him, we just have to weaken him and his defenses." He explained looking at the goth girl.

"Wait Danny is that wise? You two alone against Vlad, it doesn't sound like a good idea to me." Maddie questioned warily.

"Don't worry mom, we'll give you the position, then distract him. Then you guys can ambush him. It'll be easy, cause not only will he not be expecting me, he wont be expecting me to have anything like that planned."

"I don't know..."

"Mom, just trust me."

Maddie agreed although she didn't think Danny's plan was the best. But she had to have faith in her son, surely a year of death would not only make him stronger, but wiser as well. He's seen things that she could only imagine and he had to have known what he was talking about. So she began preparations while the two kids went down to the basement.

"The Specter Speeder." Danny stated staring at the great machine with Sam at his side. "Somehow it doesn't look the same."

"It's not, it's the Specter Speeder Two, you'd know that if you read things once and a while." Sam said pointing to the big green ghostly two painted on the side of the similar machine.

"Not very original." He remarked, "But it'll help us out."

"So you and I are seriously going to charge off into battle?" Sam asked as she grabbed a few weapons off the table behind them.

"Not battle, it's an ambush of the sort. It's not the same." Danny replied, knowing his answer was weak.

"Oh how silly of me." Sam returned dryly. "I'm really not looking forward to this."

"We'll be fine." Danny's voice got lower and more serious. "And besides, I'm not going to let anything happen to you anyway."

Danny saw Sam turn around to grab something and his eyes saw something on her back. Scars, scars from the explosion she saved him from. He felt that pang of guilt he always felt whenever his friends got hurt on his account.

Sam sat quietly in the passengers seat as she watched Danny straighten out a few more details with his mother. She handed him a walkie talkie and the two embraced, the goth watched wondering why she was diving back into this again. She knew she should've learned the first time that this was never any good. But yet she for some reason always let herself fall back into this.

Danny finally came into the Specter Speeder, he let out a big sigh and handed her the walkie talkie. Sam rested her hands in her lap pathetically.

"You nervous?" He asked he began to fire up the machine.

"No...whatever would give you that idea?" Sam lied quickly with a blush.

"Ok." He replied raising an eyebrow, he knew she was lying to him. And he knew exactly why she may have been uneasy.

Danny and Sam stayed silent for the beginning half of the their search. Danny had set the tracker to Vlad, and so far he didn't seem to be around yet. The boy wondered if he and Sam would ever be the same again.

"Danny why do you always have to fight? I don't understand it..."

Danny stared stricken clearly out of the window, he gripped the steering wheel so his muscled flexed a bit more. Lately the girl had been saying things that were extremely surprising, and he wasn't sure what to expect from her. Although he felt that she couldn't be blamed.

"Because Sam, sometimes you just have to do things to make things better." He answered pathetically and he knew it.

"But..."

"Sam if you're scared you can just admit it." He interrupted. "Look I know you're probably having bad memories and all, but you just have to trust me. Have a little faith in me sometime, will ya?"

Sam lowered her head, she had nothing really to say, because he obviously knew that she was terrified that he would die again. And she didn't know it but he was equally terrified of that.

Wahoo, one hundred reviews :dances: ... I know I excite easily. It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.