Chapter 14: Confusion

They were fools for not letting me help when I finally cared enough to try. All of them are going to realize just how much they need my help when they find out what the cost is to get rid of that parasite. There is a reason I never did it after all.

One of life's ultimate sacrifices is not easy to make.

I wasn't even fully aware of what I was doing or why I was doing it, all I knew was this behavior was nothing like what I used to be. I couldn't remember much of my life, but I knew it was empty now, like the woman who had stolen my heart for years on end had been ripped from me in the afterlife. I missed her, but I wasn't entirely sure who she was.

Something told me I should know what's wrong with me, but I can't remember it now. How would I have known that in the first place? Human problems and ghost problems are different when you can't remember your living life, just the feelings that went with it.

Then there was the boy, trapped in the next room over. I knew he wouldn't get out, I'd found a way to keep the human from phasing through the walls like he normally would have in the Ghost Zone. The schematics for the technology I needed to accomplish that came to my mind easily when I had built it, almost as if I had spent my whole life working on similar technology.

For all I knew, I very well could have.

That boy seemed oh so familiar to me, but I couldn't remember why. He looked nothing like my natural form in anyway, so he wasn't the son my daughter kept trying to get me to remember. It's funny how my princess had escaped to the Ghost Zone with every memory except that of her name while I could only remember that she was my daughter, nothing else about my life had come with me. I could feel the old memories rustling beneath the surface, but I couldn't get to the them no matter what I tried.

"Daddy, why did you take Tucker?" My little princess was beside me, questioning me. It never ceased to amaze me of how many old emotions from my life came back to me when she was at my side.

"I don't know, princess. I don't know." It was the honest truth, not that I could ever bring myself to tell her anything less than that.

"You know Danny is going to be worried sick that Tucker's gone. You should send him back home." She was pleading with me, but I didn't want to let the African American boy go.

"Who is Danny?" She's told me this a million times, but I could never keep it in my head who the boy she kept talking about was. Someone important to me in life, that much I can remember but nothing else about him will stick.

"My brother, your son. Don't you remember?" There was a sadness in her eyes, she always had hated how I can't remember the life I had with or without her.

"Danny?" I remembered now, but I knew this wouldn't last long. He was the clumsy kid who never could admit his feelings to his best friend, partially because he was too clueless to see that she felt the same way about him as he did about her.

"Yes, dad. Danny." I saw the little bit of hope that I had finally remembered and wouldn't forget again flicker in her eyes, but she knew it was a lost cause.

"Who's that?"

Days passed by after the cheesehead's visit, and there was one thing bugging me that would not leave me alone. What price to get rid of Plasmius could be so great that not even Vlad could find it in his stone cold heart to do it? Whatever it was, I was almost afraid to find out.

There were few things a man such as Vlad would not be willing to do in order to get what he wanted out of life.

Then there was still the case of a certain missing friend There were still no sign of Tucker or any clue as to who had taken him.

The frequent ghost attacks certainly were not helping my stress levels.

I think the only reason I wasn't failing every class by now was the fact that I was living with a scientist who could somehow manage to teach the material better, and quicker, than the people that actually had degrees in this stuff.

My mind was almost always going what seemed like a million miles a minute with everything that was happening in my life and I hated that it seemed like I was getting less and less time to spend with Danny, free of all the distractions of the outside world.

"You okay Sam? You've been a little distant lately." Danny was beside me in one of our rare moments of peace.

"I'm just a little stressed is all." I shot him a small smile, trying to ease the worry that was practically radiating off of him.

A playful, almost mischievous smirk made its presence known. "Perhaps I should help, huh?"

He suddenly turned me towards him and kissed me. His arms wrapped around me as his tongue asked me for entrance which I willingly gave.

His hands were starting to move a little more and I realized he was trying to turn this into one of the few make out sessions we ever actually had. Eh, what the hell? I have been a little stretched for time to spend with his lately anyway and his mom went out for groceries earlier.

When his hands snaked around to my front and played at the edge of my shirt, I realized we were still on the couch and Maddie did have a key into he apartment.

When he started to lay me down on my back, I stopped really caring all that much.

It was when he got a hand up my shirt and the door flew open that I realized Maddie had been gone longer than I thought.

"I swear to god there won't be any bodies to find if that was headed where I think it was!" She practically screeched at us, the only reason it hadn't been immediate was because she'd closed the door to our apartment before yelling at us. I don't think she was aware I ever let Danny get that far on occasion, it was for good reason too.

"Mom, it wasn't going to go any farther than that!" Danny had retracted his hand and was letting me sit up. We both sported identical blushes and Danny kept popping in and out of sight from his embarrassment. It's pretty safe to say he really didn't want to be there right then.

"Only because I walked in! And you wonder why I'm apprehensive about you two sharing a room!" Wow...she was still harping on that? I thought we had proven by now we could be more responsible than most teenagers. Then again she was a mother, it was kinda her job to get over protective.

"It won't happen again." Danny had finally gotten his powers back under full control , but his face was still as bright red as mine.

"You're damn right it won't! One of you is sleeping on the couch tonight and I don't want to hear any complaints." Anyone else notice how perfectly silent I was staying? There was no way in hell I was going to put myself right in the line of fire from one of Maddie's rants. Sorry Danny, you're going to have to take one for the team here.

"I'll sleep on the couch. Can we please let it drop now?" Danny was practically begging with her, he wanted this to end as much as I did.

"Fine, but I had better not see that again." There was a very threatening tone in her voice, I didn't even want to know what she could come up with as punishment if she wanted to. Hell, she had dozens of ghost weapons in her suit alone that could easily help to prove a point to a couple of half-ghost hybrids.

Maddie went to the kitchen, still grumbling to herself about how we were bound to do something really stupid at the rate we were going.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to get you in trouble." Danny had a guilty look in his eyes. Well, I couldn't have that, now could I?

"Don't worry about it." I gave him a quick kiss. "You were right, I did need that."

Don't ask where the ending scene came from, I've been wanting to do that to them for a while now. :P

Just for the record, the first POV is Vlad's, the second POV it's up to you to figure out, and the third POV is Sam's.

Comments and feedback are as welcome as always! :D

Invisible One